What Happens in a Performer’s Brain While Playing Music?

Placid chords of a Debussy prelude filled a darkened auditorium during a recital by the pianist Nicolas Namoradze at the University of California, San Francisco. Above him a translucent model of his brain displayed electrical currents as colorful activity moving like storm fronts; as he moved through Bach, Beethoven and Scriabin the gently rotating image showed signals ping-ponging between regions or flickering across both hemispheres.

For the scientists in the audience the display was more than spectacle: it marked a breakthrough in experiment design that opens the study of how music activates a performer’s brain. Traditional tools like f.m.r.i. force stillness, and EEG studies require dozens of precisely aligned repetitions so that event-related signals stand out from other electrical noise.

“EEG is precise to the millisecond,” Andrea Protzner said.

United States, San Francisco

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