This page contains a few references (of the many possible)

for Scientific Research about the Many Benefits of Music

A little web-searching shows that MANY "Bibliographical References" could be included here.  Later, much more will be described (and linked to) in the details-page I'll be developing.*  This page now is (and will remain) limited, and it features Sound Health, mainly for its quality, but partly because Francis Collins (a co-founder) will be a plenary speaker for the 2024 Annual Meeting of ASA;  I'm sure he will talk mainly about Precision Medicine (that also is Personalized Medicine, using a person's genome & other factors), but he also may mention the benefits of music.

* For the details-page, I've begun writing an introductory overview (but it isn't yet well developed) where I say, "Overall when all things are considered, modern science strongly supports many claims (but not all that have been made) for the benefits that people... get from listening to music and making music that has been pre-composed or is being self-composed by improvising."  Therefore my goal – in all I write and say about this aspect of life – will be to accurately describe the research (experiments & observations) and the interpretations, regarding the differing levels of support for different claims.*  When we're evaluating claims, instead of binary conclusions (yes or no) it's useful to think about theory status – our estimates of a theory's plausibility (and/or utility) – that can range from very low to very high.  { re: theory status, there is a summary plus details from my doctoral dissertation about Scientific Method(s) using Reality Checks;  and what I've learned before & after my PhD work is one reason I feel qualified to do evaluations of scientific research.}

What's below is just a beginning.     { iou – Sometime before mid-2024 — probably in April (although so far the progress hasn't been happening at the rate I had expected, because I've been extremely busy with other projects) — I'll be able to invest more time in "describing and linking-to [a much wider range of knowledge] in the details-page I'll be developing."  I also will do a little more work on this page, but mainly I'll focus on the much larger page with details. }

Sound Health:  "Launched in 2016 under the leadership of Renée Fleming and Dr. Francis Collins, Sound Health is an on-going partnership between the Kennedy Center and National Institutes of Health, in association with the National Endowment for the Arts exploring potential health benefits of music."    {NPR Interview & transcript}   {research on music therapy & neuroscience}

A study (Impact of Music Improvisation Training on Brain Function and Cognition among Older Adults) with Julene Johnson – who currently is a co-director of Sound Health – as Principal Investigator.  The earlier proposal (for research done in 2021-2023) says "Music interventions are a promising strategy to address late-life cognitive inactivity.  Music training can change brain structure and function in non-musician adults, thereby leading to cognitive, perceptual, and psychosocial advantages.  These changes in cognitive function are thought to occur because the multimodal, complex nature of music facilitates training-induced neural plasticity.  However, the mechanisms are not yet understood, and most studies used traditional or rote keyboard training techniques.  Music training based on improvisation principles – the spontaneous generation of musical melodies and rhythms – will likely have more potent effects on cognition and brain function.  Improvisation facilitates cognitive flexibility, self-monitoring, novel idea generation, execution of unplanned motor sequences and entrance into a state of flow.  Biologically, improvisation is associated with distinct neural patterns involving activation of prefrontal networks and other brain networks that are affected by aging.  As a mechanism of behavior change, it is likely that improvisation training will uniquely improve self-regulation (the ability to monitor and control one’s own behavior, emotions, or thoughts and modify to situational demands).  Yet, no research has tested whether improvisation training can improve self-regulation and facilitate maintenance of cognitively challenging activities among older adults with and without MCI."   {details of project}    /    I'm very interested in this, because my own teaching emphasizes musical improvisation.  And my method of teaching – by using a colorized keyboard – might be especially beneficial, because...

As explained in my abstract, "the wide variety of observations includes...  brain scans that show stimulations of neural activity in the audio, visual, and motor cortexes;  and evidence that music promotes neuroplasticity at all ages, not just for the young."  Improvising music while using my colorized keyboard might be especially productive for stimulating multimodal interactions and neural plasticity, because this way to improvise is very visual (it uses a colorized keyboard that adds red-blue-green to the musically logical visual arrangement of a regular black-and-white keyboard) and improvising requires "searching for keys to play" (with interactions between the visual and aural systems, plus cognitive control) and "deciding which keys to play" (with cognitive control, both subconscious & conscious, of information that is being provided by the visual and aural systems, regulated by the creative "musical taste" of the keyboard player, guided by artistic goals).  [[ iou – This paragraph needs to be improved by revision, and then it will become better. ]]   This process-of-improvising can help a person develop improved cognitive-and-functional knowledge of music theory that is cognitive (to understand music) and is functional (to play music), as explained in a summary and in depth where I "describe a process of learning that occurs when you combine interactive experiences (to produce interactive memories) that are visual (when you see notes on the keyboard), aural (when you hear notes you've played), mental-and-physical (when you make decisions about which notes to play, and play notes), and mental (when you just think about notes and their musically-logical patterns).  The overall result of these interactive memory-producing experiences is to improve your cognitive-and-functional knowledge, your cognitive understanding of music and your functional playing of music."  {an appropriately humble disclaimer:  I don't claim that my descriptions of interactions are totally accurate – re: neurochemistry, neurophysiology-CNS, etc – so if someone who knows more suggests any changes I'll be happy to listen, learn, and change.}

funneling and fanning:  While writing "Strategies for Problem Solving" in 1978, I developed a metaphor of funneling (when multiple ideas are factors in producing a central idea, by contributing to it in various ways) and fanning (when the central idea produces multiple results.  This might be a useful way to think about the health benefits of music.  For example, we can consider the many ways to experience music (by listening that's passive or active, by singing or playing an instrument, playing melodies by using sheet music or memory or by ear, and improvising melodies, making music alone or with others) leading to a variety of neurological effects (with "stimulations of neural activity in the audio, visual, and motor cortexes") leading to the wide variety of important "cognitive, perceptual, and psychosocial advantages" described by Julene Johnson, and to other advantages.  So far this metaphor of funnel-and-fan hasn't been developed in a sophisticated way, and hasn't been applied for research about the effects of music;  but maybe this can inspire some useful thinking about “how all of it (with causes & effects,...) fits together with interconnections.”