Learn & Tell

Wouldn’t ya know it? How timely…

Music Makes Your Brain Happy

Set the Gearshift: Phish as Catalyst to Ecstasy

Table of Contents

How does music move us to ecstasy? The answer is: Nobody knows. (And do we really need to know?) But, for the thinkers out there, here’s a possibility…

[Throughout this essay, titles of songs will be capitalized and in quotes (ie. “My Soul”). However, unless obviously intended as a reference to a song, these are meant to be read simply as words in the sentence.]

4. The Evolution of Music in Humans

According to Darwin, we evolve attributes or physical characteristics that help us to survive. How does enjoying Phish help me to survive? Of course, it is not as necessary as food or sleep, but it sure helps make life easier. Three ways that Phish serves an evolutionary purpose are: pleasure, communication, and social interaction. There are other theories out there, but these seem to me to be the most prevalent and most reasonable.

In regards to pleasure, one can argue that pleasure is not essential to evolution. Or, in terms of music, the pleasure serves no direct purpose, as it does in sexual reproduction. We derive pleasure from sex, but there is also a direct relation to survival of the species through reproduction. What does the pleaasure in music lead to? Simply put, pleasure offers a nice break from the troubling parts of life. Aristotle said that “innocent pleasures are not only in harmony with the perfect end of life, but they also provide relaxation” (44). If we relax, we can regain our energy to fight again. In this sense, pleasure most definitely serves a purpose — an escape.

Aristotle said that music “beyond question…inspries enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is an emotion of the ethical part of the soul,…[that] the habit of feeling pleasure or pain as mere representations is not far removed from the same feeling about realities” (45). Here, Aristotle is moving toward the communication theory, that music can teach us on an emotional level. I learn about myself when I go to concerts, similar to the vicarious living Oscar Wilde describes in “The Critic as Artist”:

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears. I can fancy a man who had led a perfectly commonplace life, hearing by chance some curious piece of music, and suddently discovering that his soul, without his being conscious of it, had passed through terrible experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild romantic loves, or great renunciations” (Jourdain 322).

As Serafine points out, “there are several variants of the music-as-communication theory, but nearly all agree that the message is an emotional one…that it is this emotional communication…that is the principal purpose of the artform” (12). Listening to Phish, according to these theorists, teaches me by tweaking my emotions, as music evidently does for Oscar Wilde. Aaron Copeland believes that “we respond to music from a primal and almost brutish level–dumbly as it were, for on that level we are firmly grounded” (Aronson 58). Music serves to communicate to us at our base level, our emotions rather than our intellect. The sharp music in the “Psycho” shower scene makes us feel the tension at a gut level, much more than if we were watching the scene without the musical background. In this sense, music is the most direct and powerful communicator, yet still the least concrete.

A third proposal, a recent one, is that music serves to promote social interaction, cementing bonds and forming groups that make it easier to survive in the world. Anyone who has ever been to a parking lot before the show can verify this profundity, that “We’re all in this together” (”Bathtub Gin” Phish). Jourdain ponders why we have evolved such a large cerebrum, saying that “where once scholars emphasized the value of a large brain in building tools, now they extol the virtues of cooperation in hunting, fighting, food sharing, and…in child rearing” (307). I would add that social interaction is a pleasure in itself, a stimulation from which humans benefit. Music first evolved, according to many anthropologists, not only to act as a teaching too, but “to strengthen community bonds and resolve conflicts…If music arose to strengthen social bonds and settle conflicts, it owes its existence to the emotions. For it is by exercising or assuaging emotions that we establish rapport with other human beings” (Jourdain 308).

Phish gives me pleasure (which is a nice escape), teaches me by unearthing emotions within, and is fantastic for social interaction. All of these ways that my love for Phish helps my life revolve around the emotions. Music has survived evolution and continues to thrive because of its direct and strong relation to our emotions. So then, to progress on our exploration of music, we must define an emotion. And how does music convey emotion?

NEXT: Part V - Emotion

Set the Gearshift: Phish as Catalyst to Ecstasy

Table of Contents

How does music move us to ecstasy? The answer is: Nobody knows. (And do we really need to know?) But, for the thinkers out there, here’s a possibility…

[Throughout this essay, titles of songs will be capitalized and in quotes (ie. “My Soul”). However, unless obviously intended as a reference to a song, these are meant to be read simply as words in the sentence.]

