The Power of Music

[David Baxter PhD]

Musing On the Power of Music
By Dr George Simon, Ph.D., Counselling Resource
20 July 2009

Abundant research testifies to the awesome power of music to affect our mental and emotional states and even influence our behavior.

I have always loved music. As a child, I sat for hours in front of my treasured small phonograph, listening to and being carried away by a variety of intriguing tunes. Music spoke to me, even though I wasn?t sure exactly how. But when I needed to be calmed, there was always a tune that could do the trick. And when I needed to release pent-up rage, there was a vehicle for that, too. Mostly, however, music for me was a way to connect to deep emotions as well as to light the fires of inspiration. I suppose that?s why when I started composing later in life, every melody that played in my mind ended up becoming an inspirational song.

There is a branch of psychology that formally studies the nature of music and its power to affect the human psyche. And, there is a considerable overlap between the psychology of music and the science of musicology. But regardless of the approaches we?ve taken to understand it, abundant research testifies to the awesome power of music to affect our mental and emotional states and even influence our behavior. Abundant research indicates that music which incorporates aggressive themes and harsh, strident tones and verses actually has the power to increase the potential for aggressive behavior, especially in impressionable young persons. Captors have long known that bombarding prisoners with music discordant with the dominant tastes and preferences of their culture can be an excruciating form of torture. Music?s power to help heal is becoming increasingly evident, too, with recent research findings on its effects on the well-being of persons suffering from high mortality rate diseases. Music?s power to soothe was the topic of a mostly misquoted passage from Congreve?s The Mourning Bride:

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.​

Some psychologists actively employ music as a therapeutic technique with their clients. For me, music is therapy, purely and simply. It does for me what almost nothing else can do. It can take me away, charge me up, stir my imagination, bind my wounds, fill me with joy, and make me cry all in one sitting, depending upon the nature of the composition.

There is a timelessness about the greatest music. I was deeply struck by the realization that almost all of the inspirational pieces that have made the deepest impression on me since my childhood have lyrics that were paired with melodies handed down in various cultures from generation to generations and whose original authors are largely unknown. It?s almost like the origins of melodies come from another world or dimension that we don?t yet truly understand, as opposed to just the random firing of neurons in the human brain. I get that feeling particularly when a melody seems to come out of nowhere and fills my head for days or weeks on end, begging me and taunting me to do something meaningful with it.

When I retired for the most part from my once hectic professional life, I promised myself I?d spend more time composing. The problem is, you can?t make a creative enterprise happen. Inspiration comes when it does ? of it?s own accord. You have to get used to surrendering to that fact. The first time I did so was a dramatic life-changing experience. A melody popped into my head one day and for 7 years wouldn?t let go of me. I heard it in the background everywhere. At work, in the car, while walking in the neighborhood, etc. I had only a few lyrics in mind and no idea whatsoever about what to do with it. I literally felt compelled, however, to create what would become my first musical composition. I had created before, having written a book. But this was different. Something else was driving me. It felt like I was just the vehicle, having the choice only to go where some force was taking me or continue to be haunted. When the project was done, I still had no idea about its purpose. That didn?t become clear until 2 years later. In the process I came to a deeper sense than at any other time in my life of being connected to something much more powerful and undefinable. Something other-worldly and beyond the bounds of time. And I felt my breast soften and soothe. I haven?t been the same since.

 

[Jackie]

Brillant article, music is such a powerful tool, maybe some of the people in power that start wars should just lay back and chill out to some music, then maybe we could live in a peaceful loving world!

 

[stargazer]

Abundant research indicates that music which incorporates aggressive themes and harsh, strident tones and verses actually has the power to increase the potential for aggressive behavior, especially in impressionable young persons.

I'm glad to have read this, because I've seen it happen. I didn't know that there was research comfirming it, however, and I'm glad of that, too.

I was deeply struck by the realization that almost all of the inspirational pieces that have made the deepest impression on me since my childhood have lyrics that were paired with melodies handed down in various cultures from generation to generations and whose original authors are largely unknown. It’s almost like the origins of melodies come from another world or dimension that we don’t yet truly understand, as opposed to just the random firing of neurons in the human brain.

I have also marveled that this seems to be true with regards to the folk music of various cultures, although I appreciate music intentionally created by the great composers as well, whose neuron-firing is perhaps not quite so "random" at the moments of their most heightened creativity.

The problem is, you can’t make a creative enterprise happen. Inspiration comes when it does — of its own accord.

I'm not sure this is entirely on the mark - or at the very least, it might be personal to the author's experience, and therefore misleading. Most creative people I know start off by working pretty hard at their art or craft, and they trust that inspiration comes through the process. For me, I have at times received an inspiration when I was doing nothing at all, but more often it is a more subtle thing that emerges gradually once I've already laid out a course of action for a composition.

It felt like I was just the vehicle, having the choice only to go where some force was taking me or continue to be haunted...In the process I came to a deeper sense than at any other time in my life of being connected to something much more powerful and undefinable. Something other-worldly and beyond the bounds of time.

He puts words to this experience really well. I think a lot of us have felt this phenomenon from time to time. For myself, I like to think of myself primarily as a composer (note the qualification: "like to think") - and so I spend so much time hammering away at this and that, it's refreshing on the rare moments when I actually do feel inspired. The key, as my teachers have told me, is to set aside a regular time to compose, and to do it, whether one feels inspired or not.

Anyway, just so you'll know I'm not just blowing off steam, you can hear some of my most recent music on this link (just finished it last night, in fact - though it's probably not fully finished) - and an earlier version of the same, with several other pieces, on my Music Space. I do work hard at this stuff, but I don't really have the time to give it full effort, nor the money to use actual human musicians - but I schedule it into two days each week. For me, especially not being "retired," that is the only way it works.