Kyle Feeney 1

Annotated Bibliography

What are the effects of music on the human brain?

Kyle Feeney
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
February 21, 2015

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Annotated Bibliography
Allenye, Richard. "Playing a Musical Instrument Makes You Brainier." The Telegraph. Telegraph
Media Group, 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
This news article tells us how playing an instrument at any age changes the shape and
power of our brains and can help improve cognitive skills. The author talks about
research that was done with people over the age of sixty-five and even they had strong
changes in their brains by just playing one hour a week for five months. Lutz Jncke, a
psychologist at the University of Zurich, says that playing an instrument can increase
your IQ by seven points for children and adults. He also said that playing instruments can
make you better at learning other languages because you have to learn tones and sounds
in music. I will be using this article because it helps show a wide variety of different
ways playing instruments help benefit your brain.
Lehrer, Jonah. "The Neuroscience Of Music" Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 19 Jan. 2011. Web.
05 Mar. 2015.
In this article Lehrer talks about how the brain reacts to music in general. He talks on
how the brain is filled with dopamine which is the endorphin released in the body during
sex and is typically associated with pleasure. Scientist took a sample of people who got
chills when they listened to instrumental music and let them listen to their favorite
songs while recording their brain activity. Then they asked ten people who got chills
almost every time during their songs to stay for more tests. They found that people
anticipate their favorite part and when it builds up and builds and then finally plays
dopamine is released. It is sort of like classical conditioning where the song is the bell

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that makes us drool. I will be using this article to show how powerful music is on the
brain and how much we can enjoy music.
Norton, Andrea, Marie Forgeard, Gottfried Schlaug, and Ellen Winner. "Practicing a Musical
Instrument in Childhood Is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal
Reasoning." PLOS ONE:. N.p., 29 Oct. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
This scholarly article is research done by the three authors and the results of their
findings. In their study they tested children who had musical training to see what the
outcome would be, both those that are closely related with musical trying and those that
are not as closely related. Their finding show us different areas in which the children with
musical training excelled and also areas that they didn't do as well as people thought they
should have done. The test showed that the children did well in auditory discrimination,
fine motor skills, vocabulary, and nonverbal reasoning, but had no effect on heightened
spatial skills, phonemic awareness, or mathematical abilities. I will be using this article
because it has detailed research of how well kids did in tests because of musical training.
Toppo, Greg. "This Is Your Brain on a Musical Instrument." USA Today. Gannett, 02 Sept. 2014.
Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
This news article shows how childrens brains react differently to sounds after they have
learned to play an instrument. Neuroscientists have done research on children averaging
eight years old from low-income homes by teaching them to play instruments and testing
those kids agains kids that only listened to music. Children who listened to music only
could not distinguish between the spoken words bill and pill which are vital words to
reading. Along with this finding they have shown that the more kids play their

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instruments the more neurological benefits their are. The author quotes a few different
Neuroscientists and shows their opinions and research on the topic. I will use this article
because it shows how the brain develops faster and better when children play musical
instruments.