ABSTRACT
Performing musical artists, whether opera or jazz singers, pianists, violinists, or organists, all display their craft, talent, skill, experience, and musical cognition. Both expression and reception are thus exhibited. The accumulated body of experimental data suggests that total musical expression relies on the specialization of both hemispheres (Baeck, 2002b ; Wieser, 2003 ). Currently, the general hemispheric pattern is that, while the left hemisphere specializes in the perception of timing and rhythm, the right hemisphere specializes in pitch and timbre perception. Within each hemisphere, the temporal lobes are predominantly involved with musical perception and the frontal lobes in musical output and expression. The latter feature of music is associated with language and is an important issue for discussion. Music consists of a variety of sub-components and micro-fragments; the sub-components of language, by comparison, appear closely related to each other and to form a unifi ed entity, one that requires single cortical control. They are better understood than those of music. However, the bulk of the discussion in this chapter concerns disruption to musical abilities following brain damage.
