Originally published 2017-10-11.
Musicians love the old joke about the three kinds of drummers in the world: the ones who can count and the ones who can't. Behind the joke is a serious question. Does years of drumming change the brain, and are drummers different from the rest of us?
The short answer: drumming trains an unusually precise sense of timing and coordination, and actively playing music with others appears to trigger an endorphin "high" that raises pain tolerance and lifts mood. What the research does not show is that drummers are smarter overall. Several popular claims grew out of small studies, informal tests and enthusiastic headlines. Here is what the evidence supports, and where the story has been stretched.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
Why keeping time is a brain skill
Holding a steady beat looks effortless when a good drummer does it, but it draws on several brain systems at once. Areas involved in movement planning, the cerebellum and the basal ganglia help predict when the next beat should land. The auditory system listens to the result, and the brain continuously compares the two, nudging each stroke earlier or later by a few milliseconds.
Drummers also have to split their limbs into independent parts: one hand on the hi-hat, the other on the snare, one foot on the bass drum and another on the pedal. That kind of four-way coordination is demanding for anyone, and it improves with thousands of hours of deliberate practice. Studies of musicians in general report differences in brain structure and connectivity compared with non-musicians, but it is hard to separate cause from effect: practice may shape the brain, and people with certain aptitudes may be more likely to keep practising.
The Swedish timing study behind the headlines
In 2008 a study from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm was widely reported under headlines claiming that drummers are natural intellectuals. As reported at the time, the researchers found that people who could tap a steady beat with less variation tended to score higher on intelligence tests, and that both abilities seemed to draw on overlapping brain regions involved in planning and problem-solving.
That is an interesting link between timing precision and general reasoning. But the study was about timing as a skill in the participants tested, not a comparison of professional drummers with other musicians. The leap from "steadier timing is associated with higher test scores" to "drummers are smarter than their bandmates" was made by the press rather than the data. A correlation of that kind also does not mean that learning to drum would raise anyone's IQ.
David Eagleman, Brian Eno and the drummers
Neuroscientist David Eagleman, who teaches at Stanford and is known for his research on how the brain perceives time, is the other name that often appears in this story. A 2011 New Yorker profile of Eagleman described how the musician and producer Brian Eno, curious about whether drummers think differently, helped arrange for Eagleman to test the timing of several professional drummers.
According to accounts of that session, the drummers' timing was far more precise than that of ordinary test subjects, and the result led to speculation that something about their brains is physically different. It is worth keeping this in proportion. It was a small, informal comparison with a handful of experts, not a peer-reviewed brain-imaging study, and practised experts outperforming beginners at their own speciality is what we would expect.
Still, the finding fits a broader pattern: people who spend years training a precise sensorimotor skill, whether drumming, sprint starts or surgery, become measurably better at the timing judgements that skill depends on.
The "drummer's high"
The strongest evidence in this area comes from a 2012 study led by Oxford psychologist Robin Dunbar and published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology. The team used pain threshold as an indirect measure of endorphin release, applying gradually increasing pressure to participants' arms until they said it hurt.
- A group of twelve drummers who played together for about 30 minutes showed a significantly higher pain threshold afterwards, and reported more positive feelings, than music-shop staff who spent the same time working with background music.
- People who sang, clapped and moved together in a lively church group showed a similar rise compared with a quieter prayer meeting.
- Simply listening to music, fast or slow, through headphones produced no increase.
The researchers concluded that the effect comes from actively performing music, not from the music itself, and suggested that this endorphin boost may help explain why making music together strengthens social bonds and cooperation.
Drumming, recovery and wellbeing
Topper Headon, the drummer of The Clash from 1977 to 1982, has spoken about drumming as a basic and ancient human activity with real therapeutic value. His own life gives that view weight: he was asked to leave the band in 1982 because of heroin addiction, later rebuilt his life, and became a spokesman for the Hepatitis C Trust after being treated for the disease.
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has long promoted rhythm as a tool for health. He has worked with neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, who studies brain function and ageing, on projects exploring how rhythm affects the brain, and he has spoken about using drum circles with people living with dementia. Music and rhythm activities are widely used in care settings to improve mood and engagement, although they are not a treatment for the underlying disease. Anyone interested in music-based therapy for a health condition should talk to a doctor or a qualified music therapist.
Polyrhythms and the big kit
Part of the fascination with drummers comes from watching players who seem to run several clocks at once. Stewart Copeland of The Police became famous for layering reggae-influenced patterns against the expected rock beat, while Terry Bozzio, known for his work with Frank Zappa and Missing Persons, performs solo concerts on enormous custom kits with dozens of drums and cymbals, playing melodies as well as rhythms.
Playing polyrhythms, such as three beats against two or four against three, requires the brain to hold two different pulses in mind and coordinate the body to both. It is a skill that can be learned slowly by almost anyone, which says more about the power of practice than about a special type of brain.
Myths and practical takeaways
- Myth: drummers are smarter than other musicians. No study has shown this. Research links precise timing with some reasoning abilities, but that is a different claim.
- Myth: listening to drums gives the same high. In the Oxford experiments, listening alone did not raise pain tolerance. Taking part did.
- Myth: you are born a drummer or you are not. Timing improves with practice at any age.
If you want to try it, start simply: practise with a metronome at a slow tempo, count subdivisions out loud, use body percussion on your knees or a tabletop, and join a drum circle or a local class. You may not end up with a brain like Terry Bozzio's, but the research suggests you are very likely to enjoy the mood boost that comes from making rhythm with other people.
Sources: Pacific Standard on Robin Dunbar's 2012 study; Open Culture, "The Neuroscience of Drumming"; David Eagleman (Wikipedia); Topper Headon (Wikipedia); The New Yorker profile "The Possibilian" (2011); The Telegraph and Mic coverage of the Karolinska study.
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