On The Relationship between the Processing and Production of Music and Language: An Analysis of the Current Literature

Introduction

This paper will set out to explore the contemporary consensus regarding the relationship between musical ability and language skills and acquisition. I will be examining this relationship in a number of domains, including but not limited to: receptive and productive phonology, the relationship between syntax and musical rhythm, pitch processing, and comparative cognitive neuroscience between linguistic and musical domains. In addition, I will examine the role music can play in the therapeutic process of treating patients with speech or language disorders.  While the consensus seems to be that music and linguistic processing are certainly connected (Patel & Iversen, 2007), to what extent and the nature of the relationship between them is still a lively area of research.

Phonology

Considering the receptive skills needed to function as a musician (pitch discrimination, intonation, dynamics etc), does musical training and ability play a role in the development of receptive skills when learning either a first or additional language? The literature suggests that it does. When compared to their untrained peers, musically trained kindergarten students displayed a greater sense of phonological awareness (Moritz et al, 2012). Moritz theorized that since phonological awareness and rhythmic competency are both intertwined with the perception and production of temporal patterns, these two separate domains are actually subsets of the same skill. This line of reasoning is supported by the work of Nave (Nave et al, 2023), who honed in on the role rhythmic competency and internal pulse play on overall phonological awareness. In their paper, the researchers found that children’s ability to sustain a pulse when exposed to rhythmically syncopated was the best predictor of overall phonological awareness. Such an ability was so strongly statistically correlated with phonological awareness that overall ability to maintain an internal pulse was a better predictor than even musical training, suggesting a possible dominance of the rhythmic domain in developing a heightened sense of phonological awareness. The researchers attributed this to a shared need for both phonological awareness and internal pulse to account for the temporal tracking over stimuli, whether it be musical or phonetic information. In a sense, they are arguing that these two domains are essentially the same skill, a theme which will reappear in other contexts below.

This increase in phonological awareness is a key component in why other researchers (Patel, 2011) have found a positive correlation between reading ability and musical ability. In researching the relationship between music and language abilities in children between the ages of 6-9, Swaminathan and Schellenberg (Swaminathan & Schellenberg, 2020) found that when compared to other variables such as language background and openness to experience, overall IQ and language ability were the best predictors of how well the children would perform on tests of phonetic discrimination in Zulu and on tests of English grammar. Most interestingly, the researchers found that rhythmic skills could predict language ability, but not melodic skills. This seems to align itself with the works discussed above below, which further suggests a preponderance for rhythm in the relationship between music and language.   

 In addition to the increased ability to discern phonological awareness, evidence from empirical studies also points to an increase in the phonological production capabilities in trained musicians.  When comparing the English phonological production abilities of Finnish choral, English philology, and a control group of undergraduate students, Milovanov (Milovanov et al, 2010) found that when controlled for other variables, the group of students who sang in a chorus performed the best in a task of English pronunciation. The researchers explained this outcome to be a result of the musical training which the students in the chorus underwent. It would be interesting to see a replication of an experiment like this, but with the inclusion of musicians who are not singers. It would be intriguing to see what the level of second language pronunciation proficiency in non-vocalist musicians is compared to their vocal counterparts in order to test if the increased ability of choral students to produce second language phonetics is a result of musical ability or some other factor, such as increased fine grain precision in the parts of the human body responsible for speech production. The results from this could help us form a clearer insight into the exact relationship between musical training and phonetic production.     

We have hitherto examined the relationship between music and language as a phenomenon where one variable (musical training) positively affects another variable (linguistic competency). However, the nuance between these two domains may be more complicated than this reductive recitation. Milovanov (Milovanov et al, 2008) studied the musical capabilities of children with a high level of second language pronunciation skills and hypothesized that these students would perform better in chordal discrimination tasks than their less adept peers. In this study, no group of children were given musical training. The data showed that the group skilled in second language pronunciation outperformed the unskilled group in both tests of chordal and phonetic discrimination, which the researchers interpret as a suggestion of shared neurological processing between the domains in our brain which process both musical and linguistic input. A view which corresponds with that of Nave’s (Nave et al, 2023) discussed above.     

