This Just In.....

''Nothing activates as many areas of the brain as music.''

''Music makes you smarter because it helps you understand yourself as a human being and your relationship to the world.''

"....Disproving earlier assumptions that musical activity takes place in the right hemisphere of the brain, the activity occurs with equal vigor in the left - or rational - hemisphere. Music is an emotional and intellectual activity that engages all the brain. Almost.

During performance, there is almost no activity in the frontal lobe, where conscious thought takes place. When Yo-Yo Ma is playing his cello in concert he's not thinking. All the thought took place earlier and if he were to think now it would impede his playing. He is simply performing, much like a highly trained athlete."

''Music is always a physical activity. Musicians are small-muscle athletes. And not just the performer. A listener sitting still in a classical concert hall is having the area of the brain that controls motion stimulated."

"Like mathematics, music is a necessary way of understanding the universe.''

''No music exists asocially.''
Researcher Donald A. Hodges

"....A person with brain damage from a stroke may not be able to speak, but can sing because the area that controls music is not damaged...."

"Music can help us unblock the search for our inner self.''
Theresa Lesiuk, who teaches music therapy at University of Miami

Excerpts from "Notes on the brain: Does music make you smarter?"
BY ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Image by Chuck Ivey