Dr. Andrzej Miśkiewicz from the Department of Musical Acoustics, the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, wants to compare auditory skills of musicians and people without musical training in a variety of tasks unrelated to music.

Respondents will listen to various sounds, which they may hear in everyday life. These will be simple sounds you hear at home when going for a walk: passing car or barking dog. "We will examine how musicians and people without musical training react to these sounds" - said the acoustics expert in an interview with PAP.

The researcher will test how different people recognize sounds that are difficult to hear, e.g. extremely quiet or masked by other sounds. "The sounds will be well known and played in different conditions" - added Miśkiewicz. He will measured response time to determine how much time the subject needs to recognize individual sounds, and at what volume the sound is heard and recognized.

"Our working hypothesis is that musicians will be better at these tasks. This hypothesis, however, has never been verified in a systematic way" - noted Andrzej Miśkiewicz.

The scientist explained that musical education involves developing certain listening skills associated with the profession of musician, such as recognition of musical intervals, harmonic structures or musical instruments. "However, in recent years, there have been reports attesting to the fact that musical education also affects the development of auditory skills in situations which have no connection with music" - said the scientist.

Dr. Miśkiewicz spoke about studies, which showed that music education improves the ability to learn foreign languages. "Perhaps this is due to the fact that musicians have better educated listening skills and quickly identify the nuances of sounds in different languages" - noted the musical acoustics expert.

"We should know how music affects the development of different auditory skills" - he said. He admitted that music education used to be more common than it is today. "When we give up music education, do we lose something associated with extra-musical skills?" - wonders the scientist from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music.

He believes that with the exception of with certain pathological dysfunctions, anyone can learn music, although not everyone can be the next Mozart or Chopin.

He noted that in the UK studies were carried out on non-musical people who say that they "can\'t sing to save their life". It turned out that the reluctance of such persons to singing and music resulted - largely - from certain psychological conditions. "In life of these people usually at some point there was a trauma, an event that made them not want to have anything to do with music. In most cases, school teachers are to blame for this" - admitted the researcher.

He explained that the persons who now avoid music, in childhood usually were punished for singing out of tune or not being able to play a musical instrument. "These people believed that they were not good enough for music. Such block in children can be caused by a remark of a teacher or a parent" - noted Miśkiewicz.

And what - beyond the musical sensibilities - does a person lose, when he or she gives up singing or playing an instrument? Studies will show.

Dr. Andrzej Miśkiewicz carries out research project "Recognition of environmental sounds by musicians and non-musicians" funded by the OPUS programme of the National Science Centre.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Ludwika Tomala

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