Autodidacticism and Music: Do Self-Taught Musicians Exhibit the Same Auditory Processing Advantages as Formally Trained Musicians?

Abstract

Multiple studies have demonstrated that musicians have enhanced auditory processing abilities compared to non-musicians. In these studies, musicians are usually defined as having received some sort of formal music training. One issue with this definition is that there are many musicians who are self-taught. The goal of the current study was to determine if self-taught musicians exhibit different auditory enhancements as their formally trained counterparts. Three groups of participants were recruited: formally trained musicians, who received formal music training through the conservatory or private lessons; self-taught musicians, who learned to play music through informal methods, such as with books, videos, or by ear; non-musicians, who had little or no music experience. Auditory processing abilities were assessed using a speech-innoise task, a passive pitch oddball task done while recording electrical brain activity, and a melodic tonal violation task, done both actively and passively while recording electrical brain activity. For the melodic tonal violation task, formally trained musicians were better at detecting a tonal violation compared to self-taught musicians, who were in turn better than non-musicians. The P600 evoked by a tonal violation was enhanced in formally trained musicians compared to non-musicians. The P600 evoked by an outof-key note did not differ between formally trained and self-taught musicians, while the P600 evoked by an out-of-tune note was smaller in self-taught musicians compared to formally trained musicians. No differences were observed between the groups for the other tasks. This pattern of results suggests that music training format impacts auditory processing abilities in musical tasks; however, it is possible that these differences arose due to pre-existing factors and not due to the training itself.

The relationship between acoustic and musical pitch processing in adolescents

“…All melodies were presented at 70 dB SPL. The melodies were the same as the melodies from previous studies (Peretz et al, 2009; Zendel et al, 2015; Zendel & Alexander, 2020). At the end of each melody, participants were asked if they heard a ‘wrong’ note.…”

“…The peak latency of the ERAN was quantified over 16 fronto‐right electrodes (AF4, AF8, AFz, Fz, F2, F4, F6, F8, FCz, FC2, FC4, FC6, Cz, C2, C4, C6) from 100 to 400 ms. These montages were chosen so data could be compared with previous studies that have used similar paradigms (Brattico et al, 2006; Lagrois et al, 2018; Peretz et al, 2009; Vuvan et al, 2018; Zendel & Alexander, 2020; Zendel et al, 2015). The epochs were chosen based on a visual approximation of the minimum amplitude before and after the peak of interest to ensure the peak picking procedure selected the correct peak, and not the peak of a different wave that occurred before or after the peak of interest.…”

“…The overall poor ability of Normal PPs to detect a melodic deviant came as a surprise. Previous work using the same melodies and scoring technique in adults have reported hits minus false alarms accuracy between 35% and 60% for out-of-tune notes and 35% and 55% for outof-key notes (Lagrois et al, 2018;Vuvan et al, 2018;Zendel et al, 2015;Zendel & Alexander, 2020). One study explored developmental changes in older adults and found no difference between older and younger adults for the out-of-tune note but that older adults were more accurate at detecting out-of-key notes compared with younger adults (Lagrois et al, 2018).…”

“…Characterizing the amusic profile in adolescents is critical, as it may be possible to design a music-based intervention that could mitigate amusia, and this type of intervention would likely be most effective at earlier stages of development (Peretz, 2016;Peretz et al, 2009). There is evidence that music training is associated with enhanced frequency discrimination abilities (Kishon-Rabin et al, 2001;Micheyl et al, 2006;Parbery-Clark et al, 2009;Spiegel & Watson, 1984), improved ability to detect out-of-tune/key notes (Besson & Faita, 1995;Zendel & Alexander, 2020) and improved cognitive abilities (Schellenberg, 2004(Schellenberg, , 2006. Therefore, a music-based intervention could potentially be successful at improving music perception in children with music processing deficits.…”

The importance of the motor system in the development of music‐based forms of auditory rehabilitation

“…Recent research has shown that musicianship is associated with an enhanced ability to understand speech in noise and that musical training can improve the ability to understand speech in noise 4,5 . While most studies show a musician benefit, 4,5 some studies in younger adults failed to demonstrate a musician advantage 6–10 . Most critically, the research in older adults consistently shows a musician advantage 11–13 .…”