Pitch and Tone

In both a linguistic and a musical context, pitch is used to convey information (Patel & Iversen, 2007). Given the nature of the relationship between pitch and tone with music,  does the training a musician undergoes in order to improve their aural skills cross over into an increased ability to perceive aural input from linguistic stimuli? The evidence suggests that it does. In an experiment where a group of trained adult musicians and untrained adults were asked to identify the emotional content in both English (their L1) and Tagalog (an unfamiliar language), the musically trained experimental group were better at correctly identifying both sadness and fear in both language conditions than the non-musician group (Thompson et al., 2004). This increased ability amongst musically trained individuals to decode complex emotional underpinnings in linguistic input has also been shown in the work of Greenspoon and Montanaro (Greenspoon & Montanaro, 2022). In their paper, they showed that trained singers were more adept at the recognition of emotion when listening to pseudo-English stimuli, which they interpret as “evidence for the role of sensory-motor processing in vocal prosody perception” (Greenspoon & Montanaro 2022 P. 6). In addition to this, Correia (Correia et al, 2022) also found evidence to support the idea that singers are better equipped to recognize emotion in prosody. Most interestingly, Correia found that the association between musical training and prosody recognition is most correlated with the ability of a musician’s auditory skills. The skills tested were beat perception, melodic memory, pitch, and musical duration. This seems to align with the interpretation of Greenspoon & Montanaro, in that an enhanced ability to discern fine and nuanced detail in musical stimuli can also lead to a transfer of these skills to nuanced emotional messaging in vocal prosody. From these examples, we can reasonably conclude that musical ability does play a role in the general competency of pragmatically interpreting meaning in linguistic contexts. 

The evidence for the benefit of musical training on the reception of linguistic pitch comes from more than just experimental evidence. Wong (Wong et al., 2007) measured the neurological encoding of linguistic stimuli (in this case Mandarin Chinese words differentiated only by tone) via scalp electrodes in the inferior colliculus in the auditory brainstem in both musically trained and untrained adults who did not speak a tonal language. The data Wong found showed that musicians displayed more neurological activity, interpreted as encoding, when exposed to Mandarin vocabulary than the non-musician group. From this Wong argues that the effects of musical training lead to a neurological system that is better equipped to facilitate novel linguistic information.   

Another interesting intersection between linguistic and music phenomenon is the prevalence of rates of absolute pitch recognition, often referred to as perfect pitch, in native speakers of tonal languages versus non-tonal languages.  After controlling for variables including gender and age of the commencement of musical training, Deutsch (Deutsch et al., 2006) found that L1 Mandarin speaking music conservatory students studying in China had a higher prevalence of absolute pitch recognition in the sample population compared to L1 speakers of non-tonal languages studying at an American conservatory. We know from other research (Giuliano et al., 2011) that speakers of tonal languages show better recognition of pitch compared to those who have no experience with tonal languages. Deutsch goes on to suggest that based on her findings, humans have an innate ability to develop pitch recognition in language, which if exposed to musical training at an early enough age, can be transferred to absolute pitch recognition in a musical context. The higher prevalence of absolute pitch recognition in speakers of a tonal language suggests that this ability is sensitive to age of exposure. As noted in her paper, Detsuch is essentially arguing in favor of the existence of a critical period in human language development. 

Music and Speech Disorders

A research area I have particular interest in, due to my past work in the field of music therapy, relates to how music can help patients with communication disorders.  Yao (Yao et al., 2022) provides evidence for the benefit of musical training in developing linguistic reception and production skills in preschool children. Yao found that children who underwent musical training involving the use of pitched instruments performed better at tests of categorical perception compared to either a group who only trained on unpitched percussion instruments or took lessons on the visual arts. Yao argues based on these findings, and in line with Goswami’s (Goswami, 2011) temporal deficient processing model of developmental dyslexia, that musical training can potentially be used to offset the difficulties children with developmental dyslexia face, particularly in regards to the processing of phonetics.  

