The Hills Are Alive With the Science of Music

Last evening, we each presented a lesson from Project Learning Tree.  I loved all of them, but Ali's, Paula's, and Stephanie's lesson on sound really got my brain turning.

But it wasn't just sound that captured my attention.  We know that sound is all around us.  It is impossible to escape, unless of course, you are born deaf, or you submerse yourself in a sensory deprivation chamber.  (Yikes!)  What I was left with was wondering about a particular type of sound, or should I say sounds...

I wanted to get deeper into the science of Music.

Music is one of those indescribable, undefinable, magical things about human creation and expression.  So how can we talk about music in scientific terms?  By relating it to neuroscience, of course!

Have any of you ever gotten goosebumps from listening to music?  Have you ever stopped to wonder about how strange it is that your body elicits  a physical response to something we can't even quantify?  Have you ever wondered why these goosebumps erupt on your skin and make your hair stand on in?

Well Jaak Panksepp, a neurological researcher from Bowling Green, KY, thinks he knows the answer.  Some of us may or may not know that emotions stimulate the hypothalamus portion of our brain.  Accoring to Panksepp's research, it is primarily sad emotions that elicit goosebumps or chills.  Goosebumps elicited from music are thus associated with past melancholy or sad emotions.  Panksepp believes that when we hear sad music, our brain produces chemicals to deal with such loss or despair, which in turn trigger physical responses.  He goes even farther by arguing this is an evolutionary response: we developed these physical responses to emotions in order to keep our families or tribes together.

So what is sad music?  According to the writers from Exploritorium, our understanding or belief in sad music mostly stems from cultural conditioning.  For instance, we see a movie, we associate the background music with the emotions or action played on screen.  For us Westerners, that pretty much means that if it's in a minor key, we associate that music with sadness or fear.

Take a listen to the Star Spangled Banner in a Minor Key:

Creepy, right? 

Another reason we might think music is sad or happy is its tempo!  If it's something we can dance to, we typically don't associate that music with melancholy, despite what the lyrics are saying (Think "Hey Ya" by Outkast).  When the music is slow or quiet, we think of that music as sad.  When we, ourselves, are feeling down, we usually don't feel like talking and we definitely don't feel like doing anything.  At least, I don't... unless eating tubs of raw cookie dough counts as "doing something," (it doesn't).

Music does much more for our brain than we realize!  Here is a neat graphic about all the different ways music can stimulate many different parts of our brain.

I believe we all have heard that making our babies listen to Mozart makes them smarter, but it seems that listening to any music at any age can keep our brains healthy!

Before I sign off, I wanted to share with you all one of my favorite movies: 

The History of Future Folk

It's about two aliens that come to Earth and discover something marvelous: MUSIC

We realize that out of all the galaxies these aliens know, it is only on our little blue planet that music exists.  Its power is so enrapturing that they both fight to save us!  Here is a short, powerful clip of one alien showing the other music for the first time:

You can watch this movie on Netflix.

I want to leave you with a question for pondering:  

What would our lives be like without music?

Sources:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/questions/sadMusic.html

http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/questions/goosebumps.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/3022942/work-smart/the-surprising-science-behind-what-music-does-to-our-brains

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/