Neuroscience & Musique

Les recherches poussées menées par les neuroscientifiques ont renforcé notre conviction que la musique est nécessaire au développement de l’enfant. Les études montrent clairement que plus la pratique musicale intervient tôt, plus importants et durables sont les effets.

Joan Koenig se passionne pour les nouvelles recherches et est en relation avec les chercheurs en Europe et aux Etats-Unis. Elle reconnaît scientifiquement ce qu’elle a mis en pratique intuitivement depuis maintenant 27 ans.

Aujourd’hui, la communauté scientifique possède un outil pour observer le fonctionnement de notre cerveau à travers la FIRM (imagerie fonctionnelle par résonance magnétique). La FIRM permet d’observer le flux sanguin dans différentes parties du cerveau et de déterminer quelles parties du cerveau sont activées par le langage, la raison, la créativité ou la mémoire.

Comme pressenti, la musique aide à développer la majeure partie de nos fonctions cérébrales, et plus la pratique musicale est précoce, plus les résultats sont concluants. Ce qui suit constitue une courte liste de ce que les neuroscientifiques ont constaté.

Le travail de l’oreille et le développement d’une bonne oreille “relative” ou “absolue” résulte en l’augmentation de la corpus calosome, la masse de fibres neuronales qui sert de messagers entre les hémisphères droite et gauche.

L’hippocampe qui concerne la mémoire est simplement plus développé; il y a une corrélation directe entre sa taille et la durée et la précocité d’une pratique musicale. Les scientifiques constatent que le développement de l’hippocampe dans la prime jeunesse (la période sensible) pourrait réduire les chances de souffrir de la maladie d’Alzheimer ultérieurement.

Le cortex préfrontal, responsable de notre pouvoir de décision, la raison et le jugement est plus développé chez les musiciens; il y a corrélation directe entre sa taille et le nombre d’années et la précocité de la pratique musicale. La taille du cortex préfrontal est l’un des éléments qui distingue notre cerveau de ceux des autres mammifères.

Pendant une période d’intense créativité musicale (l’improvisation), ce même cortex préfrontal s’éfface littéralement, interrompt son “control” pour permettre à d’autre parties du cerveau de prendre des risques et donc de créer.
L’improvisation musicale observée pendant une FIRM scan montre une activité aiguë dans de multiples parties du cerveau.

La communication (dialogue musical) entre deux musiciens observée par le FIRM montre une activité accentuée dans l’aire de Broca (l’aire dédiée au langage) désormais confirmant l’hypothèse d’un lien entre la musique et le langage.

Voici, relayant les théories et constatations scientifiques, les Conclusions de l’Ecole Koenig : La pratique musicale mise en place auprès de plus d’un millier d’enfants lui permet de tirer ces premières conclusions. Etonnantes !

Les enfants peuvent acquérir une pulsation stable et lire des cellules rythmiques avec compréhension et précision dès 3 ans.
Dès l’âge de 5 ans, la plupart des enfants peut déchiffrer une mélodie simple sur une portée, en chantant juste.
Dès l’âge de 5 ans, la grande majorité des enfants peut jouer une mélodie chantée sans que ne soit dictés les noms de notes.
La grande majorité des enfants possède une très bonne oreille. Même les enfants qui ne suivent qu’un cours par semaine sont capables de nommer une note jouée au piano, sans référent.
L’improvisation est à la portée de tous et mène vers le désir de comprendre la forme, la tonalité et l’harmonie.
Les enfants peuvent comprendre les notions subtiles telles que les nuances, les modulations et les modes, et ce dès l’âge de 2 ans.

Si vous souhaitez apprendre plus sur neuroscience et musique, voici une liste de films, livres et articles sur le sujet.

