Research shows that people with musical training have different memory pathways compared to others.
Mr Brennan tested the ability of 72 people, including musicians and non-musicians, to recognise musical themes from popular TV shows, such as Friends, Law and Order and M*A*S*H.
They were required to differentiate between the original theme and a transposed version where pitch, tempo, or both pitch and tempo had been changed.
Mr Brennan found both musicians and non-musicians could identify the original theme when it was compared with a version where just the pitch or tempo was changed.
But musicians did much better at identifying the original theme compared to a version where both pitch and tempo had been changed proportionally, or had been moved up and down by exactly the same degree.