3. What is Music?

Music is an ethereal art that takes place internally. As Jourdain puts it, “rather than portray events in the world beyond our skin, music seems to reenact the experience ‘within’ the body” (293). This makes music, because of its intangibility, more subjective than other arts. As Eduard Hanslick points out, “Music alone is unable, apparently, to adopt [the] objective mode of procedure” (17). Objectively, based on our current laws of reality, this piece of paper contains all of the colors of the visible spectrum (producing what we call “white”), independent of you looking at it. Volcanic lava radiates heat whether you touch it or not. The car alarm with the “Horn” blaring in the distance is sending out sound waves whether you are there to be annoyed by them or not. But “sound” is not “music.” “Music” is a human construct.

One might argue that the sound of a babbling brook, or the chirping of a “Mockingbird,” is musical. And they would not be wrong in their opinion. But only in this nature lover’s mind can they be deemed “musical.” In reality, the sound of the brook, or the song of the bird, is merely a set of waves traveling through space. Labeling these combinations of sounds “musical” is a human phenomenon. Some waves coalesce more or less readily with other waves, as if two rocks are dropped into a still pool and the ripples then combine or clash, but only in our human imagination is that convergence or divergence “musical.” This is why there are so many varieties of music, because harmony is so subjective.

In a review of Roger Scruton, Buhler points out that “Scruton is surely correct to emphasize that music, unlike sound, is an ‘intentional object of musical perception’ (78)…[that one should] be careful not to commit the error of mistaking sound for music, that is the material substrate for the ideal object” (2). Scruton says here that we should not mistake the statue of the beautiful woman for the beautiful woman. We should not confuse the earthly substance (the sound waves) with the ideal vision (the music).

Albert Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Understanding the role of the imagination as we listen to music is vitally important in discovering how music cna move us to ecstasy. Buhler states that “the experience of sound as music depends radically on our imagining the sound as something other than mere sound” (2). Whether the bird has an imagination and can perceive its own son as musical is an entirely different debate. However, most theorists agree (but I do not), that “music is possible only in very intelligent brains” (Jourdain 307), including even the least intelligent, but human, beings. Why then does music seem to have a soothing effect on some animals?

Language works with our imagination also, but only through the use of visible symbols. As compared to language, “music mimics experience rather than symbolize it…It carefully replicates the temporal patterns of interior feeling, surging in pitch or volume as they surge, ebbing as they ebb” (Jourdain 296). Music requires less conscious processing; it is more subconscious. Grillparzer says the difference between music and poetry is that “music primarly affects the senses and, after rousing the emotions, reaches the intellect last of all…[where] poetry…first raises up an idea which in turn excites the emotions” (Hanslick 17). Music recreates emotional states within the listener, bypassing the intellect. But when reading, one must comprehend the idea being presented before an emotion can surface, which is why, to appeal to your emotions directly, I should have written this essay in a musical format! Mendelssohn believed music more powerful than words, that “the thoughts that are expressed to [him] by music…are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary too definite” (295). Mendelssohn would understand my angst in trying to describe the “definite” feelings Phish rouses in me.

The reason I must use language (which has a bit of objectivity) in this exploration of music, as opposed to a musical score, is because music is entirely subjective and emotional. I am trying to explore logically. If I composed a musical score to present my case, my every point would be translated into something completely different by each listener’s impassioned response, rather than the concrete symbols of language. And, since “definite feelings and emotions are unsusceptible of being embodied in music” (Hanslick 33), there would be endless ways to interpret my composition. Stravinsky agrees, saying that “music is, by its very nature, powerless to ‘express’ anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature” (Aronson 58). Another reason I must use language is that it can be translated into other languages, whereas music is not so translatable due to cultural differences in perception.