Interesting watching:

Charles Limb scans a brain during jazz improvisation:

Antonio Damasio speaks about the function of music versus visual stimulus

Julie Burstein speaks about creativity in general

Must Reads:

Emmanuel Bigand Le Cerveau Mélomane (Paris: Editions Belin 2013)

Bernard Chevalier Le Cerveau de Mozart (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob 2003)

Antonio Damasio Looking for Spinoza – Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain
(New York: 2003 Harcourt )

Daniel J. Levitin This Is Your Brain on Music (New York: Penguin 2006)

Oliver Sacks Musicophilia-Tales of Music and the Brain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2007)

The human nature of culture and education

Colwyn Trevarthen, Maya Gratier and Nigel Osborne3

Human cultures educate children with different strategies. Ancient huntergatherers 200,000 years ago, with bodies and brains like our own, in bands of a hundred well-known individuals or less, depended on spontaneous cooperative practice of knowledge and skills in a natural world. Before creating language, they appreciated beautiful objects and music. Anthropologists observe that similar
living cultures accept that children learn in playful ‘intent participation’. Large modern industrial states with millions of citizens competing in a global economy aim to instruct young people in scientific concepts and the rules of literacy and numeracy deemed important for employment with elaborate machines. Our psychobiological theories commonly assume that an infant starts with a body
needing care and emotional regulation and a mind that assimilates concepts of objects by sensorimotor action and requires school instruction in rational principles after several years of cognitive development. Evidence from archeology and evolutionary anthropology indicates that Homo sapiens are born with an imaginative and convivial brain ready for the pleasure of shared invention and
with a natural sense of beauty in handmade objects and music. In short, there are innate predispositions for culture for practicing meaningful habits and artful performances that are playfully inventive and seductive for companionship in traditions, and soon capable of grasping the clever purpose of shared tasks and tools. This knowledge of inventive human nature with esthetic and moral
sensibilities has important implications for educational policy in our schools.

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Time to Focus on the World’s Youngest Children

FROM GUEST ON DECEMBER 3, 2014

By Joan Lombardi

From Kampala to Kingston; Delhi to Denver; and São Paulo to Santiago, giving children a strong start in life is critical to not only the growth and development of individuals, but also the growth and development of nations.
As the child mortality rate continues to decline, a new interest in the healthy development of young children has become the next frontier in health care, social protection and education. We need to continue to improve the chances that children survive, as we move forward to help all young children thrive.
We are leaving behind the outdated adage that education begins at the school house door, and instead are embracing the reality that learning begins at birth. Through innovative and integrated development programs and policies, we are bringing together all sectors that affect our children and are caring for the whole child and family.
In countries around the world, public awareness about the lasting impact of investing in early childhood is growing; national plans are emerging, evidence is mounting.
At the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in October, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a new set of Grand Challenges, including a focus on both women and girls, and on helping children thrive. President Obama recently announced the White House Summit on Early Education on December 10th, bringing together leaders and stakeholders from across the United States working to help children get off to a strong start.
Experts from around the world recently gathered in Brazil to discuss how to best reach more young children and families with effective programming and investment. The Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally brought together leaders from education, health, social protection and development to identify the best practices across science, policy and financing. In São Paulo, experts explored global and national research as well as innovative solutions to promote healthy development.
Broader understanding of the importance of the first years of life in relation to long-term health, opportunity and well-being is finally “coming of age.”
And yet so much remains to be done. As we work to improve access to education and early childhood development, we must also ensure that a child enters school ready to succeed. When we improve our social protection and economic policies to support parents, reduce domestic violence and ensure a child’s safety, we are helping children thrive not only today but in the future. A lack of access to quality health care diminishes a family’s basic ability to survive. By integrating community health workers and behavior change programs, we work with families to understand their health options, improve access to services and support their parenting.
We’ve seen the impact our actions can have across individual sectors. We have the tools and services to care for the whole family; now is the time to integrate our successes into one global agenda to best serve families and help our children thrive. We must begin here:

· Put a holistic approach to health, education and social protection for young children at the center of post-2015 sustainable development goals;
· Expand public investments and national policies to increase the availability and accessibility of integrated services to those in the greatest need;
· Increase multilateral and bilateral investments in young children, including early education and family support; and
· Work with the private sector to increase their time and investments in communities throughout the world.

We recognize the opportunities to work across generations to improve opportunities not just for children, but for their families. The hope of stemming inequality rests with our willingness to provide opportunity right from the earliest years of life. In a world divided, it is time to come together around a common cause that can unite us, one that can ring in a new era of peace and one that can build on the world’s greatest resource—its children.
Joan Lombardi, Ph.D. is an international expert on child development and social policy. Over the past 40 years she has made significant contributions to the development of early childhood and family support policies as an innovative leader and advisor to national and international organizations and foundations and as a public servant. She currently serves as an advisor to the Bernard van Leer Foundation as well as the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, and as a member of the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally.