Early Music Lessons Have Longtime Benefits
早期音乐教育使人终生受益

When children learn to play a musical instrument, they strengthen a range of auditory skills. Recent studies suggest that these benefits extend all through life, at least for those who continue to be engaged with music.

当儿童学习演奏乐器时，他们得到加强的是一系列的听觉能力。已有多项研究表明，这种训练可以使人终生受益，至少对于那些继续从事音乐的人士来说情况如此。

But a study published last month is the first to show that music lessons in childhood may lead to changes in the brain that persist years after the lessons stop.

然而，上个月发表的一份研究报告第一次指出，童年时期的音乐课程可能会使大脑发生变化，这种变化即使在课程结束多年以后依然存在。

Researchers at Northwestern University recorded the auditory brainstem responses of college students - that is to say, their electrical brain waves - in response to complex sounds. The group of students who reported musical training in childhood had more robust responses - their brains were better able to pick out essential elements, like pitch, in the complex sounds when they were tested. And this was true even if the lessons had ended years ago.

美国西北大学(Northwestern University)的研究人员录制了大学生的听觉脑干反应——也就是说，测量他们的脑电波，记录其对复杂声音的反应。曾经在童年时期接受过音乐训练的学生的反应更强烈——在被测试时，他们的大脑能够从复杂的声音中更好地甄别出关键的要素，比如音调。而且，即使所受音乐训练在很多年前就已经结束，结果也是如此。

Indeed, scientists are puzzling out the connections between musical training in childhood and language-based learning - for instance, reading. Learning to play an instrument may confer some unexpected benefits, recent studies suggest.

事实上，科学家对童年时期的音乐训练和以语言为基础的学习——比如阅读之间的联系迷惑不解。最近的研究则表明，学习演奏乐器可能会带来一些意料不到的好处。

We aren't talking here about the "Mozart effect," the claim that listening to classical music can improve people's performance on tests. Instead, these are studies of the effects of active engagement and discipline. This kind of musical training improves the brain's ability to discern the components of sound - the pitch, the timing and the timbre.

我们这里讨论的不是“莫扎特效应”，该效应声称聆听古典音乐可以提高人们在测试中的表现。相反，这里研究的是让人全身心投入和严于律己的作用。这种音乐训练增强了大脑识别声音的各个组成部分的能力——这些成分包括音调、节拍和音色。

"To learn to read, you need to have good working memory, the ability to disambiguate speech sounds, make sound-to-meaning connections," said Professor Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. "Each one of these things really seems to be strengthened with active engagement in playing a musical instrument."

“学习阅读，你需要有良好的工作记忆力（working memory，是指人们在完成认知任务的过程中将信息暂时储存的系统——译注），以及消除话语中声音的歧义、并把声音和意义联系起来的能力，” 西北大学听觉神经科学实验室(Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory)主任尼娜·克劳斯(Nina Kraus)教授说：“似乎上述能力都在投入地演奏乐器时得到了真正的加强。”

Skill in appreciating the subtle qualities of sound, even against a complicated and noisy background, turns out to be important not just for a child learning to understand speech and written language, but also for an elderly person struggling with hearing loss.

事实证明，在纷繁复杂、人声鼎沸的背景下，对声音的细微变化所传达出来的意义的理解能力，不仅对正在学习听懂说话和看懂文字的儿童至关重要，而且，对于耳朵渐背的老人也很关键。

In a study of those who do keep playing, published this summer, researchers found that as musicians age, they experience the same decline in peripheral hearing, the functioning of the nerves in their ears, as nonmusicians. But older musicians preserve the brain functions, the central auditory processing skills that can help you understand speech against the background of a noisy environment.

今年夏天有一份关于多年演奏乐器不辍的人士的研究报告发表，研究人员发现当音乐家年纪渐长时，他们和不是音乐家的人一样会出现周围性听力（内耳神经功能）损失。但是，老年音乐家仍然具备着相应的中枢听觉处理功能，这有助于他们在喧嚣的环境中听懂别人的讲话。

"We often refer to the 'cocktail party' problem - or imagine going to a restaurant where a lot of people are talking," said Dr. Claude Alain, assistant director of the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto and one of the authors of the study. "The older adults who are musically trained perform better on speech in noise tests - it involves the brain rather than the peripheral hearing system."

“我们通常称之为‘鸡尾酒会’问题”——你也可以想象置身于一个嘈杂的饭店”，多伦多的罗特曼研究所(Rotman Research Institute)副主任克劳德·阿兰(Claude Alain)博士，也是该研究的作者之一说。“那些受过音乐训练的老年人在噪音测试中的讲话部分表现得更好——那项测试更多涉及到了大脑而不是周围神经听力系统。”

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, are approaching the soundscape from a different point of view, studying the genetics of absolute, or perfect, pitch, that ability to identify any tone. Dr. Jane Gitschier, a professor of medicine and pediatrics who directs the study there, and her colleagues are trying to tease out both the genetics and the effects of early training.

加州大学旧金山分校(University of California, San Francisco)的研究人员从一个不同的的角度探讨了音景问题(soundscape)，他们研究绝对音感或者是完美音感（准确辨别音调的能力）背后的遗传学原理。领导此项研究的内科和小儿科教授简·基茨齐尔(Jane Gitschier)博士说，她和同事们正试图梳理出遗传学和早期训练对绝对音感的影响。

"The immediate question we've been trying to get to is what are the variants in people's genomes that could predispose an individual to have absolute pitch," she said. "The hypothesis, further, is that those variants will then manifest as absolute pitch with the input of early musical training."

“我们试图解答的最首要的问题是，人类基因组中的哪些变量会使一个人更有可能拥有绝对音感。”她说。“随后我们会提出进一步的假设：通过早期音乐训练，这些遗传方面的变量确实能够使一个人拥有绝对音感。”

Indeed, almost everyone who qualifies as having truly absolute pitch turns out to have had musical training in childhood.

事实证明，几乎每个的的确确拥有绝对音感的人都在童年时期接受过音乐训练。

Alexandra Parbery-Clark, a doctoral candidate in Dr. Kraus's lab and one of the authors of a paper published this year on auditory working memory and music, was originally trained as a concert pianist. Her desire to go back to graduate school and study the brain, she told me, grew out of teaching at a French school for musically talented children, and observing the ways that musical training affected other kinds of learning.

亚历桑德拉·帕博瑞-克拉克(Alexandra Parbery-Clark)是克劳斯实验室的一名博士候选人，也是今年发表的一份关于听觉工作记忆和音乐的论文的作者之一。小时候她受过严格的音乐训练，目标是想成为在音乐会上演奏的钢琴家。她告诉记者，自己之所以想要重新回到研究生院研究大脑，跟她在一所法国学校教音乐天才儿童的经历有关，当时她观察到音乐训练会以各种不同的方式影响着其它类型的学习。

"If you get a kid who is maybe 3 or 4 years old and you're teaching them to attend, they're not only working on their auditory skills but also working on their attention skills and their memory skills - which can translate into scholastic learning," she said.

“如果一个孩子在三四岁时就开始上音乐课，他学到的不仅是听音能力，而且注意力和记忆力也会得到相应的锻炼——这两种能力是可以向学习能力转变的。”她说。

Now Ms. Parbery-Clark and her colleagues can look at recordings of the brain's electrical detection of sounds, and they can see the musically trained brains producing different - and stronger - responses. "Now I have more proof, tangible proof, music is really doing something," she told me. "One of my lab mates can look at the computer and say, 'Oh, you're recording from a musician!' "

现在，帕博瑞-克拉克和她的同事可以看到大脑对声音识别的过程，而且可以看出来受过音乐训练的大脑会产生截然不同的——也是更加强烈的——反应。“现在我掌握了更多的确凿的证据来说明音乐确实能让人大有不同。”她告诉我：“我实验室的一个同事可以看一眼电脑，立刻判断出来，‘哦，你记录的是个音乐家！’”

Many of the researchers in this area are themselves musicians interested in the plasticity of the brain and the effects of musical education on brain waves, which mirror the stimulus sounds. "This is a response that actually reflects the acoustic elements of sound that we know carry meaning," Professor Kraus said.

这个领域的很多研究人员本身就是音乐家，并对大脑的可塑性和音乐教育对脑电波的作用感兴趣，脑电波能够映射刺激的声音。“脑电波的反应表明了声音的声学因素，我们知道声音中蕴含了意义。”克劳斯说。

There's a fascination - and even a certain heady delight - in learning what the brain can do, and in drawing out the many effects of the combination of stimulation, application, practice and auditory exercise that musical education provides. But the researchers all caution that there is no one best way to apply these findings.

了解大脑能做什么，并揭示出音乐教育所能提供的启迪、应用、练习和听觉测试结合在一起而带来的多种作用，不仅令人乐此不疲，还让人心醉神迷。不过，研究人员都明白，不可能找到一种放之四海而皆准的办法来应用这些研究成果。

Different instruments, different teaching methods, different regimens - families need to find what appeals to the individual child and what works for the family, since a big piece of this should be about pleasure and mastery. Children should enjoy themselves, and their lessons. Parents need to care about music, not slot it in as a therapeutic tool.

乐器、教学方法和教学方案千差万别，每个家庭需要弄明白真正吸引他们孩子的乐器是什么，而对这个家庭真正有效的教学方法和方案又是什么，因为学习音乐，很大一部分目的应该是追求身心愉悦和精益求精。孩子应该在演奏和学习时乐在其中，父母应该关心音乐本身，而不是关注其效果。

"We want music to be recognized for what it can be in a person's life, not necessarily, 'Oh, we want you to have better cognitive skills, so we're going to put you in music,' " Ms. Parbery-Clark said. "Music is great, music is fantastic, music is social - let them enjoy it for what it really is."