In addition to this positive potential, there is also promising evidence for the use of musical input for treating patients with broca's aphasia.  Melodic Intonation Therapy (Sparks & Holland, 1976) was developed as a form of musical based therapy where patients with aphasia are guided through exercises in which “The intoned pattern is based on one of several speech prosody patterns which are reasonable choices for a given sentence, depending on the inference intended”(Sparks & Holland, 1976 P. 3). In essence, the therapy uses an exaggeration of our natural speech prosody to mimic musical production and thereby stimulate neurological  activity in the damaged areas of the  brain. These principles were taken advantage of by Vines (Vines et al., 2011), who studied the effect of applying both transcranial direct stimulation and  melodic intonation therapy to six patients who exhibited signs of non-fluent aphasia. Vines found that by applying both forms of therapy in tangent with each other led to an increase in verbal output and fluency compared to either form alone. He theorized that MIT worked as a force which increased brain plasticity, which combined with a force that increases levels of synaptic activity led to a synergetic relationship where the effects of both forms of therapy benefited from the other, which ultimately led to the increase of fluency in their patients. From these examples, we can conclude that the effects of musical training are not simply limited to those without disabilities. From young preschoolers to the 81 year old man studied by Vines, people of all ages and abilities seem to be able to benefit from the effects of musical training on their linguistic wellbeing.  

Music, Language, and the Brain

To what degree are the systems and domains of our brains that process various aspects of linguistic input also responsible for processing the input of musical information? Evidence from the literature suggests that there is significant overlap (Koelsch, 2011A), so much so that Koelsch refers to this as a “music-language-continuum (Koelsch 2011A, P.15)”.  As we shall see, there is significant evidence to support this claim.

Musical Syntax  

One of the primary features of language is its organization based on the language's syntaxical rules. As will be shown, music contains its own highly regulated system of syntax. The Generative Syntactic Model of Diatonic Harmony (Rohrmeier, 2007) states that the principles of generative grammar can be used as a descriptive system to analyze the relationship between diatonic chord progressions. In this model, the tonic chord serves a similar role as the head phrase of a sentence, in that all other aspects of the following musical or linguistic information are built in relation to them. No less than the diversity of linguistic syntax in the world's collection of languages, each cultural manifestation of a musical system contains its own form of musical syntax, and it is important to not speak of musical universals solely through the analysis of one culture's music. Koelsch (Koelsch, 2011A) asks in his review of the literature based on this understanding of music that, if music can be understood to have a kind of grammar equivalent to human language, then do we process musical grammar at the neurological level in a similar way to how we process linguistic grammar?  He found that when “ungrammatical”, non-diatonic, chords are played in otherwise standard chord progressions, there is neurological activity in Broca’s area 44 (Koelsch & Mulder, 2002), an area known for the processing of linguistic grammar. From this he infers that there seems to be a coexistence of function of the domains that process these types of grammar, which he uses as evidence for the existence of a music-language-continuum. Further evidence for the continuum-like nature of the relationship between music and language comes from experiments done with aphasics. Since it has been well established that people with Broca’s aphasia exhibit signs of difficulty when processing and producing grammatically sound linguistic information (Acharya, 2023), is it also the case that those with Broca’s aphasia also have trouble processing the diatonic “grammar” of music?  Based on the work of Patel (Patel et al., 2008), there does seem to be some evidence to support this conclusion. Patel found that compared to a control group without Broca’s aphasia, patients with the disorder were less accurate in judging the harmonic syntaxical relationship of chord progressions, suggesting that the hierarchical organizational duty of Broca’s area is also responsible for forming the “grammatical” relationship in western tonal harmony. From these examples, we begin to see a pattern emerge where the relationships between form and meaning in both musical and linguistic contexts seem to be processed similarly in both healthy and aphasic individuals   