The emotions I ascribe to Phish are placed there by my imagination, which has been shaped by my personal life experiences, especially the Western culture in which I live. Music can resemble our physical experessions (like fear or excitement) as when a melody or tempo mimics the characteristics of speech and gesture (such as pitch and speed) that are associated with specific emotions (Serafine 13). For example, in Western culture, the voice softens and is quieter when expressing grief and sad music imitates these actions by slowing down; music that is to convey excitement is usually faster. Consonance and dissonance, described earlier with two ripples in a pond, occur naturally, but whether these properties are pleasant or not is culture-specific. Another example of the major influence of culture is the case of the minor triad (minor chords), which in Western culture are considered sad or melancholy, but in the culture of Indonesia the opposite is true. In other cultures such as that of Indonesia, loud clanging bells and cymbals are played at a funeral, whereas the West mourns with somber organ music.

Although what constitutes emotion-appropriate music is different the world over (and even within our own nation), there are universal similarities regarding beliefs in the power of music. Whether you use Phish, Neil Diamond, Shania Twain, Ravi Shakar, or WuTang Clan to inflame your emtions, we must remember that our culture dictates our subconscious standards, and that there is no universal right or wrong. As Meyer points out, “…no particular connotation is an inevitable product of a given musical organization [such as the minor triad or funeral music], since the association of a specific musical organization with a particular referential experience depends upon the beliefs and attitudes of the culture toward the experience. However, once the beliefs of the culture are understood, most associations appear to possess a certain naturalness because the experiences associated are in some sense similar” (262).

Once you understand the post-60s, folky, rockin’, groovy, funky culture in which I was raised, and my personal experiences within that culture, it is not difficult to understand my love for Phish. The world over, music lovers are individual in their upbringing, yet they are tied together by a common bond, for, as Walker concludes, “in practically all cultures, music, more than other artforms, has held a unique place in the human quest to rise above the immediate environment…Music has traditionally been regarded as both the key to knowledge and the source of that knowledge itself” (213). Although there is no objective, universal rule regarding what constitutes a powerful chord progression, it is evident that music is universally revered.

Coming Next: The Evolution of Music in Humans

Set the Gearshift: Phish as Catalyst to Ecstasy

Table of Contents

How does music move us to ecstasy? The answer is: Nobody knows. (And do we really need to know?) But, for the thinkers out there, here’s a possibility…

[Throughout this essay, titles of songs will be capitalized and in quotes (ie. “My Soul”). However, unless obviously intended as a reference to a song, these are meant to be read simply as words in the sentence.]

2. Some Science

Imagine a visible resonant ripple spreading out from Mike’s bass; a single pluck on the string sends a booming E-note undulation shimmering through the air. My outer ear servers to focus this wave into the middle ear, where it is further concentrated, eventually hitting the inner ear, the place where a wave becomes an electric impulse. The pressure from the ripple pushes on a membrane that bulges into a tube, creating an oscillation that moves through the fluid in this tube. The rumbling liquid now rubs across the Organ of Corti, where tiny hairs sway with the current. As the hairs switch back and forth, they trigger electrical nerve impulses that zip into the base of my brain. And here, in the brain, the final transformation takes place. What were once ethereal waves, then pulses in the honey of my inner ear, then simple electrical charges, now become translated into what we humans have termed “sound,” the sonorous sound of the bass.

The note from that guitar has now been relayed around most of my cerebrum, for “the same area of the brain that is stimulated by music is also responsible for memory, motor control, timing and language” (Knight). This triggers memories, forces me to shake my behind, and affects me emotionally, filling my heart.

Unfortunately, there are people who cannot experience music, who suffer from a particular brain condition called “amusia.” By studying these people, scientists have been able to document the pervasive nature of musical sound. Amusia refers to “any upset in perceiving, comprehending, remembering, reproducing, reading, or performing music” (Jourdain 286). That is a vague and broad definition, and neuroscientists know it, saying they are “uncomfortable with so braod a definition, but it reflects the generality by which music operates in the brain…amusia may stem from damange to many parts of the brain in either hemisphere” (Jourdain 287). Music invades every nook of our brain and this is why it can take us over so entirely.

