Tuning a piano also tunes the brain, say researchers who have seen structural changes within the brains of professional piano tuners. Researchers at University College London and Newcastle University found listening to two notes played simultaneously makes the brain adapt. Brain scans revealed highly specific changes in the hippocampus, which governs memory and navigation.
These correlated with the number of years tuners had been doing this job. The Wellcome Trust researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 19 professional piano tuners - who play two notes simultaneously to make them pitch-perfect - and 19 other people. What they saw was highly ...
