# Magnets and Piano Keys

- Link: https://clearingintheforest.org/magnets-and-piano-keys/
- Published: 2026-10-20T21:59:27+00:00
- Author: Saal_clearingforest

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Start

the question

Practice

brain map

Coil Lab

how it works

Jammer

the experiments

Proof

does it work?

Quiz

win a trophy

Sources

for grown-ups

Room 1 · The big question

# Can a magnet make you better at piano?

Scientists have a gadget called a **TMS coil**. You hold it against your head and
it sends magnetic pulses into your brain. No surgery, no wires inside you.

Some people hope it could help you learn things faster, like playing the piano. 
Is that true? Let's find out like real scientists do: test it, then check the proof.

 First, what's your name?

Your guide's real story

**Alvaro Pascual-Leone** is a brain scientist from Spain. In the 1990s, at the US
National Institutes of Health and later at Harvard, he and his team used TMS coils
to watch how the brain changes when people learn the piano.

You're going to do the experiments he did. Then you'll judge the evidence yourself.

[Ref: Pascual-Leone A et al., J Neurophysiol 1995;74:1037–1045]

Spoiler alert? No. You decide at the end. 🎹

Room 2 · Experiment 1 (1995)

## Your brain has a piano map

In 1995, volunteers practised this five-finger exercise for **2 hours a day for 
5 days**, keeping to a metronome. Each day the scientists used TMS pulses to **measure**
how much of the brain controlled those fingers. That patch got bigger. Play it yourself
and watch your map grow.

Tap the keys, or press 1 2 3 4 5 on your keyboard.

**0**days practised

**100%**map size

**0**skill points

### What they found

Real practice made the finger map grow **and** made people play better. The surprise:
people who only **imagined** playing also grew their map, but their playing improved
less. When they then did some real practice, they caught up fast.

**Important:** in this study TMS was only a measuring tape. It did not help anyone
learn. Practice did.

[Ref: Pascual-Leone A et al., J Neurophysiol 1995;74:1037–1045]

 [ Next: how does the coil work? → ](https://clearingintheforest.org/magnets-and-piano-keys/#coil)

Room 3 · The Coil Lab

## A magnet that makes electricity inside your head

In 1831 **Michael Faraday** found that a **changing** magnetic field makes electricity
flow in a nearby wire. Your phone's wireless charger uses the same trick.

A TMS coil does it with your brain. Brain tissue is salty and wet, so it conducts.
The coil's quick magnetic pulse makes a tiny electric current there, and that current
can make nerve cells fire.

[Ref: Hallett M, Neuron 2007;55:187–199]

1

A huge current zaps through the coil.

2

A magnetic field flashes on and off.

3

It makes a tiny electric field in the brain.

4

Nerve cells' long "wires" fire.

5

Over the hand area, a finger twitches!

Tap each step for more. [Ref: Siebner HR et al., Clin Neurophysiol 2022;140:59–97]

### Fire the coil yourself

Pick a pulse pattern. Watch the nerve cells. The meter shows whether the brain area
ends up **pumped up** or **calmed down** afterwards.

After-effect on the brain area

calmednormalpumped

Pick a pattern to start.

### Why the effect lasts: the learning switch

When you practise, the links between nerve cells get stronger. The pulses seem to
use that **same** switch. In a test with six adults, a medicine that blocks the 
switch (it blocks "NMDA receptors") also blocked the coil's after-effects.

**But** everyone's brain reacts differently. For some people the pulses do the opposite
of what's expected. Scientists can only predict about a third of these differences.

[Ref: Huang YZ et al., Clin Neurophysiol 2007;118:1028–1032] [Ref: Hamada M et al.,
Cereb Cortex 2013;23:1593–1605] [Ref: Hordacre B et al., Brain Stimul 2017;10:588–
595]

 [ Next: the jammer experiments → ](https://clearingintheforest.org/magnets-and-piano-keys/#jammer)

Room 4 · Experiment 2 (1997)

## Jam the brain's planner

Scientists often use the coil to briefly **jam** one brain area, like static on 
a radio, and see what breaks. In 1997 Christian Gerloff's team jammed the **SMA**,
a strip on top of the brain. People made mistakes in **complicated** piano sequences
played from memory, but simple repeated taps were fine.

**0**right notes

**0**scrambled

**S = SMA, the planner.** Gets the next notes ready. Jam it and complex tunes fall
apart. [Ref: Gerloff C et al., Brain 1997;120:1587–1602]

**M = motor cortex, the keyboard.** Sends the "press now" signal to each finger.
Jamming the one on the **same** side as the playing hand messed up timing too, so
piano needs both halves of your brain. [Ref: Chen R et al., Ann Neurol 1997;41:247–
254]

**P = premotor area, the translator.** Links the sound you hear to the key you press.
Calming it made learning a new note-to-key pattern harder. [Ref: Lega C et al., 
PLoS One 2016;11:e0163380]

 [ Next: so does it help you learn? → ](https://clearingintheforest.org/magnets-and-piano-keys/#proof)

Room 5 · Judge the evidence

## Detective time: tap each case file

Real scientists rank evidence by **where** it was published and **how well** it 
was tested. Green means one of the top five brain-science journals. Red means outside
them. Yellow means not checked by other scientists yet.

