The Power of Music

[BBMmk2]

Music is quite a different power to everything else that we know. The emotions that it can produce within the hman psyche, can be quite overwhelming. For instance, with th interval talk on Radio 3 tonight(Wendesday june 8th), has given me quite an insight into this and how we react tovarious moods that music can produce.

[cavatina]

Thanks for this! Here's some exciting new research you might enjoy reading:


Research reveals the biochemical connection between music and emotion
January 19, 2011-- In research published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at McGill University in Montreal have established the direct link between the elation stimulated by music and the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the same substance that puts the joy in sex, the thrill in certain illegal drugs, and the warm feeling within a woman breast-feeding her child.


Music Changes Perception, Research Shows
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — Music is not only able to affect your mood -- listening to particularly happy or sad music can even change the way we perceive the world, according to researchers from the University of Groningen


Willingness to Listen to Music Is Biological, Study of Gene Variants Suggests
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2011) — Our willingness to listen to music is biological trait and related to the neurobiological pathways affecting social affiliation and communication, suggests a recent Finnish study.


Music on Prescription Could Help Treat Emotional and Physical Pain
ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2010) — New research into how music conveys emotion could benefit the treatment of depression and the management of physical pain.


Musicians' Brains 'Fine-Tuned' to Identify Emotion
(PhysOrg.com) -- Looking for a mate who in everyday conversation can pick up even your most subtle emotional cues? Find a musician, Northwestern University researchers suggest.
In a study in the latest issue of European Journal of Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary Northwestern research team for the first time provides biological evidence that musical training enhances an individual's ability to recognize emotion in sound.

[vinteuil]

Brassbandmaestro -

I'm sure this is true for lots - and probably for most of the people who use these boards.

What I find interesting is that there are also people who absolutely - almost physically - do not 'get' music of any kind. If I remember aright neither Samuel Johnson nor Vladimir Nabokov could understand what music was for, didn't see the point of it, got no enjoyment from it...

[cavatina]

Brassbandmaestro -
What I find interesting is that there are also people who absolutely - almost physically - do not 'get' music of any kind. If I remember aright neither Samuel Johnson nor Vladimir Nabokov could understand what music was for, didn't see the point of it, got no enjoyment from it...

Amusia is a real medical condition:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4655352.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia

You can even be tested for it here:

http://www.delosis.com/listening/home.html

You know, the Wikipedia article states the brain region responsible for emotional processing of music is the parahippocampal gyrus. When I read a little more about it, I found this:

PARAHIPPOCAMPAL GYRUS

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=123306884351260

"The parahippocampal place area (PPA) is often considered the complement of the fusiform face area (FFA), a nearby cortical region that responds strongly whenever faces are viewed, and which is believed to be important for face recognition."

Perhaps this might explain why people who said they have trouble remembering faces also scored so low on the BBC "emotional response to music test", and vice versa.

[3rd Viennese School]

I heard the interval talk last night. On music that displays defiance. They played examples of the Rite of Spring etc.
So that gave me an appetite for the second half.

Which was, wait for it..........

Spanish Renaisance Music.

Whatttt?

[BBMmk2]

Yes, I thought there was a lack of continuity there.

Now with amnusia, I havnt heard of that condition before. How difficult is it, for someone not to recognise Happy Birthday or The National Anthem? It just doesnt correlate for me or a lot of people here on these boards or elsewhere. I just couldnt imagine not being able to like music!

[cavatina]

I just couldnt imagine not being able to like music!

Actually, several people here said they scored 0% on the "emotional connection to music" section of the BBC Musicality Test, so they must be getting something else out of it. Might be interesting to hear what it is, because other than "appreciating the formal mathematical beauty of it all" or something, I really haven't a clue.

[MrGongGong]

I heard the interval talk last night. On music that displays defiance. They played examples of the Rite of Spring etc.
So that gave me an appetite for the second half.

Which was, wait for it..........

Spanish Renaisance Music.

Whatttt?

That reminds me of an education performance I went to where one school had been learning about "protest songs" but they seemed to have missed out on all the ones that had any REAL sense of protest

so Dylan was ok (as he is easy listening !)
but

NWA, Rage against the Machine, Merzbow, etc
music that is really defiant is a bit "edgy"