Making Music With Muscles

Thomas Fritz, Leader of the Music Evoked Brain Plasticity Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, knows how to make people happy and fearless – essentially as a kind of welcome side-effect. He conducts experiments using exercise machines with which you can create music.

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Slaves used to sing on the cotton plantations of North America, as did convicts in quarries. Mariners belted out shanties at the top of their lungs to counter the wind and waves. Even today, soldiers sing cadence calls while marching, for extra motivation. And scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig use exercise machines to produce energizing rhythms and melodies. In search of a name for this new – and at first glance surprising – activity, they coined the label “Jymmin” – a cross between “jamming” and “gym.”

Music makes physical exertion easier. That’s why work songs have a longstanding tradition. It was previously assumed that singing songs while working serves to establish a regular beat that synchronizes the workflow and possibly also distracts the workers from the strenuousness of their labor. Yet Thomas Fritz, Leader of the Music Evoked Brain Plasticity Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, and professor for empirical music research at the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music in Ghent, has arrived at a different conclusion. His studies with exercise machines that create music show that making music while doing a physical workout does in fact reduce the physical strain – at least with regard to strength training.

MAKING MUSIC IS SPORTIER THAN LISTENING TO MUSIC