When two guitarists play together, their brains are perfectly coordinated, and as a result of this perfect synchronization, beautiful pieces of music are obtained. A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin) has decided to investigate the brains of musicians and analyze their activity when they form duets. The resultsreveal many similarities in the electric wave dance that occurs in the heads of these artists when they coordinate to play, and these similarities are maintained even when the musicians perform different voices from the piece.
The researchers recruited 32 professional guitarists and recorded the electrical activity of different parts of their brains as they played a sequence from Christian Gottlieb Scheidler’s “G Major Sonata” in different voices. The goal was to find out if their mindsthey also synchronized when they played different musical notes. In addition, in all tests one member of the duet had to take the lead and ensure that both started at the same time.
The duet’s brain activity showed coordinated brain oscillations, even when each guitarist played different voices of the same piece. This synchronized activity suggests a direct neural basis for interpersonal coordination.
In addition, the difference between the leader and the follower is also reflected in the results, which are published in the magazineFrontiers in Neuroscience. “In the musician who directs the performance of the work, the synchronization between the individual brain waves was stronger and, above all, it was already present before starting to play”, explains Johanna Sänger, one of the authors. “This could be a reflection of the leaders’ decision to start playing at a certain point.”
The data show that synchronization between individuals occurs in brain regions associated with social cognition and music production. And these networks could also be formed in other types of coordinated activities: “We think that synchronized brain waves between people also occur in other situations, for example in communication or when practicing team sports”, the researcher added.