### The Proof-o-Meter

### The verdict

The coil is a brilliant tool for **finding out** how your brain plays piano. There
is **no strong proof** that it helps healthy people learn piano faster. Only one
small study says it might, and the newest study found no help. What really grows
your piano brain? **Practice.**

 [ Next: win your trophy → ](https://clearingintheforest.org/magnets-and-piano-keys/#quiz)

Room 6 · Brain check

## Tick what you now know

  A changing magnetic field makes a tiny electric current in the brain.  Practice
makes the brain's finger map grow. Imagining helps a bit too.  Slow pulses tend 
to calm an area; fast bursts tend to pump it up.  Jamming the SMA breaks complex
tunes, not simple taps.  There's no strong proof the coil helps you learn piano.

Room 7 · For parents, teachers and the curious

## Where every fact came from

"Top five" here means the five highest-impact neuroscience and neurology journals:
_Neuron, Brain, Annals of Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience_ and _Cerebral Cortex_.
Only studies of healthy people learning piano or keyboard sequences are included.
Musician's dystonia studies were left out on purpose.

### Top-five journals

 * [Ref: Gerloff C, Corwell B, Chen R, Hallett M, Cohen LG. Stimulation over the
   human supplementary motor area interferes with the organization of future elements
   in complex motor sequences. Brain 1997;120:1587–1602]
 * [Ref: Chen R, Gerloff C, Hallett M, Cohen LG. Involvement of the ipsilateral 
   motor cortex in finger movements of different complexities. Ann Neurol 1997;41:
   247–254]
 * [Ref: Huang YZ, Edwards MJ, Rounis E, Bhatia KP, Rothwell JC. Theta burst stimulation
   of the human motor cortex. Neuron 2005;45:201–206. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2004.12.033]
 * [Ref: Hallett M. Transcranial magnetic stimulation: a primer. Neuron 2007;55:
   187–199. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2007.06.026]
 * [Ref: Hamada M, Murase N, Hasan A, Balaratnam M, Rothwell JC. The role of interneuron
   networks in driving human motor cortical plasticity. Cereb Cortex 2013;23:1593–
   1605. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs147]

### Other sources (flagged in the text)

 * [Ref: Pascual-Leone A, Nguyet D, Cohen LG, Brasil-Neto JP, Cammarota A, Hallett
   M. Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation
   during the acquisition of new fine motor skills. J Neurophysiol 1995;74:1037–
   1045]
 * [Ref: Kim YK, Shin SH. Comparison of effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation
   on primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area in motor skill learning (
   randomized, cross over study). Front Hum Neurosci 2014;8:937. doi:10.3389/fnhum.
   2014.00937]
 * [Ref: Lega C, Stephan MA, Zatorre RJ, Penhune V. Testing the role of dorsal premotor
   cortex in auditory-motor association learning using transcranial magnetic stimulation(
   TMS). PLoS One 2016;11:e0163380]
 * [Ref: Huang YZ, Chen RS, Rothwell JC, Wen HY. The after-effect of human theta
   burst stimulation is NMDA receptor dependent. Clin Neurophysiol 2007;118:1028–
   1032]
 * [Ref: Chen R, Classen J, Gerloff C, et al. Depression of motor cortex excitability
   by low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation. Neurology 1997;48:1398–1403]
 * [Ref: Siebner HR, Funke K, Aberra AS, et al. Transcranial magnetic stimulation
   of the brain: what is stimulated? A consensus and critical position paper. Clin
   Neurophysiol 2022;140:59–97]
 * [Ref: Suppa A, Huang YZ, Funke K, et al. Ten years of theta burst stimulation
   in humans: established knowledge, unknowns and prospects. Brain Stimul 2016;9:
   323–335. doi:10.1016/j.brs.2016.01.006]
 * [Ref: Hordacre B, Goldsworthy MR, Vallence AM, et al. Variability in neural excitability
   and plasticity induction in the human cortex: a brain stimulation study. Brain
   Stimul 2017;10:588–595]
 * [Ref: Left-DLPFC theta-burst stimulation produces delayed effects on musical 
   pleasure without affecting piano-melody learning. bioRxiv preprint 2026. doi:
   10.64898/2026.09.20.753042. Not peer-reviewed]

Illustrations are original drawings. Compiled 20 October 2026.

Written by **Dr Saal Seneviratne**, Consultant Psychiatrist at [The Burlington Clinic](https://www.theburlingtonclinic.com),
London · Last reviewed 21 October 2026 · [About these pages](https://clearingintheforest.org/about/)