Documentary takes scientific look at music's affects on brain

Why does music affect us so deeply? That is the question behind The Music Instinct: Science & Song, a documentary that airs from 9 to 11 tonight on WEDU-Ch. 3. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and singer Bobby McFerrin explore the latest research on music and the brain.

Levitin uses computer technology to show the brain's response to music. "We used to think there was a music center in the brain," he says. "We don't think that anymore. There are music centers, and they're spread all over the brain … for pitch, tempo, loudness, timbre, processed in different places in the brain."

Musicians featured include deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and conductor Daniel Barenboim, but the stars here are researchers like the archeologist who found an Ice Age flute in a German cave.

Music and learning is a theme, and it starts before birth. A fetus hears and reacts to music. Babies cry in musical intervals. Literally, according to string theory, our bodies vibrate to music like an instrument.

John Fleming can be reached at fleming@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8716. He blogs at Critics Circle at blogs.tampabay.com/arts.