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UNCG School of Music Hires Renowned Researcher
Dr. Donald Hodges leads nation in music and brain research

GREENSBORO – What is happening inside a musician’s mind as he or she plays a Beethoven sonata? How can harp music restore balance to a young patient’s life signs in the middle of surgery? How can a student have a cognitive disorder and still excel at playing the guitar?

Dr. Donald Hodges, who was appointed to the Covington Distinguished Professorship at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in August, is determined to find the scientific explanations to questions like these.

“There is nothing magical about music, but it is very mysterious. It has powerful effects but we don’t know how,” said Hodges, who has done research in the interrelated fields of music, psychology and medicine for more than 20 years.

By mapping musicians’ brains with a PET scanner as they study scores, sing or play an instrument, the professor is identifying the physiological changes that take place while a person is engaged in musical activity. In 1997 he received a $250,000 grant from the Texaco Foundation to study eight pianists while they played Bach. Hodges collaborated with neurobiologist Peter Fox and cognitive neuroscientist Larry Parsons.

The study and similar research has led him to discover that musical interpretation occurs across several centers in the brain and is not concentrated in the right hemisphere. He also documented the hot spots of activity that emerge, while the frontal lobe, which is responsible for higher-level thinking, basically shuts down. The result is that musicians perform essentially on auto-pilot and avoid “paralysis by analysis.”

Hodges first became interested in the interdisciplinary applications of music while an undergraduate at the University of Kansas. There he was influenced by E. Thayer Gaston, a pioneer in music therapy. Hodges went on to earn a doctorate in music education at the University of Texas and started the Institute for Music Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1992. He served as a professor in music education at UTSA for 23 years and the institute’s director.

Hodges is continuing his studies at UNCG, where he is starting interdisciplinary research projects that unite music with biology and psychology. He is also pursuing research about music-related hearing loss with UNCG’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

“This is not going to be a one-man band,” he said. “I want to get as many people involved as possible.”

Hodges also plans to establish a music camp for students with Williams Syndrome. Caused by a missing chromosome, the syndrome results in cognitive disorders in some intelligences but clusters of enhanced abilities in others - often music and/or language. In 1999, Hodges was involved with a similar camp for Williams Syndrome children at UTSA.

The widely-published professor has performed (he plays the horn), conducted and lectured throughout the United States and abroad, including Canada, Russia, Israel, Crete, Germany, England, Norway, Belgium, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and S.E. Asia.  Most recently, he presented “Mapping the Musical Brain” in Germany at the International Society for Music Medicine symposium. In addition, he is the author of Handbook of Music Psychology, now in its second edition, and several multimedia companions to the book.

This summer, his expertise was sought by PBS for a three-part television series about music and the mind. He has also worked with National Musical Arts’ program BioMusic to help develop a traveling museum exhibition on animal sound-making and human musicality. BioMusic is a trans-disciplinary think-tank of scientists and musicians exploring the linkages between musical sounds in all species.

Dean John Deal of UNCG’s School of Music believes Hodges’ presence on campus will set the stage for a new era of research at the school.

“Don Hodges brings a level of research success to the School of Music that will not only enhance the already high level of research in music education, but expand the opportunities for creative activity and research across all divisions of the School of Music,” the dean said. “I am convinced that his work on campus, and in conjunction with other areas in the sciences and humanities, will bring a new spark of excitement to the research activity of the university and put UNCG on the map as the center for research in music.”

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