Does music work on the mind or the body - Essay Example

Does music work on the mind or the body? Introduction. Music is an aspect of human behaviour which appears to be almost universal. Archaeologists have found evidence of musical instruments going back as far as Neanderthal times, and anthropologists study its occurrence in societies all over the world. It is clearly an important aspect of culture which people value and make use of in different contexts. In many cultures such as Classical Antiquity and Western Christianity music has been used in the performance of religious rituals. In the Middle Ages many scholars theorised about music and the movement of the planets, suggesting that it is in some way connected with the physical fabric of the universe. Tribal societies often mimic sounds in the real world and use music in rituals connected to hunting or as part of an enactment of oral history. Urban societies insist on including music in the dense mix of sound that surrounds people’s everyday lives, giving background ambience or providing pleasurable leisure time experiences. The way that music functions in human society seems, then, to be very flexible and diverse. Recent scholarship continues to examine the physical properties of music and the ways that it is constructed and performed but it has concentrated also on the way that music is used in modern societies and what it means for the people who listen to it. There are still many aspects of this field which are not fully understood, and one of these areas of on-going exploration is the question of whether music works on the mind or the body. There are a number of different ways to approach this question and so in order to obtain a rounded picture, this paper proposes to examine it from three disciplinary perspective in turn, first in terms of the natural sciences, i.e. physics and human biology; secondly in terms of sociology and thirdly in terms of ethnography. The natural sciences perspective. The most obvious property of music is its sound and this in turn is caused by actual occurrences in the physical world. Rodoway sums it up neatly when he writes: “The auditory sense is primarily physical rather than chemical. Sound is concerned with motion or activity, that is with vibration and resonance of substances (air, water, solids). (Rodoway: 1994, p. 90) The human ear is the main receiver of sound, and is able to detect the movement of air and distinguish variations in the sounds that are produced. There are, however, other parts of the body that are involved in listening to music, because the ear is part of a perceptual system, involving the whole human organism and elements of the environment which the listener and the music share. Anyone who has attended a rock concert is very aware of the physical sensation of vibration which occurs when base sounds are emitted from huge speakers with great intensity: the whole upper body feels the vibrations. Some high pitched sounds are painful, causing the eyes to tighten up and the body to cringe. Observation of humans and animals as they react to music and other sounds reveals that movement of the head and shoulders towards the source of a sound often occurs, so that both ears can be used to help locate the distance and direction accurately. Some animals like foxes and dogs have ears that face forward and can be swivelled left and right to focus more closely. The physical properties of the space in which music occurs are also important in determining how sound is received. Some music is best appreciated outdoors, like bagpipe music at a Scottish military tattoo or drums and dancing round an African fire for example, because the movement of the people and the effects of wind and weather create washes of sound that come and go, adding variety and interest to the performance for spectators and performers alike. Other kinds of music are more suited to intimate surroundings like the gentler sound of the string quartet in a small chamber as opposed to the bombastic sound of a full orchestra in a concert hall. The modern debate about the advantages and disadvantages of analogue as opposed to digital musical recording is partly a debate between those who prefer the purer, cerebral approach to music and those who are profoundly attached to the contribution that is made by the physical environment to the final output, including aspects like reverberations, echoes and extraneous sounds which add to the uniqueness of any one performance in space and time. While the physical properties of sound and the human ear are basic requirements for musical appreciation, there is more to it than just atoms colliding with each other: “…the wonder of the auditory system, as with all perceptual systems, is the way it manages to decipher an order, a sense of the world, and of people, places and spatial relationships from this complex mass of sensuous information. (Rodoway: 1994, p. 84) Clearly when terms such as “information” are used, there is an assumption that mental processes are engaged. Hints of the close connection between body and mind are contained in the use of English words “sense,” and “sensuous” since they refer both to the input which perceptual systems receive (we can feel “sensations” through various parts of the body) and also to the meaning which we give to these experiences (we make “sense” of what we feel). One way of describing this is to look at the activity of listening to music as a process in which sounds are delivered in a time-space continuum, and are then recognised piece by piece by the human ear, and reconstructed within the human mind. The body collects the pieces of individual sound and the mind determines which are valid (rejecting background or un-associated noises, for example) and assembles them in a creative way. This explains why different people react to the same piece of music in different ways, since each person reconstructs the piece in his or her own individual way. The sociological perspective. Looking back over the history of the natural sciences in Western cultures there seems to be an insistence on separating physical and mental processes. Scholars pinpoint the work of the French scientist René Descartes (1596-1650) as a major influence in this respect since he “radicalised the distinction between the mind and the body (the mental and the material, soul and nature) and who privileged the former over the latter.” (Fraser and Greco: 2005, p. 4) In a way this continues the religious hierarchy of spiritual concerns over material ones, adding a value judgement that rates the attributes and activities body as something morally inferior to those of the mind. As the Enlightenment brought a more “scientific” approach to the world, it replaced this religious dualism with a new Cartesian dualism, forgetting that even the highly rational methods of natural science like observation and experimentation depend absolutely on the perceptual systems of the human body. In the twentieth century there has been something of a revival of interest in the bodily part of this equation, partly because of a growing disillusionment with both religion and science and partly because of a break from what Fraser and Greco call puritanical orthodoxy which “has provided a new legitimation to pleasure and playfulness, and generally to desire associated with bodily hedonism.” (Fraser and Greco: 2009, p. 2) From this brief review of the way our understanding of music has developed over time it has become clear that the context in which music occurs, including overarching world views which are widely held by a large group of people, can and do influence the way that we understand how music works on our body and our minds. The discipline of sociology examines human behaviour as it occurs in groups. The phenomenon of music usually involves several people, and often