Healing Aspects of Music Mentally and Psychologically

     As we know, the most challenging area in our makeup is the emotions.  Just as the physical body releases energy through movement and activity, the emotions give out energy through the expression of feelings.  “Music structured through these controls (scales, rhythm and amplitude) can produce changes in emotion, mood, energy level and desire can evoke memories or stimulate fantasy.” [1]One of the most important aspects of a balanced and creative life is to nurture and maintain a healthy, happy and constructive emotional nature.  In terms of health, repressed expression may also lead to migraines, ulcers, stroke or tumors.  Therefore, it is essential to find creative ways to channel one’s emotions.  Great music is one aid to healthy emotional release.  “Sounds usually arouse feeling and imagery in the listener and evoke a wide variety of responses, such as fear, familiarity, memories, anger, worry and love.”[2]  For the physicist, it is important to differentiate psychologically between sound and noise.  Scientists are discovering the existence of computer-like programs that can access the inner codes of the mind effectively.  “Dr. Clynes, a concert pianist and neuropsychologist at the State Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, Australia says that there are specific forms of emotional expression called ‘essentrics’ that act like keys in a lock and activate specific brain processes to which we react.  Research indicates that essentric forms have innate meanings that transcend cultural learning and conditioning and are therefore neurologically coded.”[3]  In Randy Bressler’s dissertation he discusses how the children who listened to Mozart’s “Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos (K. 448)” would perform significantly better than those from the silent condition in any of the three memory domains (i.e. auditory-verbal, visual-non-verbal and attention and concentration).  Elizabeth Miles believes “that music works on your autonomic nervous system and brain waves to counter the neurological, physiological and psychological effects of life in the fast lane.”[4]  Kristin Nantais did a study to replicate and extend the ‘Mozart Effect.’  In experiment one, they replicated the Mozart Effect in a highly controlled environment and found that participants performed better on a spatial-temporal task after listening to Mozart compared to just sitting in silence.  In experiment two, they found that same effect when a composition by Schubert was substituted for the Mozart Sonata.[5]  In 1993, “Frances H. Rauscher and Bob Aaron completed a pilot study in which 10 three-year-old children were given music training—either singing or keyboard lessons.  The scores of every child improved significantly (46%) on the Object Assembly Task.  In a second experiment, they found that the spatial reasoning performance of preschool children who received eight months of music lessons far exceeded that of a demographically comparable group of preschool children who did not receive music lessons.” 

The link between music and spatial reasoning is important since spatial reasoning skills are part of the abstract functions like solving problems in math and engineering.[6]  “Gordon Shaw shows how music can help us understand how the brain works and how music may enhance how we think, reason, and create.”[7]  Norman Weinberger accumulated findings that indicate that musical training enhances intellectual creativity in general.  His findings to date provide solid support for the claim that music increases creativity.”[8]  He also states, “music has the enormous power to cause emotion to well up within us.  These compelling, often overwhelming feelings color our moods, affect our perceptions and can alter our behavior.”[9]  Music has the ability to alter all aspects of our lives, and it would benefit people to consult the powerful qualities of music to get in touch with the passion of our creation.