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Think of the last time a song really moved you, or meant something to you. Listening to and playing music stimulates many different sections of the brain, affecting us physically as well. Why are we as humans so connected to music?
Making music is one of our most basic instincts. There's a reason we refer to music as the "universal language"; there has been no known human culture without music. Dancing and music came before agriculture, and possibly even before language. Bone flutes were found in Europe dating back 53,000 years ago. The head of the Biomusic program at the National Academy of the Sciences, Patricia Gray, and her colleagues comment, "The fact that whale and human music have so much in common even though our evolutionary paths have not intersected for 60 million years suggests that music may predate humans-that rather than being the inventors of music, we are latecomers to the musical scene." (Leutwyler)
Music and Childhood
We begin life being affected by music; babies first begin to respond to music while still in the womb. Whether or not it's true, everyone has heard that playing classical music for your baby supposedly helps him or her become smarter. A study done in the United Kingdom concluded that children are able to recognize and even prefer music that they had heard while in the womb up to three months before birth. Although the genera of music made no difference, the babies who were exposed to songs with a faster tempo showed a stronger preference for that song than those who had heard something slower. ("Babies Remember Music Heard in the Womb") Researchers have also found that the playing of soft background music or a mother's humming actually helps premature babies. Those who are subjected to the music tend to gain weight faster and are able to leave hospitals earlier than those who aren't. (Cromie, "Music on the Brain")
However, the study in the UK uncovered no links between babies listening to music and increased intelligence or brain development. Another experiment at the University of California at Irvine compared the puzzle-solving abilities of 3-year-olds who were given piano lessons with the ability of others who sang, used computers, or did nothing. The children studying piano were better at the puzzles. Also, high school students with a musical background seem to do better on their SATs. (Cromie, "How Your Brain Listens to Music") Whether it's natural intelligence that helps the children excel in both music and math, or the music that helps develop other areas, you can't deny the benefits of a musical background.
On the other end of the spectrum, it's possible that some music and/or lyrics could be bad for children and adolescents. The lyrics of today's popular music are increasingly explicit. A study on mass media and adolescents showed that a group of "14- to 16-year olds in 10 different southeastern cities showed that they listened to music an average of 40 hours per week." ("Impact of Music Lyrics...") Obviously, the music they are listening to plays a large part in their lives, especially influencing self-identity. So any bad influences in the music would have a very direct effect on the adolescent.
Several other experiments mentioned in the American Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement on the "Impact of Music Lyrics and Music Videos on Children and Youth" supported this idea. One study from Sweden found that children who developed a preference to rock music were more likely to be influenced by their peers than by their parents. Others showed links between a predilection for heavy metal and detrimental behaviors, including taking drugs, suicide risk, alienation, and other risk-taking habits. The AAP doesn't support the idea of censorship, but strongly encourages parents to monitor what their children are listening to. We have to ask, should we as a society look at the results of these effects on adolescents and call for regulation in the music industry?
Music and the Mind
William J. Cromie, writer for the Harvard Gazette, explains how we our brain listens to music. "Your inner ear contains a spiral sheet that the sounds of music pluck like a guitar string. This plucking triggers the firing of brain cells that make up the hearing parts of your brain. At the highest station, the auditory cortex, just above your ears, these different firing cells create the conscious experience of music. Different patterns...excite other cells, and these associate the sound of music with feelings, thoughts, and past experiences." (Cromie, "How Your Brain Listens to Music") This is just a generalized statement; the actual processes that go on are very complicated, and we don't really know all that much about them.
No single portion of the brain seems completely dedicated to our perception of music. The right side of the brain is generally associated with music and the arts, but studies done on people who have suffered brain damage show that both the right and left side play a part in musical perception. While the right side is crucial for pitch, melody, timbre, and harmony, the left side takes care of changes in intensity and frequency. Both sides need to be working together in order to correctly understand rhythm. Also, sections of the brain relating to music affect other things. For example, the part of the brain having to do with perfect pitch additionally effects speech perception. (Cromie, "Music on the Brain") Interestingly, parts of your motor system react when you are simply thinking about a rhythm, even when you're not moving.
Damage to the temporal lobes, which are part of the cerebrum and lie at the sides of the brain, can cause a disorder referred to as Amusia. People may have trouble with rhythms, recognizing melodies, singing, or playing an instrument. Sometimes the damage can cause little or no problems with hearing speech or other sounds; just music.
Carol Krumhansl of Cornell University found that different types of music directly trigger different emotions. While happiness causes you to breathe faster, sadness causes a rise in blood pressure and temperature and a slower pulse. Faster music played in a major key caused the same physical reactions associated with happiness, and slower music played in a minor key resulted in those associated with sadness. (Leutwyler) This also evokes the question of whether or not minor keys naturally sound "bad" or undesirable to everyone, or if it's simply what we've been socialized to think through the music we're used to in our particular cultures.
Music and Intelligence
Music is often used as a learning tool. If only we could memorize notes for a test as easily as we memorize popular songs on the radio! Music with a tempo of around 60 beats-per-minute can activates both the left and right sides of the brain, which assists in processing more information at once. Singing and playing an instrument also has this effect.
Listening to music that induces relaxation, such as "Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major," before taking a test has been proven to temporarily enhance IQ and improve scores. This has since been named "The Mozart Effect." However, the effects of the music seemed to last only 10 to 15 minutes. The original experiment, published in 1993, has been under scrutiny ever since. Other researchers have tried to repeat similar tests, but have not gotten such positive results. After attempting a complete re-do of the first Mozart Effect test, scientists at Appalachian State University stated, "...there is little evidence to support basing intellectual intervention on the existence of the Mozart effect." (qtd. in Chudler)
Dr. George Lozanov, a psychologist from Bulgaria, used classical music at about 60 beats per minute to devise a better way of learning a foreign language. Using this method, students "could learn up to one half of the vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term (which amounts to almost 1,000 words or phrases) in one day." (O'Donnell) The student's retention rate was an incredible 92%, and he managed to prove that entirelanguages could be learned fairly well within thirty days with this approach!
A separate study performed in Texas tested the effect of music on vocabulary memorization among graduate students. The students were divided into three groups; two groups studied with "Water Music" by Handel playing in the background, one being asked to imagine the words while studying, the other group not. The third group was a control and wasn't asked to do anything. Groups 1 and 2 had consistently better test scores than group 3, and group 1 did better than group 2. (O'Donnell)
