Neural and Circulatory Systems used in Piano Playing

The nervous system plays a crucial role in piano playing, orchestrating a complex interplay of sensory, motor, and cognitive processes to enable the pianist to produce beautiful and expressive music. The nervous system's involvement in piano playing can be divided into three primary components: sensory input, motor output, and cognitive processing.

1. Sensory input: The nervous system's role begins with the perception of sensory information related to piano playing. As a pianist strikes the keys, their fingertips register tactile feedback, and their ears perceive the resulting sounds. The auditory and somatosensory systems relay this information to the brain, where it is processed and integrated with other sensory input, such as visual cues from sheet music or the keyboard.
2. Motor output: The motor aspect of the nervous system is responsible for coordinating and executing the complex finger, hand, and arm movements required for piano playing. The primary motor cortex sends signals through the spinal cord to the muscles, controlling the intricate finger movements needed to strike the keys with the right force, timing, and position. In addition, the cerebellum plays a vital role in maintaining the smoothness and accuracy of these movements by refining and adjusting the motor commands based on sensory feedback.
3. Cognitive processing: The cognitive aspect of the nervous system is crucial for interpreting and making sense of the sensory information, as well as planning, learning, and memorizing musical pieces. The prefrontal cortex is involved in decision-making, selecting which notes to play, and adapting to changes in tempo or dynamics. The hippocampus and other memory-related brain areas are responsible for encoding, consolidating, and recalling long-term memories of musical compositions and motor sequences. Furthermore, the emotional aspect of music, such as interpreting and conveying emotions through the music, engages the limbic system, a network of brain regions involved in processing and regulating emotions.

The nervous system's role in piano playing is multifaceted, involving sensory perception, motor control, and cognitive processes. It allows the pianist to transform written notes into expressive music, seamlessly integrating complex motor movements with real-time sensory feedback and higher-order cognitive functions. The nervous system's adaptability and plasticity also enable the pianist to refine their skills through practice, leading to the development of advanced techniques, increased musical understanding, and enhanced performance.

In combining the two remaining systems that make up the physiological organism there is danger that their importance, particularly that of the nervous system, may be underestimated. In piano playing the whole learning and playing process is inseparably bound up with nerves and their centres:

1. the spinal cord and
2. the brain.

But the study of these phases is primarily a psychological problem, and I wish to limit the present investigation to the mechanical and physiological fields, particularly the muscular fields. Accordingly, a brief exposition of the various parts of the nervous and circulatory systems, and of their principles of operation, must suffice.

The functional unit of the nervous system is the nerve cell or neuron. Of this there are three kinds :

1. sensory,
2. motor, and
3. intercalated.

The sensory cells bring the neural impulses in from the sense organs, the motor neurons carry the impulses out to the muscles, and the intercalated^[1] cells join, in a very elaborate scheme, the cells of the other two groups. The three groups are also called receptors, effectors, and conductors, respectively. Thus we have the three fundamental requirements of a nervous system:

1. a means for registering impressions from the outside world,
2. a means for conducting, transforming, storing, and elaborating them, and
3. a means for expressing through movement, these impressions, memories, and elaborations.

The spinal cord has, as one of its chief functions, the care of reflex action. By reflex action is meant a response of the organism not involving consciousness or the interposition^[2] of a brain. Moreover, since the efficiency of reflex action depends upon speed, it is not surprising to find sensory and motor paths, which lead to the same bodily region, entering and leaving the spinal cord in close proximity to each other. This topographical relationship applies to the general regions also:

1. the centres for foot and leg are in the lower region of the spinal cord,
2. those for hands and arms in the upper region.

The second function of the spinal cord is its connection with the brain, as a result of which volition can at any time stop the reflexes or modify them. But more important still is the fact that by repetition of voluntary movement, which must always begin under direct brain control (if pupils only realized this in early stages of practice l), the brain is needed less and less until, finally, it is relieved of all participation and we have what is known as an acquired reflex, the work of the spinal centres.

In thus speaking of nerves entering and leaving the cord one must not think of a small number, Ingbert counted approximately six hundred and fifty thousand fibers, in the dorsal roots entering one side of the spinal cord. The diameter of these fibers varies ; the thickest does not exceed one two-thousandth of an inch.
Of the five parts of the brain, the cerebrum and the cerebellum are the most important for our purposes, since it is these part s that are chiefly concerned with learning in all its forms. The cerebellum, or small-brain, acts as a reflex center for

1. posture,
2. muscular tensions,
3. movements, and
4. external strains.

To these belong the sensory impulses arising in a muscle when it contracts passively as a result of the action of external forces. Injury to the cerebellum is similar to injury to the semi-circular canals of the ear; both are followed by loss of sustained posture and muscle tonus. These various parts of the nervous system are connected in many ways by the nerves of popular terminology. In the case of the arms, the sensory pathways enter the spinal cord by the dorsal roots, some passing directly to the ventral chord^[3], others continuing up through the cord to the bulb (base of the brain), thence to the thalamus, where new cells arise and lead to the cortex of the cerebellum. Thus at least three sets of fibers must be innervated before a sensory impression from the arms (legs or trunk likewise) can reach the brain proper.

Thus we speak of a

1. motor area,
2. auditory area, and
3. visual area.

This is not supposition, nor has it anything to do with phrenology. Evidence is furnished by direct experimentation (not only in the lower animals and anthropoid apes, but also on man), by human pathology^[4] and by comparative anatomy. When certain areas of the brain are directly stimulated, sensations and movements result, corresponding to the area stimulated, and these responses are absent if other areas are stimulated. Disease in a certain area will result in loss of sensation or movement for that field, a loss that extends even to memories and ideations. Finally, comparative anatomy shows that high development in any capacity is accompanied by high development in the corresponding cortical area ^[5]. This, however, is something far different from the knowledge bumps of the phrenologists.

[1] intercalate: verb past tense: intercalated; past participle: intercalated 1. interpolate (an intercalary period) in a calendar. 2. insert (something) between layers in a crystal lattice, geological formation, or other structure.

[2] interpose: v. interposed, interposing, interposes v.tr. 1. a. To insert or introduce between parts: The ice interposes a barrier between the harbor and the islands. b. To place (oneself) between others or things. Historical Example: The primary bodily movements are reflex, instinctive, emotional, the action following without any interposition of consciousness.

[3] ventral chord: The ventral nerve cord makes up the nervous system of some phyla of the invertebrates, particularly within the nematodes, annelids and the arthropods. It usually consists of cerebral ganglia anteriorly with the nerve cords running down the ventral ("belly", as opposed to back) plane of the organism.

[4] pathology: the science of the causes and effects of diseases, especially the branch of medicine that deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissue for diagnostic or forensic purposes.

[5] Cortical area: Cortical areas that are neither motor or sensory but are thought to be involved in higher processing of information. auditory area, auditory cortex. The cortical area that receives auditory information from the medial geniculate body.