The Effects of Music on Human Feelings - Report Example

Running Head: Music and Brain Introduction Previous Lectures have widely covered the effects of music on human feelings and behavior. Further research has driven me to sources that dig deeper into the relationship between music and the mind. In regard to these researches I evaluated the strong points and contradictions to provide an objective opinion. In addition to these researches, personal experiences and subjective ideas will bring forth new and stronger ideas. With proper data collection abilities evaluation and breakdown of researches, as well as personal experiences and ideas, this project aims at expanding my horizons and knowledge on the relationship between music and the mind. This paper aims at presenting further research in addition to those previously covered in recitations and lectures. It also aims at presenting new and more challenging ideas to critically understand the subject. How Music Affects How we Feel and Behave Similar to language, music is a manifestation of the human spirit. Music practitioners have been able to convey messages to mankind that would have otherwise been impossible to convey. Music integrates the mind, body and spirit. Music has both beneficial and non-beneficial effects on the human brain. These effects could either be instant or even long lasting. Some effects of music are improving verbal IQ and evoking some colors in the mind. Music also said to help one see happy faces all round. Music and behavior has been previously researched using researches like the Mozart effect. This effect involves a brief effort that is passive with a transient effect. It states that if a person listens briefly to something, they receive a long-term benefit on their lives1. Some people also tend to think that listening to music for young children helps solve their problems. Music has also had transfer effects involving learning of a single task that influences the learning of another. On transfer effects of cognition, it has been found that learning how to listen to music results to an increased reading score. Those who listened to music achieved a better pitch as well as phonemic awareness. It was therefore confirmed that transfer effects did influence the learning to read that involved sounding out words2. Several reports have also shown that music making increases creativity. Under Neuromusical Research, it has been discovered that the human brain has enough ability to respond as well as participate in music. Music is a trait of mankind that is species-specific. The musical brain starts operating at birth where it persists throughout a person’s life. This has been made evident by the ability of babies to respond to music right at birth. This is an indication that there exist neural mechanisms that are ideally suited to process musical information. Music also persists in people who are deaf, blind, profoundly retarded and emotionally disturbed, showing that the musical brain is highly resilient. There have been growing indications that people studying music at an early age have neurological differences with the ones without training. Early and continued training therefore affects the organization of the musical brain3. Bodily response to music It is much easier to observe the human responses to music. Music links spiritual, emotional and as well as physical elements in the universe. Music changes a person’s mood causing physical responses in a number of people simultaneously. Music can weaken or strengthen someone’s emotions from events such as funerals. Different people respond differently. A person with experience in music hears and feels differently with a non-musician. In response to music, rhythm is also important as an aspect. There are two types of responses to rhythm; the actual hearing of it and the physical response to that rhythm. Rhythm can help to organize someone’s physical movements in time. Music can cause pulse rate and heartbeat to relax to the beat of music. When the body relaxes and becomes alert, the mind can also concentrate much easily. Baroque music is said to decrease blood pressure as it enhances a person’s ability to learn4. Effect of music on memory and learning It is quite intriguing for the power of music to have the ability to affect a person’s memory. It is said that simultaneous right and left brain action tend to maximize learning and retention of information. Learning activates the left brain while the music activates the other. The brain makes more capable of processing information by activities that engage both the right and the left side. Students improve their test scores when they listen to certain types of music prior to tests5. The music in this case releases neurons in the brain, helping the body to relax. Listening to relaxation types of music can also lead to better scores. Health effects of music The extent and power of music research so far has led to the discovery that slow music slows the breathing rate and the heartbeat. Slow music has also been seen as a means to bring down blood pressure. Faster music on the other hand speeds up these body activities. Music plays a big role in stress and memory loss management. However, similar music or song repetition becomes displeasing and may trigger anger or cause the person listening get into a state of sub-conscious thinking. Three to four repetitions of rhythmic, harmonic progression or melody may shut down the human mind. Excessive repetition may also cause a person to release the control of thoughts6. Violent song lyrics on the other hand trigger negative thoughts and emotions that may possibly lead to aggression. Contrary to an earlier research claiming that