Music and Cognitive Sciences - Essay Example

199579 Music is a human construct and varies according to the culture, region, language and mood. There cannot be any music without human initiativeand involvement and it is universal. Music has existed even before the dawn of any civilisation not only with humans, but also with animals and birds. Music prevailed in many forms and shapes and in almost all the occasions like mate selection, courtship, social cohesion, group co-ordination, army exercises, conflict reduction, pacifying anger, stimulating patriotism and religiosity etc. in all kinds of living beings. It has been part of celebrations, funerals and tragedies and venerations. There is no occasion, where music could not reach. Music does not need language or meanings at times. Even without them, music is capable of reaching the human hearts. Music’s main function as a source of communication not only between the singer/musicians and audience, but also between audience and audience and hence between individual and society has never been denied. There is no parallel to music in maintaining communication. “Talking about music is a vitally important aspect of the overall process of musical communication and can illuminate, in many different ways, the power and richness of that process,” MacDonald and Hargreaves (2005, p.337). In addition, music’s use in mental therapy was also prevalent in many cultures for a long time now. It had never been uncommon for the parents of a disturbed child to either train the child in music or make it a listener. In modern clinical sense, its usefulness has been regulated only recently. Now, it is being increasingly accepted that music can be used as psychological therapy, therapy for the handicapped, and also therapy for the autistic children according to the theories of Alvin and others. Psychological functions of music, its analytical concepts, its physiological functions and group music therapy are now appreciated as a form of psychological pacifying and wellbeing. Evaluating the effects of music and music therapy and introducing music at both a theoretical and clinical level within health and social systems has resulted in varied branches like Behavioural Music Therapy etc. Another result is the cognitive behavioural improvement. Dr. Clifford Madsen, in an article describing Behavioural Music Therapy in 1966, said that the main concepts of music as part of a treatment will depend upon its usage as a cue, as a time structure and body movement structure, as a focus of attention, and as a reward. “Music is not about life, but is rather implicated in the formulation of life; it is something that gets into action, something that is a formative, albeit often unrecognised, resource of social agency,” DeNora (2000, pp. 152-53). Music is also regarded as the manipulator of psychological, emotional, cognitive, perceptual, autonomic, physiological and motor human, animal and even bird behaviour. Music and the accompanying dance used to be physical, entertaining, social, communicative, cognitive, concentration, enjoyment and independent skills for centuries now. Its place in treatment and psychological improvement has been found only in recent years. “Old songs, familiar melodies and hymns are used with geriatric patients to promote attention, engagement and memory. Also, music with slower tempos such as largo, adagio and andante are used when attempting movement or dancing with other adults. With patients with senile dementia, short songs and pieces are recommended with short attention span” Wigram et al (2002, p.136). There are many hypotheses how the brain reacts to music therapy and one main hypothesis says: “The two brains perform complimentary functions in auditory pattern discrimination and recognition; while the right hemisphere is specialised to perform fine-grained acoustic discriminative functions, the left hemisphere excels in semantic-associative functions and multimodal integration, by which the meaning of non-verbal sounds is derived,” Cross and Deliege (1993, p.120). Hence, the brain-behaviour relationships that govern music perception and cognition could be interpreted as being influenced by music due to the nature of auditory stimuli and music psychology is coming out of the closet in various forms today. “There is no reason why music psychology should remain an isolated area within psychology, as its subject matter overlaps with most other aspects of the discipline. It includes neurological and physiological investigations of the biological bases of music perception and hemispheric lateralisation studies,” Hargreaves (1986, p.3). It is important to note how successful the ambiguous music therapy has been in treatment and cure. It is difficult to make a standard answer here because the outcome has been absolutely individualistic. It depends on the person, circumstances and situations. “The outcome of any approach will depend on the needs of the individual, which vary greatly, and the appropriate application of the intervention. ….Although music therapy can be used with people with other physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities, it has particular benefits for people with autism; much of the earliest work done by therapists like Alvin, Nordoff and Robbins was with this client group,” says the National Autistic Society, http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=528&a=3348. Still one must agree that there had never been any setbacks or side-effects due to music therapy. Even in cases where it has not shown any stupendous improvement, there has always been marginal improvement and this fact is gratifying. It has led to strengthening of attention and self-perception in the individual. There have been remarkable improvements in rebellious patients, who have calmed down and even faced the reality with the help of music. “This developing focus on psychological characteristics provides the origin of the mechanisms of self-perception that we described earlier, with its corresponding impact on children’s motivation and ability in different activities. These mechanisms reflect the third main trend in the development of self-identity, namely that children’s self-concepts become increasingly based on comparisons with others in middle childhood through to adolescence” MacDonald (2002, p.15). No doubt these improvements also depend upon the careful selection of music that could be beneficial to the individual considering his ailment. PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS Music has been part of life in every culture for centuries now and today, musical activity and musical experience are also part of the medical treatment, even though the importance and usefulness are still arguable. But, as mentioned earlier, there had been no set-backs due to the use of music any where. There are many arguments about how exactly the music works in soothing normal and troubled minds alike. This question has reaped a harvest of theories and some