Jan22nd

Psychology of Music

Posted at 9:40 am By: Jodie | Filed Under WikiMusicGuide 

Moms sing lullaby to babies and despite picking the wrong note, the little child sleeps to it. That lullaby is without question an early introduction to music or to some, the earliest - that is if you haven’t enjoyed Mozart or dad’s humming (while he listens to that faint heartbeat of yours) while you were still inside your mom’s womb.

I, for one, have always loved psychology as much as I have loved music, although I did not pursue a career in either field. Still, I have always been determined to learn the connection between the two.

In a Psychology Today article, Norman M. Weinberger, Ph.D., professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California at Irvine, shed light to it. “Mothers everywhere sing to their infants because babies understand it… Not in the sense that a particular chunk of brain is musical. It’s complex, because music has many elements–rhythm, melody and so on. For example, certain cells in the right hemisphere respond more to melody than to language,” he said. Hmm. Perhaps that is why a girl could fall in love faster if you sing your way to her heart (deafs are exemptions, of course). The melody that makes the voice of the singing lover shiver, in my opinion, also could send shiver inside of her while the message of the song is being absorbed.

What about the Mozart thingy? Weinberger explained, “A few years ago, Shaw and colleagues reported on the “Mozart Effect”–the finding that college students who listen to Mozart for 10 minutes perform better on spatial-temporal tests, like pattern matching. Regrettably, this finding sprouted wings, such as the belief that kids get smarter after 10 minutes of Mozart. Intriguing as the finding is, it seems to have no practical implications because the effect lasts only a few minutes.” Well, what about if I send my future child an mp3 player that would play purely Mozart music 10 minutes before IQ exams? ***grin***

Here’s the good news. Listening to music does have along-term effect on the brain according to the Doc. “Evidence suggests that long-term musical involvement reaps cognitive rewards–in language skills, reasoning and creativity–and boosts social adjustment. Music exercises the brain. Playing an instrument, for instance, involves vision, hearing, touch, motor planning, emotion, symbol interpretation–all of which activate different brain systems. This may be why some Alzheimer’s patients can perform music long after they have forgotten other things.”

You see, music is really beneficial, folks! It is good for the brain. Given this, I wonder: Is it also good for the heart? Do all kinds of music have the same effects? If not, what are the different effects of such variations?

I’ll tell you next time :)

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Comments

2 Responses to “Psychology of Music”

  1. University Update on January 22nd, 2007 10:12 am

    Psychology of Music…

    …

  2. carl eichman on February 9th, 2007 2:17 pm

    Enjoyed your post, very interesting topic.
    -c

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