You (glenn) seem to be suggesting that musical training could be *listening* differently, not just becoming more educated through formal schooling to make sound, like how we think of music so far.

i understand this distinction for practical scientific purposes but i find myself wondering if this sort of limited study group perpetuates false paradigms of what constitutes formal musical training and serves to support cultural musical colonialism and biases. formal musical training can involve listening to nature and transforming that understanding of the sonic world into sound. this can be an act passed down via listening traditions or other practices. all children are musical in their early years, but at a point in their development some continue to consider themselves musical while others accept they are non-musical. my informal observation is these choices are enforced by the formalized and institutionalized music and art practices. i’d be curious about child physical and psychological profiles up till the point where the musician identity changes– perhaps age 0-5. active listening is musical composition. if you accept that all sound is music but it is the biases of culture, identity and so on that declare sound/performance un-musical then the idea of formal musical training vis academic / scientific definitions are anemic. so i would suggest that perhaps it is not formal musical training that affects processing circuitry but rather the listening and expression practice in general and can be found in other populations and practices regardless of the formal musical training component.

Glenn, I should have made a stronger qualifying statement on the definition of the word “musician” in psychology. Practically speaking, a musician is someone who plays or sings. Scientifically speaking, a “musician’s brain” is one that shows processing circuitry — actual physical structures — that are distinct from a non-musician’s. There are behavioral differences (i.e., auditory perception and cognition) between persons who have had lots of musical training and practice, and those who haven’t. These changes are along a continuum, of course, so we draw the line between “musician” and “non-musician” at the point that includes the vast majority in each sample. That is currently around 5 years of musical training. Folks with 2 or 3 years of musical training show physical and psychological profiles somewhere in between. A scientific definition of “musician” is useful in science, but it doesn’t apply in art.

my comment should have been edited to state: why is a musician defined as those with five or more years of formal musical training starting before age 14? its a false paradigm and negates many professional / cultural musicians and music makers.