Because of its almost omnipresent nature, music affects us physiologically, having a “marked effect on pulse, respiration and external blood pressure…[as well as] delay[ing] the onset of muscular fatigue” (Meyer 27). Since music has been documented to affect us physically, it has often been used as an alternate form of therapy for psychological and medical conditions. Dr. Fred Schwartz, an anesthesiologist at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, says that for an anxious patien, music can have a comparable effect as taking five milligrams of Valium [relax and listen to some tunes instead of popping a pill!] and that when music plays in his operating room, anesthesia requirements drop 10 to 20 percent (Brown 118). In a published study in the “Journal of Music Therapy,” the chair of the music therapy program at Florida State University, Dr. Jane Standley, Ph.D., states that premature babies in intensive care who were exposed to music were calmer, used oxygen more efficiently, gained weight faster, and required shorter periods of hospitalization than babies who didn’t listen to music. Dr. Standley also found that burn victims, and patients undergoing treatment for cancer, brain disorders, and kidney dialysis reported less discomfort when music was played during painful procedures. And, finally, patients who awoke to music after surgery required less pain medication and could wait longer for their analgesic medications than other patients (Brown 120). Scientifically, music has healing power.

But I, along with many other people, believe that music’s power can help us to mentally transcend the physical world to revewal the world of the spiritual within ourselves, of the divine, the ideal, of pure beauty. In a letter to Scudder Rice, Aldous Huxley wrote that “the most perfect statements and human solutions of the great metaphysical problems are all artistic, especially, it seems to me, musical” (Aronson 151). Whether you agree with this or not, you probably agree with Aristotle’s statement that “music is one of the pleasantest things” (44). Not only is it pleasant, it is emotionally commanding.

Music has often been declared the language of the emotions; where words leave off, music begins. If you are at all musically sensitive, even if you don’t like Phish, then you have no doubt had an experience where you were exhilarated by a piece of music, forgetting your physical environment and becoming totally entranced by the sound. How does this transition take place? Science can tell us how sound waves are processed, but how do these simple “sound” waves become “music”?

To examine how music makes us feel so good (or sad or pensive), and how Phish is one example for me of quality music, we must follow a stepping-stone sequence of explanation, each stage leading to the next like a melodic scale. If we are to wonder how music inspires us, we must start with the bass note and ask, “What is music?” Second, building on the bass note, “What is the purpose of music?” In other words, how did it survive through human evolution? Third, the middle and earthy notes, all of the theories about music in evolution revolve around the emotions; so we must define an emotion. Fourth, the rising notes, how can emotions guide us to beauty? And last, the peak of our ascendance, how can the meditation on the beautiful launch us into a state of ecstasy?

Next in Part III: What is Music?

This was published seven years ago. It is re-printed here for your perusal and discussion.

Set the Gearshift: Phish as Catalyst to Ecstasy

Table of Contents

How does music move us to ecstasy?
The answer is: Nobody knows. (And do we really need to know?)

But, for the thinkers out there, here’s a possibility…

[Throughout this essay, titles of songs will be capitalized and in quotes (ie. “My Soul”). However, unless obviously intended as a reference to a song, these are meant to be read simply as words in the sentence.]

1. The Question

Eyes closed, arms surfing the tide of the sound waves about to knock me out of myself, feet jumping, hips shaking, Phish jamming so explosively that I’m squinting, looking for that note, that one burst from the mess that ties it all together, that makes harmony out of mayhem and orders the universe so that my skin chills and “My Soul” elevates to the ideal, the one I wish I could exist in. What is this magical world of musical transcendence?

For me, Phish is an intoxicant, a musical addiction that is most effective live and continuous. I feel torn and disengaged from bliss after they stop playing, and swallow my saliva like I’m choking, gazing around, blinking in the bright, discombobulating light at all the fellow faces of confusion. I have experienced ecstasy this night and leaving the concert hall is like leaving the warm and fluid comfort of the womb in to the cold and hazardous world. During the performance, every piece of my world, every thought, every emotion, every dance move, had come together, synchronized by the musical Pied “Piper[s]” Trey, Mike, Paige, and Jon. Every note, every beat had drifted into my brian and propelled me from myself into the freedom of the imagination, where I feel like bursting with light and joining the music in its immortality.

Do you know what I mean?

