Every month I put together a series of Illustrated Booknotes as part of a book club I’m a member of. This month it was the turn of ‘Your Brain On Music’ by Daniel Levintin.
The intersection between music and the brain
The arts are not meant to ruin science. They’re actually meant to reinvigorate and allow us to re-experience science. And science is meant to reinvigorate art.
Music activates every region of the brain that has so far been mapped.
More so that’s anything else, music is a kind of food or fuel for the brain.
Athletes at the Olympics listen to music. Why are they listening to music? The neurons in your brain fire in synchrony to the tempo of the music that you are listening to. So if you’re a runner and you can get music that’s at a slightly faster pace than you would normally run, and then your neurons are firing at that pace, you can actually run faster. Same thing for weight lifting.
Any athletic activity that involves some kind of timing, music if it’s carefully chosen can help you to perform better.
Because of the constant pulse of music, the constant pulse keeps you going, even when your willpower flags, or you think you want to stop and take a break the constant pulse gives you this kind of momentum and pushing forward.
Music as medicine
Music does function as medicine in some contexts. For example, listening to pleasurable music releases dopamine and can function in that sense almost like an anti-depressant.
Sad music can help people to feel better. When you’re sad or depressed, you are usually feel misunderstood. If someone comes along and says ‘you should listen to some happy music’, then t hat’s going to make you feel even more misunderstood.
If you put onthe right piece of sad music, you go ‘Oh, that’ how I feel. That musician has been through it.’
Listening to sad music releases prolactin. This is the same chemical that is released when mothers nurse their babies.It’s a soothing hormone that makes you feel comforted.
What music should Iisten to?
The majority of people use music everyday for mood regulation. We listen to a certain kind of music in the morning to help use get going, a certain of music at night to unwind. There’s a kind of music you use to get through your exercise workout. We use music like we use drugs.
Music is regulating the hormones and the neurotransmitters effectively the way that drugs do.
So the answer to music therapy is for doctors and patients, or any of use on our own, is to recognise that music has this power over us, this influence on us and to use it. To be systematic about it. Create a playlist that will help you to do whatever activity it is that you are doing.
The playlists work better when you are the one who are selecting the music.
People in a preoperative setting in a hospital, were either given valium a benzodiazepine to calm them down before surgery or they were given music.
They were even given music that the doctor chose for them, or music that they could choose themselves. The people who could choose their own music showed much less anxiety than the people given Valium or those who had the music chosen for them by the doctor.
Why are some musicians better than others?
It’s mostly hard work and it’s not genetic.
It’s merely the amount of time they put in.
He asked many top musicians and asked them ‘where do you thin talent comes from?Were you born this way or did you work really hard. Every single person he asked said that they didn’t think it was inborn, they thought it was hard work.
The most surprising account came from Stevie Wonder. He said he remembered the 1000s of hours he spent struggling, practicing, not happy with the results, trying to go over and over it again. He estimated he put in 10,000 hours before he was happy with where he was. That’s twenty hours a week, for ten years.
This emotion is inspiring. Any of use, if we are willing to put in the work, can get there. It’s democratising. If we can just put in the work, we can do anything we want.
If we’re willing to put in the work, we can do it. As listeners, if we’re willing to put in the work making playlists, selecting our music, we can really reap the benefits of music in our spiritual life, in our psychological life and our physical life.
Either you’re just born with it and it’s talent. Or you work on it.
Before surgery, people who were able to choose their own music had much less anxiety than the people who either had the music chosen for them or where given Valium.
What’s next?
I put together a Cartoon Newsletter, with a whole host of characters plus occasional cartooning tips. Add your name and best email address to the form below, and I’ll send a copy your way.