permeates whole societies via modern technological means of reproduction and dissemination. The arrival of means of mass communication has focussed attention on the potential that music has to influence people and sociologists are interested in why and how this happens, along with the consequences that this might have on individuals and on society at large. An interesting question in this regard is how far music, and other cultural phenomena, reflect the culture that they are in, and how far they challenge it or change it. There is no doubt that exposure to music trains people to detect and anticipate patterns, to respond in physical ways like dancing, marching or tapping their feet and to develop musical desires and preferences, and that some of this is instinctive, and unconscious, while some is more reflective and deliberate. Deeper philosophical content is much harder to identify. DeNora notes that one sociologist with a particular interest in music, Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) drew attention to the hidden power that music has when it “trains the unconscious for conditional reflexes.” (quoted in DeNora: 2000, p.1) Influenced by Marxist theories, Adorno and others were convinced that music had the power to influence society: “By avoiding musical cliché, and by preserving dissonance instead of offering musical resolution and gratification, progressive music had the power to challenge cognitive, perceptual and emotional habits.” (DeNora: 2000, p. 1-2) This view of the radical, transformative role of music is perhaps conditioned by the time in which it was written, when older models like the classical traditions up to the time of Beethoven were being challenged by Schoenberg and then new wave musicians. A more sinister view of the role of music in society is that of Foucault, who emphasises the power that music has in mass cultures to control people and coerce them into behaving in particular ways. People are physical beings whose bodies co-exist with many others in different kinds of relationships: “... the body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (Fraser and Greco: 2005, p. 100) Viewed in this light, music can be used as a tool to control people, and examples of this can be seen very obviously in the Wagnerian spectacles and rousing march music which the Nazis used to build mass support in the Third Reich. The power of music to discipline and control people’s bodies and minds is also exploited in the area of sports through judicious use of rhythmic pulsing beats: “the aim of aerobics is to inculcate a high degree of physical and emotional conformity” (DeNora: 2000, p. 103) A more subtle, but just as powerful influence is exercised in contemporary Western societies by music in service to consumerism. The economic power of the music industry is immense, and it works its magic by training people to spend their cash on ephemeral musical items that are produced precisely to make money. This mass-produced output keeps large sections of society, whether it be middle aged consumers of classical music, or teenage fans of pop idols, complacent and docile while contributing to the greater aims of the capitalist economy. In considering whether these kinds of mass produced music-with-a-purpose influence the body or the mind, it is important to look at the whole societal context, and not just the performance of one piece of music in one place. Youth culture in Western societies is characterised by affiliation to sub-groups, each of which carves out its own identity to distinguish itself from other competing groups. Rappers, for example, adopt socially critical and at times sexist songs, half spoken and half sung as their musical expression and they adopt an urban casual dress style, often with tattoos and jewellery. Goths, Punks, Heavy Metal fans and other musical fan groups each have their own style of piercings, fashion and body modification which helps to build a collective identity. It is unlikely that the music itself, or even the lyrics, actually cause these modifications, but the music certainly contributes to the overall group cohesion. It keeps the illusion alive, and builds aural and visual conformity to small group norms, and all the while consumers happily oblige the market by buying into the image. The ethnographical perspective. While the analysis of society at large is useful in understanding how music works in a mass-media culture, there are aspects which are more intimate and personal and which require more refined tools of analysis. The discipline of ethnography provides just such a tool when it uses observation and fieldwork to explore how people relate to music and what they think about it. Recent studies such as that of DeNora examine factors such as “the cultural foundations of belief, co-ordination, conformity and subjectivity.” (DeNora: 2000) Using structured interviewing techniques this discipline affords an insight into the way people take what music has to offer and use it as a way of influencing their own mental and bodily states. Listening to a gentle cd in order to induce calm into a stressful day, or playing loud music before going out to a party, or playing lively music to add excitement to a barbecue are all cited as ways in which people use music. Music acts much as a drug does to modulate moods and change the actual chemistry of the body. It has social power on individuals and on groups and the ethnographic approach reveals that people are not just ignorant automatons being manipulated by the political or economic power of music for obscure societal ends, but rather are administering music consciously, in measured ways, to enhance their moods, energy levels and general wellbeing. Conclusion These three disciplines of natural sciences, sociology and ethnography have each used different techniques and terminologies. Exploring the question from these different angles has produced it a rounded picture of the complex ways in which music works on both the body and the mind. In twenty first century Western culture it appears that people seek to escape from the persistence of religious and Cartesian kinds of dualism – they want to reunite body and mind and they can do this in music. For many people listening to music is a route towards sublime mental states via exposure to physical vibrations in an ordered way. Bodily appreciation comes first, followed by mental appreciation, which in turn leads to measurable bodily changes. These complex interrelations appear to function on both unconscious and conscious levels, and particular types of music have both mental and physical associations for people and for groups, and can lead to changed emotional states like, pleasure, calm, venting, anger, recalling memories, building group cohesion, working through sadness etc. Our research has shown that people are using music to modulate moods, either of themselves or others. Useful avenues for further research would be to explore these areas through the discipline of psychology, and perhaps also via the natural sciences through brain imaging technology. Music works on both the mind and the body, and we have grown accustomed to thinking about these two dimensions in separate categories. The truth is that people are both rational and physical beings and that music has the potential to reach and influence the mind, or the body, or both at once, depending on the context of each specific instance. References Barthes, R. 1977. Image – Music – Text. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath. London: Fontana. DeNora, T. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Random House: New York. Fraser, M. and Greco, M. 2005. The Body: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Rodoway, P. 1994. Sensual Geographies. London and New York: Routledge. 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