Science Shows How Piano Players'

Brains Are Actually Different From

Everybody Elses'

By Jordan Taylor Sloan | June 20, 2014

Piano lessons are sort of like braces. For a few years, everyone's parents paid
a lot of money so their children could contort their bodies (fingers; teeth) and

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT !1

lie about doing something daily that, really, they never did (scales; rubber
bands). Both were formative experiences.

But while everyone grows out of braces, some people never recover from
childhood piano lessons. This is, in part, because true pianists' brains are
actually different from those of everyone else. In this series, we've already
written about what makes guitarists' and drummers' brains unique, but playing
keys is an entirely different beast. Drums are functionally pitchless and
achordal, so pitch selection and chord voicings aren't part of the equation.
Guitar only allows for six notes at once and heavily favors left-hand dexterity.

But piano is the ultimate instrument in terms of skill and demand: Two hands
have to play together simultaneously while navigating 88 keys. They can play
up to 10 notes at a time. To manage all those options, pianists have to
develop a totally unique brain capacity — one that has been revealed by
science.

Advertisement

An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is
disabled in your browser.

Because both hands are required to be equally active for pianists' to master
their instrument, they have to overcome something innate to almost every
person: right or left-handedness.

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT !2

In most people, the depth of the brain's central sulcus is either deeper on the
right or on the left side, which then determines which hand is dominant. But
when scientists scanned the brains of pianists, they found something different:
Pianists had a demonstrably more symmetrical central sulcus than everyone
else — though they were born right or left-handed, their brains barely
registered it. Because the pianists still had a dominant hand, researchers
speculated that their equal depth was not natural, but resulted because
pianists are able to strengthen their weaker side to more closely match their
dominant side. Rachmaninoff would be proud:

An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is
disabled in your browser.

Already, then, pianists are able to make their brains into better-rounded
machines. But it turns out the heavy-tax of piano playing makes their minds
efficient in every way. A study by Dr. Ana Pinho (whose name kind of explains
her research focus) showed that when jazz pianists play, their brains have an
extremely efficient connection between the different parts of the frontal lobe
compared to non-musicians. That's a big deal — the frontal lobe
is responsible for integrating a ton of information into decision making. It plays
a major role in problem solving, language, spontaneity, decision making and
social behavior. Pianists, then, tend to integrate all of the brain's information
into more efficient decision making processes. Because of this high speed

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT !3

connection, they can breeze through slower, methodical thinking and tap into
quicker and more spontaneous creativity.

Most shockingly, though, Pinho also found that when experienced pianists
play, they literally switch off the part of the brain associated with providing
stereotypical responses, ensuring that they play with their own unique voice
and not the voices of others. Basically, it's the opposite of Guitar Center riffage
— true innovation like Oscar Peterson: 

An error occurred.
Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is
disabled in your browser.

But piano is a taxing and complex instrument for the whole brain. Real
pianists are marked by brains that efficiently conserve energy by allocating
resources more effectively than anyone else. Dr. Timo Krings scanned
pianists' brains as they soloed and found that they pump less blood than
average people in the brain region associated with fine motor skills. Less
blood flow means less energy is needed to concentrate. Though that's likely
true of anyone who's mastered a nimble task, it only compounds the efficiency
pianists' brains develop through mutating the central sulcus and altering their
frontal lobe's function. In pianists, the change in blood flow frees them to
concentrate on other things that are totally unique to pianists — like their own
unique form of communication.  

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT !4

It's a difficult concept to grasp, but it's one of the coolest things about being a
pianist. When pianists improvise, the language portion of their brain remains
active — like any musician, playing music is fundamentally an act of
communication. But the big difference for pianists is that their communication
is about syntax, not words. Dr. Charles Limb's study showed that when
pianists solo, their brains respond as if they were responding in a
conversation, but they pay attention to phrasing and "grammatical" structure
instead of specific words and phrases.

So pianists' brains actually are different. They are masters of creative,

purposeful and efficient communication because of the very instrument that
they play. They are the naturally efficient multi-taskers of the musical world,
because when you're a player like Yuja Wang, there is zero room for doubt
and hesitation.

GEOLOGY 101 REPORT !5