Processing music: a Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach

So you're listening to music. As I've mentioned before, all this means is that air molecules are vibrating in certain ways and beating against aural membrane in given patterns. But how do we make thoughtful sense of this physical phenomenon? Our brains, upon receiving musical input, extract it into features (pitch, rhythm etc.) and then integrate the features to form broader musical concepts.

So let's say the stimulus here is an outside source such as music playing from your headphones. Certain neural networks extract what you hear into features such as rhythm and pitch. This is called bottom-up processing: we are only concerned at this stage with what's coming directly from stimulus. Bottom-up processing isn't about preconceived notions or other ideas we have about the stimulus. This type of processing is simply, cut-and-dry, about what we are processing directly from the stimulus.

As you listen to this music, your frontal cortex is constantly predicting what will come next and forming new expectations based on what you've already heard. For instance when listening to a pop song, you somehow "know" when the chorus is about to happen. When you listen to a symphony you somehow "know" when the movement is about to end. If you've heard the song before, you know for sure what will come next when you listen to it again. Bringing this "bias" to the table when listening to music is referred to as top-down processing: what you already know is influencing how you perceive the stimulus.

So when we listen to music, both top-down and bottom-up processing are hard at work. As your brain analyzes the individual features of what you're listening to (extraction), you are processing bottom-up. However, the constructed representation of the music, as well as inferences made about it, are thanks to top-down processing. Schemas (mentioned in previous post) also result from top-down processing.

Think of it like this:

Bottom Up: Sensory input gets sent and sorted in Brain (extraction)
Top Down: Brain affects perceived input and makes sense of it (integration) 

The Mental Map of Music: Explored through Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"

Imagine you're in a situation involving music. Maybe you're listening to your favorite song, or maybe you're conducting an orchestra. Perhaps you are dancing to a beat or even singing along.  Daniel Levitin, in his book This is Your Brain on Music, gives some valuable insights as to how the brain "deals with" music. While in 2010 I followed David Huron's Sweet Anticipation, this year I will be following along with Levitin's book. So unless stated otherwise, assume for now that my "works cited" bibliography for each post is This is Your Brain on Music. 

Back on topic....

Unfortunately we do not have a virtual MRI online to illustrate what parts of the brain are active when processing music so I'll try to textually demystify what's going on where and when. One important thing to realize is that there is not one "music center" of the brain. All of your brain works to process music. Another important point is that brain activity isn't always linear. For example, you can process hearing music and reading music simultaneously; you don't need to finish processing one before you start the other.

When you're following along with Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", chances are you remember what's going to come next. "P-p-p...[what's next?] ....Poker Face" of course! You also likely have certain memories associated with this song, and thus the hippocampus, our home-base for memory, is used.

As you listen to this song of yours on the bus going to school, you eventually find yourself tapping along to the beat. Or maybe if you're in class and the song runs through your head, you "mentally" tap to the beat since you can't make any noise. Either way, here you're using the timing circuits in the cerebellum, the oldest part of your brain that helps plan movement and physical balance.

Later in the week you are asked to perform in your school's talent show. You get together with some friends and decide to do a dance arrangement of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." Let's think about what exactly will be involved from a neuro standpoint. You'll use the hippocampus as you're listening to the song play and remembering what will come next. Your cerebellum will help keep your balance and sense of movement when you dance. You'll use your frontal lobes for the planning of behavior as you perform. How will you move next? Then the motor cortex and sensory cortex will give tactile cues to let you know that you've stepped in the right direction or moved your arm the right way. You'll use the visual cortex in your occipital lobe as you watch the other dancers to make sure you're keeping in line.

Towards the middle of your spectacular performance, you'll likely start to really "get into the music." Your emotional center, the amygdala will allow you to associate strong emotion with the piece. The cerebellar vermis in the reptilian  regions also plays a role in emotion.

With all of this said, we can't forget the areas that are involved at the core in listening to music: the temporal lobes! They process the sound from the ear! For more information on this, see earlier posts.


Our brains each have around 100 billion neurons hard at work. As you can see, so much of the brain is used in conjunction with music it is no wonder we are often so tired after long concerts...and of course I haven't even touched upon secondary factors such as stage fright and concentration.