Did you ever feel a connection between a musician you are listening to and yourself? Generally, people feel some connection but an early-stage research published in NeuroImage indicates that this connection we feel goes down till our neurons. Researchers suggested that the brain activity of a performer and a listener goes into sync during the music performance.

Based on this research, it has been said that a music performance is good or bad based on how well the brains of audience sync with that of the performer and that is how our brain appreciates a piece of particular music.

“Music appreciation involves the brains of music producers and perceivers in a temporally aligned network through which audiences perceive the intentions of the performer and show positive emotions related to the musical performance,” the researchers write in their new paper.

The researchers analyzed the brains of a professional violinist while he played brief 100-second clips of music. The same technique was used to monitor 16 audience members as they enjoyed listening to the clips being played back.

Inter-brain coherence between performer and listener was consistent and significant across all the audience, the results showed, with the same heightened activity being seen in the same specific parts of the brain as the clips were played.

The specific parts of the brain where this was observed were the left temporal cortex, which is used to process the rhythm of sounds, as well as the right inferior frontal cortex and the postcentral cortices – which are thought to help in social processes.

Another observation in this study was the correlation between how well-liked a piece of music was on average and a stronger level of inter-brain coherence in the left temporal cortex.

It was observed that this link was observed in the audience during the second half of the music clip suggesting that it takes time for the brain to develop these things.

Though this is a small research, it has opened a whole new question and paves the way to bigger future researches.

The research was published in NeuroImage

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