Music Served Humankind to Satisfy Their Different Needs - Essay Example

Psychology Music Effects Every culture in every time of a history had invented own musical tradition and developed its musical canon. The purpose of this invention and its development is the subject of concerns for a variety of studies, first of all, for culturology, but also for psychological disciplines. Music served humankind to satisfy their different needs, for example, it served for a cult and other sacral needs (in order to please goods) or for entertainment, but in all times it caused the same powerful effects on humans themselves. The similar way light “enters” the eyes music can enter the ear. Once entering, music causes some responses in human brain. The main and the most common reason for people to listen to music are to feel pleasure. Speaking biochemically, from listening to music a dopamine can be produced – a chemical agent that generally makes people feel better. Therefore the most common answer on question why do you love music will probably be “it makes me feel better”. The similar effect on human condition can be caused by a delicious food or some pleasant events happening, or by medical drugs. And yet music causes by sounds through nerve system affecting the neurons in human’s brain. This process can be explained in psychological terms. Music is a powerful stimulus for a variety of psychological reactions like learning, memorizing, perceiving new information etc. Maybe everyone had experienced how music can awake the sensations. However, sound is a physical quantity. Therefore a constant seeking of connection between physical facts and sensations takes place in scientific community. In 1956 Leonard Mayer proposed that music is able to provoke an unconscious emotional response. He stressed on a role which human’s organs of the senses play when an emotional response on music is caused. Physiological responses go first, such as shivering, changes in heart rate and breathing and therefore an emotional experience appears (Trainor and Zattore 2008). Music is not a solid thing. Except of its verbal part (as lyric which is processed in the way language is processed by the brain), music consists of a number of non-verbal stimuli which affects both humans’ consciousness and unconsciousness. Non-verbal stimuli are perceived mostly on unconscious level. Therefore their impact is so important. Though caused effects can depend highly on individual factors (for example, such as attention), music affection goes in circumvention of consciousness and use straight connections between body and brain. Neurological mechanisms are used as tools. Listening to music (as well as playing music) activates the right hemisphere of a human brain which is responsible for creative and intuitive information processing. The limbic system which operates entering music is generally responsible for the emotions, sensations and feelings. Therefore changes in nervous system may be caused by music (Murrock 2005). Different non-verbal parts of music cause particular psychological effects on human condition. A melody is a part of music which makes it memorable. Because melody memorizing goes on at the intellectual center of the brain, this process is conscious. Meanwhile rhythm is a part of music which is perceived by human unconsciously. The response on a rhythm is autonomic and is formed in the limbic system. It makes rhythm a very powerful non-verbal part of music. Rhythm, for example, can affect a heart rate, or cause other physiological effects. Those effects can be observed when people who are listening to music start to move some parts of their bodies along with the rhythm. But musical rhythm also causes a great psychological effect. “Consistent rhythm gives a secure feeling while inconsistent rhythm commands attention and creates apprehension” (Murrock 2005). The point is that in human body there are also a lot of inner rhythms (such as breathing or a heart rate, which was mentioned previously), and those rhythms can be brought in harmony with musical rhythms in order to achieve some goals. By accommodating human body inner rhythms with the music and directing them in particular ways human emotional conditions can be operated. Therefore music rhythm is widely used in medicine and in psychological practice. The tempo of music has a similar effect to a rhythm does. It can make human feel relaxed, or on the contrary, stimulated. Thought nowadays there’s a variety of new researches on a subject why people should listen to music, most of the people listen to music exactly because they want to be relaxed or opposite, focused. Another importuned part of music is harmony. Harmonic and disharmonic music have a great effect on human emotional condition and generally, on human’s behavior. Disharmonic music causes a depressing emotional effect, because it firstly disharmonizes nervous system. Therefore human behavior may become more aggressive and unbalanced. On the contrary, harmonic music tunes human body inner rhythms. The reason of this effect is the fact that all humans tend to consider being harmonic the same structure of music. There’s the expectation people form towards harmonic music in their brain. And actually, all the Western harmonic music is written based on these expectations. Therefore different pieces of harmonic music have a lot of in common in the way they are structured (Trainor and Zattore 2008). Another reason to use music affection in psychology is that a particular piece of music itself can serve as conditional stimulus. Because of those deep effects music causes on human music serves good for tying memories and responses. That emotional experience an individual once had had could be reminisced and remembered by listening to a musical stimulus. “Music can elicit thoughts, feelings and sensation associated with past pleasant or unpleasant memories” (Murrock 2005). While reminiscing is in process some details from past experience can be recalled such as time, place and collateral events. Therefore music as a stimulus is widely used in psychological practice. Again, because of deep unconditional effects music have on physiological and psychological human conditions music can be used as a more powerful stimulus to block other unpleasant stimuli. Music affects human autonomic nervous system and therefore music is able to ease physical pain as well as allay anxiety, stress or depression. Music therapy is widely used in treating mental disorders and psychological traumas also because music can serve for a motivation. It provokes particular strong emotions and can spur human into some actions (Murrock 2005). Nowadays psychological effects which music has on human are widely studied and discussed. Though different ways of this affection are highlighted by different scientists, the mechanism of music affection on human stays the same. Through human organs of senses by using nervous system and brain as an operation system music can cause different psychological responses and emotional conditions. Also, affecting humans unconsciously music may bring changes even in human physiological conditions. Therefore music affection is so deep and powerful, it keeps kindling scientists’ interest. References Trainor, L. J. and R. J. Zatorre. (2008). “Music and the Brain. The neurobiological basis of musical expectations”. In Hallam, S. Cross, I. and M. Thaut (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Oxford University Press. Murrock, C. J. (2005). “Music and Mood”. In Clark A. V. (Ed.) Psychology of Moods (pp.141-155). Nova Science Publishers. Read More