Well we knew we had bigger heads but now we have proof that there’s something inside!
In the August 29, 2012 publication of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers took 19 aural piano tuners and did an amazing thing – they took a Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) of their brains, and it turns out that, not only do we have brains, but they’re bigger!
The subjects were 19 piano technicians who were all members of the Pianoforte Tuners’ Association, UK, aged 25–78 years.
They had all tuned pianos by ear for their entire career with no electronic aids.
They all had a range of experience tuning pianos from 2 to 50 years.
Besides taking part in some typical aural tests involving listening to recordings and giving answers as to what they heard, the participants were all subjected to an MRI exam which takes a picture of the brain and can measure the amount of brain mass in a person.
The results were astounding. The most interesting part of the study stated that “Tuners showed an experience-dependent increase in gray matter volume in a set of core regions including the anterior hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, parietal and superior temporal cortices, which may form part of an auditory memory network. Additionally, they also showed enhanced white matter volume in the posterior hippocampus as a function of years of tuning experience.”
What this means is that not only did these aural piano tuners have more gray matter in several parts of their brains and more enhanced white matter in the posterior hippocampus, but that the amount of increase in volume and enhancement depended on the number of years that the tuner had been tuning!
Since it takes time to learn to hear beats clearly, anyone wanting to learn to tune aurally should understand this next statement.
If you want to learn how to tune a piano by ear, you need to start trying to hear beats as soon as possible, and keep training until you can hear beat speeds easily.
To help anyone who wishes to achieve great results tuning pianos by ear, I have created an online tool that will help you know what to listen for, and train you to focus your ears on the exact location where these beats occur, for the purpose of developing your own Tuner’s Ear.
If you have not already done so, sign up to take this FREE Ear Training Course for Piano Tuners.
Don’t ignore this critical skill. You will need to have a developed ear in order to tune pianos to a high level. Start now while you are young. And if you’re not young, start anyway. It’s never too late to build brain mass.
The lessons are easy to follow and explain exactly what you need to do to improve your ear’s ability to filter beat speeds and hear them clearly.
