Our relationship with music is a hard-wired thing. The more we indulge our link to music the more it fires up our brains. When you sit and listen to music – not in the background but as an active participant, no less than eleven sections of your brain become active, and not just active, but excited. With music, areas that help you communicate better, analyze situations better, remember things, and maintain muscle memory are all simultaneously excited.
The frontal lobe, which is the part that separates us from all the other creatures on the planet, goes into an enhanced activity state. This is your thinking and perception area. Meanwhile the temporal lobe, which controls what we hear – no surprise there – gets a full workout. The temporal lobe spans both sides of our brains. The left side interprets language, and the right side interprets rhythm and musical structure. Even Alzheimer’s patients in the most advanced stages of their dreadful disease respond to music when they aren’t able to respond to anything else. Alzheimer’s patients who are musicians often retain their ability to play their instrument long after their other cognitive functions have left them.
Our pleasure centers are excited the same way a narcotic excites them, and our most primitive area – the amygdala, which processes emotion – lights up. Music can calm anxiety and fear while making you happier. It can also be the best friend you’ll ever have when your significant other leaves you, takes the dog and sticks you with the Forever 21 bill. Music doesn’t judge, it just hangs out with you.
Our pleasure centers are excited the same way a narcotic excites them, and our most primitive area – the amygdala, which processes emotion – lights up. Music can calm anxiety and fear while making you happier. It can also be the best friend you’ll ever have when your significant other leaves you, takes the dog and sticks you with the Forever 21 bill. Music doesn’t judge, it just hangs out with you.
Music helps our brains produce new neurons, enabling us to make new memories and solidly retain old ones. That’s why that cute kid in tenth grade who barely paid attention to you even though you were madly in love jumps straight into your head when you hear certain songs. At the same time, music fires up the hypothalamus to release hormones that do good things like moderate hunger and mood, while helping regulate your heart rate and breathing. Music also stimulates your metabolism.
Music acts as a bridge between your logical side (left) and your intuitive side (right) – basically making your brain work better. Rhythm increases dopamine and can help Parkinson’s patients get a little relief.
Music acts as a bridge between your logical side (left) and your intuitive side (right) – basically making your brain work better. Rhythm increases dopamine and can help Parkinson’s patients get a little relief.
But wait! There’s more! As if all of that wasn’t enough, music also excites the part of your brain that processes visual stimulation. Trained musicians actually rely on this part of the brain when listening to music to see what they are listening to so they can translate it to physical muscle memory. With a little training and practice, it’s probably possible for all of us to ‘see’ what we hear.
As a side note, this is also the reason most people stop imprinting new music on their brains after about 33 or 34 years old. Up to that point, connections and transmitters are still forming but once your brain is set in its ways so to speak, it no longer needs to use music as an emotional filing system. Sure, most people continue to enjoy new music throughout their lives, but by your early thirties, ‘your music’ is set for the rest of your life.
As a side note, this is also the reason most people stop imprinting new music on their brains after about 33 or 34 years old. Up to that point, connections and transmitters are still forming but once your brain is set in its ways so to speak, it no longer needs to use music as an emotional filing system. Sure, most people continue to enjoy new music throughout their lives, but by your early thirties, ‘your music’ is set for the rest of your life.
Several studies have been published asserting that music is only important because we find it pleasurable. But that point of view doesn’t look deeply enough at the science, and it also ignores what almost every human on the planet’s reality is. Something that fires up our entire brain, connects generations and disparate groups of people while being universally important to nearly every human on every corner of the globe is not just some pleasurable thing, like a Twinkie or a bag of chips. Those things are pleasurable too, but they don’t carry the weight of music. Assuming you don’t eat too many Doritos while you’re munching out on a Saturday night listening to Dark Side of the Moon and watching the Wizard of Oz with the sound off, music doesn’t make you fat. But I digress.
Daniel J. Levitin is a researcher and music industry veteran who has written a number of books on the subject of music and neuroscience. He states with some serious authority that music also helps preserve our emotional heritage. Regardless of your ethnic extraction, have you ever been stirred by the sound of a pan flute or bagpipes lilting over a valley? That’s the beauty of music – it allows you to connect to your humanity and your deep ancestral roots – your way back roots. It’s something we all share even though most of us are out of practice in the fine art of intentional listening.
Daniel J. Levitin is a researcher and music industry veteran who has written a number of books on the subject of music and neuroscience. He states with some serious authority that music also helps preserve our emotional heritage. Regardless of your ethnic extraction, have you ever been stirred by the sound of a pan flute or bagpipes lilting over a valley? That’s the beauty of music – it allows you to connect to your humanity and your deep ancestral roots – your way back roots. It’s something we all share even though most of us are out of practice in the fine art of intentional listening.
If you’ve let technology put up a barrier between you and your music, it’s time to rethink your relationship. Now that we live in a world of constant elevator music, whether we’re in an elevator or think we’re enjoying some tunes via our Bluetooth personal assistant, there’s an entire aspect of our humanity that isn’t being served without a deep, intimate relationship with music.
By Jack Sharkey for KEF