But this ecstasy is only caused by sound waves rippling through the air. I wonder how sound waves can move me so powerfully; how, at the end of “Punch You in the Eye,” I feel I could take on an evil tyrant; how, during “Silent in the Morning,” I can vividly remember my first love in a golden-sunned backdrop, can smell her brown curls over her bare shoulders; how during “Prince Caspian,” I feel like spreading my arms and sailing over the crowd, carried aloft by the sheer energy rising in plumes.

This prose I’ve written, this attempt at poetry, is pitiful in its reach to capture the essence of my ecstasy. How can words describe the bliss of music? (There is just as much complexity as using music to describe words). People try, but language only acts as a reminder, a prod to the soul to reminisce about the musical peaks unattainable in other arts. The fact is that language falls short. Language is powerful in its own respect, but music is much more immediate. And how can one use a concrete appeal to the intellect to describe an ethereal appeal to the emotions?

Additionally troubling, in exploring music through language, we are in danger of destroying the mystery of that which we love. As Wordsworth said, “We murder to dissect.” But, since I am human, driven by an innate curiosity and wonder, I must dissect in order to understand, and therefore improve upon, or recreate. Without exploring the innards of dead bodies, we cannot keep live ones healthy. The wonderful thing about music is that it cannot be killed, so let us begin the dissection. You may not appreciate Phish, but certainly you can appreciate being carried away by a good tune. Well, you should know what I’m talking about if you plan to continue reading. I am here to examine how this happens, and how Phish is a perfect example, for me, of music meant to move its listeners to transcendence.

Next: Part II (Some Science)

It only touches on the Farmer’s Market, but its fun to see: Thursday Night Farmer’s Market

Its fun to read about people who had a good idea and the passion to see it through. Here’s an article in BusinessWeek about the founder of digg.com and how he got where he is today:
Valley Boys

Mmm, more data. Take a look at this article, The State of the Blogosphere from David Sifry of Technorati.

There’s some very interesting graphs and charts to peruse. Especially interesting to me were these two:

This indicates that English is the dominant blogging language on the web, but that Japanese is a close second.

And this next one indicates that English speakers perhaps blog while at work, while Japanese are more likely to do so before or after work. Of course, this statement doesn’t take into account the likely large number of students who are blogging.

Read the article for more interesting data crunching.

This guy took a picture every other day of the 9 months of pregnancy, then put them into a 20 second movie: gestation movie

Mmmm, data.

The PDFs linked below have a lot of math in them, but the data they reveal can be intriguing.

New York Times
In regards to the New York Times sample, 330,000 New York Times articles over 3 years (2000-2002) were analyzed.

For this 2000-2002 period, the most frequently mentioned people were: George Bush; Al Gore; Bill Clinton; Yasser Arafat; Dick Cheney and John McCain. In total, more than 100,000 unique persons, organizations and
locations were extracted.

In relation to the sport of basketball, these were the top 5 most frequent mentions of people or organizations:

1. Lakers
2. Shaquille O’Neal
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Phil Jackson
5. NBA

For the holidays, the top 5 most frequent mentions of people, items, or organizations:

1. Christmas
2. Thanksgiving
3. Santa Claus
4. Barbie
5. Hanukkah
6. Mattel
7. Grinch
8. Hallmark
9. Easter
10. Hasbro

I thought it interesting that for the holidays, 40% of the most frequent mentions were brands (ie. Mattel, Barbie, etc).

Here are some graphs in relation to term frequency and time of year:

US Senate
This data covers the 105th-108th Senate from 1997-2004. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this one is much longer and less interesting. To me, at least. But I did find some interesting things.

For example, look at the red line below. It is the mentions of “Defense” in terms of “Use of force”. It is steadily declining and then rapidly shoots back up. That abrupt shot straight up is right after 9/11. You might want to look at the original graph on page 53, but here it is:

The top ten topics were:

1. Judicial Nominations
2. Supreme Court / Constitutional
3. Campaign Finance
4. Abortion
5. Law & Crime 1 [Violence/Drugs]
6. Child Protection
7. Health 1 [Medical]
8. Social Welfare
9. Education
10. Armed Forces 1 [Manpower]

See the PDF for the full list:

• New York Times Text Mining Data (PDF)
• US Senate Text Mining Data (PDF)