ABSTRACT
There are few human endeavors that involve the wide range of cognitive systems that music does, and still fewer do so with the regular intensity that the pursuit of an instrument requires. Performing music is an immensely complex task that involves the coordination of many interwoven processes, including “at least the auditory, visual, cognitive, affective, memory, and motor systems” (Hodges, 2000, p. 20). The neural substrates responsible for these tasks are particularly widespread throughout the brain, especially compared with other activities like speech or movement. Because music demands intense and repeated use of these pathways over a lifetime of practice, a musician’s brain provides a valuable framework through which neuroscientists can observe how neural networks grow in response to extended, complex activities; that is, how exactly a person’s brain learns to do what it does (Munte, Altenmuller, & Jancke, 2002).
