Studies comparing musicians and non-musicians have shown that musical training can improve rhythmic perception and production. These findings tell us that training can result in rhythm processing advantages, but they do not tell us whether practicing a particular instrument could lead to specific effects on rhythm perception or production. The current study used a battery of four rhythm perception and production tasks that were designed to test both higher- and lower-level aspects of rhythm processing. Four groups of musicians (drummers, singers, pianists, string players) and a control group of non-musicians were tested. Within-task differences in performance showed that factors such as meter, metrical complexity, tempo, and beat phase significantly affected the ability to perceive and synchronize taps to a rhythm or beat. Musicians showed better performance on all rhythm tasks compared to non-musicians. Interestingly, our results revealed no significant differences between musician groups for the vast majority of task measures. This was despite the fact that all musicians were selected to have the majority of their training on the target instrument, had on average more than 10 years of experience on their instrument, and were currently practicing. These results suggest that general musical experience is more important than specialized musical experience with regards to perception and production of rhythms.

Introduction: Musical performance is thought to rely predominantly on event-based timing involving a clock-like neural process and an explicit internal representation of the time interval. Some aspects of musical performance may rely on emergent timing, which is established through the optimization of movement kinematics, and can be maintained without reference to any explicit representation of the time interval. We predicted that musical training would have its largest effect on event-based timing, supporting the dissociability of these timing processes and the dominance of event-based timing in musical performance.Materials and Methods: We compared 22 musicians and 17 non-musicians on the prototypical event-based timing task of finger tapping and on the typically emergently timed task of circle drawing. For each task, participants first responded in synchrony with a metronome (Paced) and then responded at the same rate without the metronome (Unpaced).Results: Analyses of the Unpaced phase revealed that non-musicians were more variable in their inter-response intervals for finger tapping compared to circle drawing. Musicians did not differ between the two tasks. Between groups, non-musicians were more variable than musicians for tapping but not for drawing. We were able to show that the differences were due to less timer variability in musicians on the tapping task. Correlational analyses of movement jerk and inter-response interval variability revealed a negative association for tapping and a positive association for drawing in non-musicians only.Discussion: These results suggest that musical training affects temporal variability in tapping but not drawing. Additionally, musicians and non-musicians may be employing different movement strategies to maintain accurate timing in the two tasks. These findings add to our understanding of how musical training affects timing and support the dissociability of event-based and emergent timing modes.

This research uses an MR-Compatible cello to compare functional brain activation during singing and cello playing within the same individuals to determine the extent to which arbitrary auditory-motor associations, like those required to play the cello, co-opt functional brain networks that evolved for singing. Musical instrument playing and singing both require highly specific associations between sounds and movements. Because these are both used to produce musical sounds, it is often assumed in the literature that their neural underpinnings are highly similar. However, singing is an evolutionarily old human trait, and the auditory-motor associations used for singing are also used for speech and non-speech vocalizations. This sets it apart from the arbitrary auditory-motor associations required to play musical instruments. The pitch range of the cello is similar to that of the human voice, but cello playing is completely independent of the vocal apparatus, and can therefore be used to dissociate the auditory-vocal network from that of the auditory-motor network. While in the MR-Scanner, 11 expert cellists listened to and subsequently produced individual tones either by singing or cello playing. All participants were able to sing and play the target tones in tune (<50C deviation from target). We found that brain activity during cello playing directly overlaps with brain activity during singing in many areas within the auditory-vocal network. These include primary motor, dorsal pre-motor, and supplementary motor cortices (M1, dPMC, SMA),the primary and periprimary auditory cortices within the superior temporal gyrus (STG) including Heschl's gyrus, anterior insula (aINS), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS), and Cerebellum but, notably, exclude the periaqueductal gray (PAG) and basal ganglia (Putamen). Second, we found that activity within the overlapping areas is positively correlated with, and therefore likely contributing to, both singing and playing in tune determined with performance measures. Third, we found that activity in auditory areas is functionally connected with activity in dorsal motor and pre-motor areas, and that the connectivity between them is positively correlated with good performance on this task. This functional connectivity suggests that the brain areas are working together to contribute to task performance and not just coincidently active. Last, our findings showed that cello playing may directly co-opt vocal areas (including larynx area of motor cortex), especially if musical training begins before age 7.