Musical Semantics

Having established overlap and shared domains between the neurological processing of both musical and linguistic syntax, it is natural to now turn our attention to examining the relationship between the neurological processing of musical and linguistic semantics.  As shown by Koelsch (Koelsch et al., 2004), when non musicians are primed either linguistically or musically for a certain word (in this case, the word in question was “wideness”), their event related potentials as measured by an EEG measured N400 reading (a measure responsive to priming) were lower compared to both the non linguistically and musically primed experimental conditions, suggesting that both the linguistic and musical information were priming the neurological semantic networks in a similar way. Furthermore, the location and strength of these readings at the neurological level were both taken from “the posterior position of the middle temporal gyrus (Koelsch et al., 2004 P.3)” and that the “location, strength, and dipoles did not differ statistically between the language and music domain (Koelsch et al., 2004 P.3)”. This data suggests that the semantics of both musical and language are not only processed in a similar way, but also share a similar neurological domain, which in itself points towards a strong relationship at a fundamental level between both musical and linguistic semantics. Further studies in this line of research have also backed up this viewpoint (Koelsch, 2011B)     

Having established and elaborated on the evidence for this “music-language-continuum”, we can see that there is a high degree of functional overlap between the neurological processing of both linguistic and musical syntax and semantics.  Based on these findings, Koelsch argues that the evidence suggests that our brains “do not treat language and music as strictly separate domains, but rather treat language as a special kind of music” (Koelsch, 2011A P. 16). In a sense, this aligns itself with the Patel’s (Patel, 2003) Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH), in which it is hypothesized that there is significant overlap between how our brains process both language and music. While outside the scope of this paper, it would be interesting to examine this statement through the lens of evolutionary neuroscience in order to get a clearer picture on both the historical development and relationship of musical and linguistic capabilities amongst our ancestors.

Conclusion     

Throughout the course of this paper, we have examined the relationship between music in language in multiple settings, particularly in phonology, pitch, tone, speech disorders, semantics, syntax, and neuroscience. From this brief overview, we have seen multiple instances of empirical evidence pointing towards a highly intertwined relationship between music and linguistic processing and production.  While much has been learned, this area of research is still making great strides in furthering our understanding of both academic disciplines. It is clear from the present findings that using the study of language or the study of music as a vehicle to increase the understanding of the other is a highly fertile field of research which can provide valuable insights into musical and linguistic cognition and acquisition.  

An interesting area of further inquiry, which was unfortunately outside the scope of this paper, is an analysis of the relationship between music and signed language. The evidence elaborated on above does seem to link musical and linguistic ability, but none of the sources cited studied this intersection. Based on what differences were seen between rates of perfect pitch recognition in L1 tonal language speakers and L1 non-tonal language speakers, it seems sound to conclude that what linguistic system we are exposed to can influence our musical experience. Without the space to report on the consensus of the literature, I will refrain from mere speculation. Nevertheless, given the links between music and non-signed languages discussed above, it is an area of research worth exploring.   

References 

Acharya AB, Wroten M. Broca Aphasia. [Updated 2023 Feb 13]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK436010/

Correia, A. I., Castro, S. L., MacGregor, C., Mullensiefen, D., Schellenberg, E. G., & Lima, C. F. (2022). Enhanced recognition of vocal emotions in individuals with naturally good musical abilities. Emotion, 22(5), 894-906. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000770 

Deutsch, D., Henthorn, T., Marvin, E., & Xu, H. (2006). Absolute pitch among American and Chinese conservatory students: prevalence differences, and evidence for a speech-related critical period. J Acoust Soc Am, 119(2), 719-722. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2151799 

Giuliano, R. J., Pfordresher, P. Q., Stanley, E. M., Narayana, S., & Wicha, N. Y. (2011). Native experience with a tone language enhances pitch discrimination and the timing of neural responses to pitch change. Front Psychol, 2, 146. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00146 

