Knowledge is Empowering

I recently finished Norman Doidge's "The Brain that Changes Itself", a book all about brain plasticity (which is the idea that our neural connections can change and grow in relation to our life experiences). There is something so empowering about this book, actually it's more the entire idea of neuroplasticity that is empowering. We aren't bound or trapped by our previous life experiences or genes; they have helped to form who we are today, but they don't determine who we are tomorrow. Every choice we make, and person we allow into our lives changes us. Even memories are plastic, each time we recall something it's changed by the person we are when we recall it.

There are so many points I could ramble on about here in reference to what plasticity means but recently I've been thinking about it in terms of music. My mom has been singing her whole life. Recently she has been having trouble with a few notes in her higher range and it has been causing a lot of frustration. Imagine something you've been doing well your entire life... now imagine not being able to do it to your standard and having no idea why. Frustrating right? One day I randomly mentioned the studies I had been reading about in Doidge's book. Doidge talks about people who had strokes or lost functioning of some area of their body, and through neuroplasticity, they were able to re-train themselves to do that action that had been lost. I told my mom about it, and said I was curious what would happen if she listened to a song, and then tried to replay the song on the piano, without singing, just listening. I felt like there could be some disconnect between what she hears and what the actual note is. I would imagine that's the cause of being off-key right?

Later my dad sat down with her and played notes on the guitar, which she would try to copy on the piano. Sure enough, there were a few high notes she was not able to accurately play at first. After a few tries she was able to hear the correct note but it took some practice. I'm wondering now if these are the notes she finds herself going flat on because she doesn't hear the correct note at first. Wouldn't it be amazing if over time of practicing hearing those notes, she was able to sing them exactly on key?! Neuroplasticity isn't only about learning, it's about re-learning. She used to hear those notes perfectly. Now she hears one note, and associates it with a different one. Through practice, she will re-train her brain to associate the note with the correct note in her head. Hmm.. that sentence seems a little confusing. Hopefully you're following my logic here. As the title of this blog clearly states, I'm a rookie with this whole brain thing so I have no idea if this is actually what's going on here but it seems pretty logical to me.

It's an obvious correlation but one I had never thought about in terms of what's happening in the brain! It just seems more do-able when you think about it in terms of neuroplasticity. Instead of thinking about your singing coach saying "just do it" you can think "okay, how do I change the neural connections in my brain so I'm hearing the right note?"

Stay tuned for more on re-learning.