[Rhodes22-list] Hey Slim! Music

[Slim]

Very interesting, Brad.  Thank you.  I'd like to see a lot more brain
research done on the effects of music.  He writes about the emotional
response of people experiencing a live performance.  I'd like to know how
much dopamine my brain produces when I'm performing and the audience is
really liking me.  It's truly an overflowing sense of pleasure for me.  I'd
also like to know what's happening in my brain when I'm totally bombing and
want to crawl in a hole and die.  The gulf between those two extremes is
huge.  Sometimes they both happen only seconds apart!

Back when I was an undergrad in the 70s and taking freshman psych, I
volunteered to be a subject for some EEG experiments.  I was seated in a
nice, comfy chair with the lights low as the guy hooked the electrodes onto
my hands, chest, head, etc. and then he told me to just relax and listen to
some music until we get started with the experiment.  This was not a music
experiment.  The music he had on the stereo (and it was a very nice sound
system) was the scherzo movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony which, for me
anyway is some of the most exciting music there is.  He told me to just
relax?  Sorry, impossible!  After a bit, he walked back into the room and
said he was getting some funny readings and checked the connections of the
electrodes.  They were fine and he shrugged and again told me to relax until
we get started.  The Beethoven was still playing and I was still NOT
relaxing at all.  He came in one more time to check his gear and walked out.
After a few minutes more, He abruptly cut the music off and began his
experiment which had nothing to do with music and I don't remember the
experiment itself but after it was over I asked him what was wrong at the
beginning.  As I recall, he was measuring heart rate, breathing and brain
waves (alpha waves, beta waves...I really don't remember).  He flipped back
to the pages the machine recorded during the music and all the needles were
going crazy.  At the point when he cut the music off, they all immediately
settled down.  I offered the explanation that it was because I was a music
major and really got into the Beethoven.  He said every subject he tested
had listed to the same music but he had never seen that response.  Well, I
don't need a machine to tell me that I really like Beethoven, but it shows
how people differ in their response to it.  Apparently, nobody else cared a
hoot about Beethoven.  I'd like to see that experiment done to a variety of
people with a variety of music and see what happens.  Dr. Levitin seems to
think that "popular" music is more, well, popular.   8-)  Obviously the EEG
technology of the 70s is crude compared to today's MRI and I'm sure we could
learn a lot more.

Here's what we know about the brain in terms of music being associated with
other disciplines like math and so on.  As a young person's brain is
developing, the brain grows "dendrites" which are like fingers that grow
from one part of the brain to another and enables you to make cognitive
connections between, say, the past (memory) and the future (projection).
It's been shown that music students grow more dendrites than non music
students, but only if they start music study before the age of about 12.
This stands in sharp contrast to Dr. Levintin's conclusion that there's no
connection between music and math.  The research shows that young music
students do better in all other subjects.  Of course there are anecdotal
examples to the contrary.  Levintin uses the example of subjects with
Williams syndrome who show low math ability but high music ability.  I'd
certainly call that anecdotal.  They're handicapped--not "normal" subjects.

But let's move beyond math and consider the connection between music and
history, visual art, dance, reading and language skills, social skills,
motor skills, cultural anthropology, physics, who knows what else!?
Consider that when a group of wind instrument players begin a phrase, they
literally all breathe together as one.  Now that's cooperation!  What could
be more cross-disciplinary?

I'd like to go on and on but that's enough for now.  Thanks for the article,
Brad.  I'll surely pick up Levintin's book.

Slim