expression of aggressive emotions decreased aggressive behavior, new research has shown that aggressive lyrics increased aggressive feelings and thoughts. This can perpetuate behavior that is aggressive to bring forth long-term effects. These effects include influencing the listener’s perception the society and may contribute to the development of similar aggressive personalities7. Research shows that there is a close relationship between these violent song lyrics and increased aggressive feelings and thoughts of hostility. Human behavior can also be affected by music in a way that they don’t understand. A philosopher explained on how people listen to music with their muscles. This is evident when people tap their feet, hum and sing along to music they listen to. This is a normal behavior that may occur without the listener’s volition or knowledge. This sort of involuntary expression of music is referred to as half-conscious resonance to the music. These effects, however, may lead to music overflow into the motor system and may go beyond to getting irresistible or even coercive8. Initially, music also had a communal and collective function. Music binds and brings people together when they sing and dance together. This function of music is however getting less effective in the modern society where composers and performers form a special class and the rest only become passive listeners. The collective excitement that music brought and bound people together gets lost at some extent. Currently the collective excitement is found only in churches, concerts or musical festivals. Another dramatic effect of music is induction of the trance states. They have been described by ethnomusicologists in most cultures. This includes activities such as cries, movements, singing, dancing and rhythmic rocking. It involves both gross and motor, emotional, autonomic and psychic effects. Human beings need music for its ability to move them, induce moods and feelings. The evocative power of music is of immense value to people with diseases like Alzheimer and other dementias where they are not in a position to understand and respond to languages. Music moves and makes them regain for a while, their cognitive focus when exposed to it. The familiar music in this case evokes their memories of earlier events, bringing them back briefly to time9. Human brain and mind experience some helpless and involuntary replay of the song and tunes just by chance and without having to listen consciously. These tunes are catchy or earworms. They just burrow into a listeners mind, entrench and then persevere themselves internally over and over. In a day or two, they evaporate and a new earworm ventures into the mind. This kind of music has the character of cerebral automatism that suggests cerebral networks causing mutual excitation. Musical hallucination also happen and are experienced by people having them as unprecedented and disquieting. Physicians are, however insufficiently aware of these hallucinations because patients never report such cases. Music can induce seizures and seizure related musical areas. Some seizures are provoked by music while others contain the hallucinatory music as the prominent feature10. Humans have a peculiar sensitivity to music that can easily slip out of control, get excessive and become vulnerabile. This forms the other side of the power of music and functional brain imaging is still a continued concern. With the confirmed power of music from research and experience, further research should be conducted in controlling the power of music and minimize the negative impacts it has on the human brain and mind. Arts a general concept consisting of music and other activities should be given more emphasis in schools for students to benefit from these positive effects resulting from the power of music. It will also enable them to deal and control with the negative impacts it mounts on them. In the future, more research should be done on how people can be able to distinguish between the kinds of music that suit them. This would be the best remedy for seizures and hallucinatory music. It should also be in a position to determine the best music for different ages to avoid aggression caused by continued listening to violent music. The research should perhaps go ahead and educate us on how involuntary music can be prevented from impacting the human brain, mind and body11. Conclusion Research has confirmed that music has power over our brains, mind and body that is inborn. Music brings about excitement and helps to solve some problems of mind, heart and soul. With music, our verbal IQ improves and helps students to score high marks in class. Music has also been confirmed to contribute to human health care by way of managing and controlling stress, as well as lowering the magnitude of heart problems and blood pressure. Despite these powerful good effects, music also has some challenges that continued research should provide ways of detecting and dealing with. This will enable us to continue enjoying music while at lower risks of its negative impacts. Bibliography Deliège, Irène, Jane W. Davidson, and John A. Sloboda. 2011. Music and the mind: essays in honour of John Sloboda. New York: Oxford University Press. Huron, David. 2007. Sweet anticipation: music and the psychology of expectation. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: MIT Press. Koelsch, Stefan. 2011. Brain and music. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Mannes, Elena. 2011. The power of music: pioneering discoveries in the new science of song. New York: Walker & Co. Tan, Siu-Lan. 2013. The psychology of music in multimedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More