That way, you still hear the beats but are able to enjoy the music.

If this masking works with “noise,” it’s yet more impactful with music.įor this project, we made use of the effects of auditory beats by embedding them in music designed for this very purpose. When individual tones are masked to some extent by surrounding sounds, the brain discerns the tones more strongly. Gerald Oster, Scientific American, 1972, Auditory Beats in the Brain When two appropriate tones are presented to the ears so that binaural beats are produced, and are accompanied in each ear by noise just loud enough to obscure the tones, the beats become more distinct. It’s one of the answers to the question, how do binaural beats work? Luckily, this is where the magic of binaural beats music comes into play. We’re unable to hear vibrations lower than 25 times per second, which is approximately the level of the lowest tones on a piano. Sadly, because brainwave frequencies are too low for us to discern musical tones below a certain level, it’s just not that simple. Wouldn’t you love to be able to play musical tones that align with your brainwave frequencies?

How Do Binaural Beats Work to Entrain Our Brains? Brainwaves in Our Response to Music Research conducted on auditory beats has shown that external beats such as the ones you’ll hear in these recordings induces brain frequency changes.Īlignment of the body and mind with tones and rhythms in brainwave music is referred to as entrainment.Įntrainment is capable of influencing cognitive processing much like phase locking. “Phase locking” is a phenomenon that occurs when one area of the brain stimulates another area on the same frequency of brainwaves. The activity in the brain is then guided in a new direction in concert with these musical beats.Īnd that’s another example of how binaural beats work in music. When enough neurons are fired and join in the rhythm, its strength becomes measurable via electroencephalograph, or EEG.Įven weaker individual brain cells join in with this rhythm, creating an electrochemical rhythmic pulse. This leads to more firing neurons, repeating again and again, until a pulsing rhythm results. With this firing of brain cells, surrounding neurons begin to respond. This trigger causes an electrical communication signal to pass from our auditory system to our brain cells. The moment we hear a musical beat, and for as long as the sounds continue, neurons in our brains repeatedly trigger in rhythm. If you’ve ever found yourself tapping your foot or felt your body swaying to a melody, you’re familiar with this phenomenon. Music ignites a chemical signal, or firing, of our brain cells.

Do binaural beats work