BACKGROUND Up to 80% of professional musicians are affected by playing-related musculoskeletal disorders, but data regarding the frequency of craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD) in professional orchestra musicians is scarce. AIMS To evaluate the frequency of CMD and its relation to musculoskeletal pain in various body regions. METHODS A questionnaire-based survey approach assessing CMD sympt...

As musicians, we subject our brains to a regime of training that is virtually unparalleled in its intensity and duration, not to mention the level of exquisite perfection we are expected to attain. Most of us started our instruments when we were very young, have practiced daily for hours ever since, and will continue to do so for many more decades. There is no other field that demands this sort...

It has been suggested that music and speech maintain entirely dissociable mental processing systems. The current study, however, provides evidence that there is an overlap in the processing of certain shared aspects of the two. This study focuses on fundamental frequency (pitch), which is an essential component of melodic units in music and lexical and/or intonational units in speech. We hypoth...

The ability to remember tempo (the perceived frequency of musical pulse) without external references may be defined, by analogy with the notion of absolute pitch, as absolute tempo (AT). Anecdotal reports and sparse empirical evidence suggest that at least some individuals possess AT. However, to our knowledge, no systematic assessments of AT have been performed using laboratory tasks comparabl...

This study examines the differences in brain structures between female musicians and their non-musian counterparts by using a voxel-by-voxel morphometric method. We found gray matter volume differences in right and left cerebellum regions, right and left middle temporal gyrus and superior occipital gyrus. These differences are consistant with those of male musicians and nonmusicians on the whol...

From an early age, musicians learn complex motor and auditory skills (e.g., the translation of visually perceived musical symbols into motor commands with simultaneous auditory monitoring of output), which they practice extensively from childhood throughout their entire careers. Using a voxel-by-voxel morphometric technique, we found gray matter volume differences in motor, auditory, and visual...

Music fascinates and touches most people. This fascination leads to opinions about the music pieces that reflects people’s exposure and personal experience. This inherent bias of people towards music indicates that personal opinion is inappropriate for defining the quality of music and musicians. This paper takes a holistic view of the problem and delves into the understanding of the structure ...

Phonological awareness has been shown to play a significant role in language learning. The present study examined the effect of improving pitch identification ability and tonal awareness on Cantonese tone word learning. A group of native English listeners received three days of Cantonese tone training to first improve their tone perception. They then learned the meanings of 15 vocabulary items ...