Our brain understands music not only as an expression of our emotional world. As the studies of the Max-Planck-Institute in Leipzig show, music is also processed in the brain centres responsible for cognition and speech (14).

– A musical piece is stored in the memory.
– It is differentiated into different parts which are put in order.
– Interrelations of these parts are made.
– Conclusions in regard to the holistic context are made.
– And all this is being compared with already stored musical
   experiences and insights.

In doing so, the brain is actively storing, ordering, abstracting, concluding, comparing, planning, expecting and learning; and presumably – so the indications of the Leipzig research – follows a musical grammar, which is already there when we are born.

As the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig (15) documented by the help of event related potentials, these cognitive performances are not only present in professional musicians, but also in persons who characterise themselves as non musical and do not have any musical education.
What is particularly important is that the activation of these brain systems can be documented even when the person does not pay attention to the music; for instance when the music plays in the background of a video game. This means that music activates these systems to a great degree in an objective and automatic way (16).

An important finding of neuroscience is that the information architecture of our brain is, on the one hand determined by genetics, but on the other hand by the experiences we have in life. All outer experiences are delivered by our sense organs via their bioelectrochemical signals – these signals have a share in interconnecting the nerve cells and, thus, in organising the information architecture of our brain.

When a child is born, it is genetically equipped with certain qualities of character and certain talents. But in how far these will develop in him, and will be constantly represented in his network of brain cells, depends essentially upon how far these qualities are stimulated by outer and inner experiences.

A good example for this can be seen in the investigation results with children who were born deaf or with severe hearing impairments.

Do children, who are born with a significantly reduced hearing ability, show deficits in their development compared to children without hearing disorders?

four clear deficits (17 18) could be found:

– deficits in motorics: especially in the co-ordination
   of movements and in fine motorics
– deficits in the development of language
– deficits in the ability of abstraction
– retardation in emotional maturation