theories are more pragmatic than the others. The relationship between the auditory rhythm and the response of the motor system has been explored recently and this could be considered as the clinical contribution of music. “More specifically, the early findings described the existence of auditory-motor pathways, via brain–spinal cord connection, along with increased motor neuron excitability,” http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/35/4/669.pdf “At the individual level, music has been seen as a vehicle for emotional expression. Ideas and emotions that might be difficult to convey in ordinary verbal interchanges can be expresses through music,” Hallam (2006, p.5). Music always extracts physical reaction from the audience. It is capable of stimulating activity or relaxation, depending on the music and the listener. The reaction cannot be the same with all the people, because it is highly individualistic. Whatever the resultant mood is, there is no doubt that music is capable of changing the mood. Also it is a great contributor towards regaining the reality of the listener, whose sense of reality might have been wandering due to some reason or other like surviving a stroke, long illness or going through a physical or mental trauma. The aesthetic enjoyment and intellectual stimulation that music offers to listeners and providers both is unparalleled. It can induce medication, concentration, serenity, physical co-ordination, emotional stability, social communication and companionship etc. It eradicates the loneliness by not only providing its happy and soulful company in lonely hours, but also by bringing people of similar likes together. The most acknowledged effect on the brain by music is the mental stimulation. It is believed that the synaptic efficacy of the brain facilitates learning and memory. “Several inter-related mechanisms appear to contribute towards cortical remodelling, including changes in the efficacy of existing connections, the modifications of excitatory synapses based on early gene expression and the sprouting of new connections,” Hallam (2006, p.17).There are arguments and evidence that children with attention deficit and hyper activity disorder can be treated with music which slows down their hectic brain waves. Music moves the soul and also sooths people with its lyrics. From the individual point of view, music renders the most beneficial psychological effects, especially for those people who live in isolation due to some problem or other like sickness, distance, lack of friends, anti-social jobs etc. It is the company and companion both and keeps the mind balanced, hopeful and ever young. TO SOCIETY At the group level, it serves the all the purposes that it renders to the individual. In addition, it can be the means of communication within groups and can also become an instrument of group binding. It creates meaning and understanding in like-minded groups by inventing socially shared spaces. It renders identity and excitement to groups. It can pacify angry crowds or invoke emotions suitable for the situation. It can be part of children’s growing up, their games, their identity and connection with many groups, part of mental and physical group activities and can stimulate individuals to work together. Music can become the expression and identity of groups and can keep them in their own slots. It can protest, express happiness, anger, jubilation. Music can play a major and very frequent role in the society. It can provide symbolic expression of the ideas and behaviour by expressing State, heroism, bravery, rebellion, and conflict. It can challenge the orthodox social norms and bring societal awareness by inciting challenges. It can represent religious rituals, sports events, ends social isolation, fight against tyranny, boost the cause, etc. Societal functions, emotions and individualistic characters are never better portrayed through any other means other than the music. Psychology and music are closely inter-related. Recent studies say that music can work in both ways, for integration and separation; depending on the circumstances and here it touches the study of spatial aspects of music. “The study of spatial aspects of music is another area where the concerns of composers and of scientists have combined to very useful effect. Apart from their relevance to music, experiments on the effects of spatial separation have served to elucidate the nature of fundamental mechanisms involving stimulus integration and separation,” Bornstein (1984, p.176). In conclusion, one can say that music has to go a long way to become an integral and firm part of clinical treatments to be regularly used as part of the treatment. This does not mean that there are no possibilities. Especially in the case of mentally disturbed and physically and mentally challenged children, the usefulness of music has already been abundantly proved to the extent of its being accepted unquestionably. Its usefulness in other possible fields like pain control, depression, anger control, pacification, guidance away from violence etc. are yet to be proven. But music has shown a lot of potential in these fields too and there has never been any doubt about its mood-changing and brainwave-changing factors. No doubt it will take more research and clinical evidence to prove these beyond sceptical opposition. Even if music will not become a part of clinical treatment, its usefulness to the individual and society could never be contested. Also its relevance in every society and region of the world, whether it is a tribal community, or a modern group, too cannot be questioned under any circumstances. Music no doubt, gets modernised and its shape evolves all the while. Still, no modern development has been able to outdate the music till today. Even the old, classical music has a way of bouncing back when it is thought many times to have reached its no-return point. Music is a survivor, manipulator of moods and the maker of dreams. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Bornstein, Mark H. (1984), Psychology and ist allied disciplines, Hillsdale, Erabaum Associates. 2. Cross, Ian and Deliege, Irene (1993), Music and Cognitive Sciences, Routledge, London. 3. DeNora, Tia (2000), Music in Everyday life, Cambridge University Press. 4. Hallam, Susan (2006), Music Psychology in Education, University of London. 5. Hargreaves, David J. (1986), The Developmental Psychology of Music, Cambridge University Press. 6. MacDonald, Raymond A.R. et al (2005), Musical Communication, Oxford University Press. 7. MacDonald, Raymond A.R. et al (2002), Musical Identities, Oxford University Press. 8. Wingram, Tony et al (2002), A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy; theory, Clinical Practice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London. ONLINE SOURCES 1. http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=528&a=3348 2. http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/35/4/669.pdf 3. Read More