Goswami, U. (2011). A temporal sampling framework for developmental dyslexia. Trends Cogn Sci, 15(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.10.001 

Greenspon, E. B., & Montanaro, V. (2023). Singing ability is related to vocal emotion recognition: Evidence for shared sensorimotor processing across speech and music. Atten Percept Psychophys, 85(1), 234-243. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02613-0 

Koelsch, S (2002). Electric brain responses to inappropriate harmonies during listening to expressive music. Clinical Neurophysiology 113(1), 862-869.

Koelsch, S. (2011A). Toward a neural basis of music perception - a review and updated model. Front Psychol, 2, 110. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00110 

Koelsch, S. (2011B). Towards a neural basis of processing musical semantics. Phys Life Rev, 8(2), 89-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2011.04.004 

Koelsch, S., Kasper, E., Sammler, D., Schulze, K., Gunter, T., & Friederici, A. D. (2004). Music, language and meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing. Nat Neurosci, 7(3), 302-307. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1197 

Milovanov, R., Huotilainen, M., Valimaki, V., Esquef, P. A., & Tervaniemi, M. (2008). Musical aptitude and second language pronunciation skills in school-aged children: neural and behavioral evidence. Brain Res, 1194, 81-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2007.11.042 

Milovanov, R., Pietilä, P., Tervaniemi, M., & Esquef, P. A. A. (2010). Foreign language pronunciation skills and musical aptitude: A study of Finnish adults with higher education. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(1), 56-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2009.11.003 

Moritz, C., Yampolsky, S., Papadelis, G., Thomson, J., & Wolf, M. (2012). Links between early rhythm skills, musical training, and phonological awareness. Reading and Writing, 26(5), 739-769. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9389-0 

Nave, K. M., Snyder, J. S., & Hannon, E. E. (2023). Sustained musical beat perception develops into late childhood and predicts phonological abilities. Dev Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001513 

Patel, A. (2003). Language, music, syntax and the brain. Nature Neuroscience 6, 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1082 

Patel, A J. I., Marlies Wassenaar, Peter Hagoort. (2008). Music syntactic processing in agrammatic Broca's aphasia Aphasiology 22(7-8), 776-789. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687030701803804 

Patel, A. D. (2011). Why would Musical Training Benefit the Neural Encoding of Speech? The OPERA Hypothesis. Front Psychol, 2, 142. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142 

Patel, A. D., & Iversen, J. R. (2007). The linguistic benefits of musical abilities. Trends Cogn Sci, 11(9), 369-372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.08.003 

Robert Sparks, A. H. (1976). Method: Melodic Intonation Therapy for Aphasia Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, XLI, 287-297. 

Rohrmeier, M. (2011). Towards a generative syntax of tonal harmony. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 5(1), 35-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/17459737.2011.573676 

Swaminathan, S., & Schellenberg, E. G. (2020). Musical ability, music training, and language ability in childhood. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn, 46(12), 2340-2348. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000798 

Thompson, W. F., Schellenberg, E. G., & Husain, G. (2004). Decoding speech prosody: do music lessons help? Emotion, 4(1), 46-64. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.4.1.46 

Vines, B. W., Norton, A. C., & Schlaug, G. (2011). Non-invasive brain stimulation enhances the effects of melodic intonation therapy. Front Psychol, 2, 230. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00230 

Wong, P. C., Skoe, E., Russo, N. M., Dees, T., & Kraus, N. (2007). Musical experience shapes human brainstem encoding of linguistic pitch patterns. Nat Neurosci, 10(4), 420-422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1872 

Yao, Y., Chen, X., Chen, F., & Zhu, J. (2022). Musical Training Enhances Categorical Perception of Speech in Preschoolers: Training Duration and Musical Program Matter. J Speech Lang Hear Res, 65(11), 4469-4484. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00216