Psychology of Music

Pinker’s metaphorical expression for music was “auditory cheesecake”, explaining that he considered this function “useless[as a biological adaptation]” (Pinker 1997, p.528). Perhaps avid listeners comfort feed their minds with acoustic cheesecake, but musical knowledge presents the impact of such sweetness goes far beyond just licking the spoon. Extracting Pinker’s perspective, this essay will discuss whether music is valuable in the survival of humans. Arguments will be derived from brain imaging findings to examine its biological predisposition, adaptionist view to seek out its evolutionary status and whether the environment is responsible for demoting music.

People who have the perfect pitch are so well acquainted with pitch that they can tell the pitch of anything, including water faucet, and car horn. The experiment was done by professor playing some notes and asking them to guess them without using the piano. Astoundingly, the Chinese group outperformed the American group; seventy four percent of Chinese group showed perfect pitch, compared to fifteen percent of American kids. She explains that the difference in performance of Chinese speaking kids is due to tone language they

Often music is consisted not only by sounds made from musical instruments, but also by voice and verbal messages. The structure of the voice, or as Roland Barthes describes it ‘the grain of voice’ is the element in a certain piece of music which is responsible for creating the emotions when listening. The grain and the lyrics make the signified and carry out the message. The vocal part of music is formed of words, text, which communicate and make the representation and expression of what it is sung - talked about. According to Barthes the emotive modes of the voice and the changes of the tones from low to high is what delivers the final message and makes us feel the music. (Barthes, R. 1977 [1972]).

Without the human intention, perception, and interpretation of sound, then the existence of music would be imaginary. Music includes talking words in a way that the person creates a sound that is made with the intention of being music (Deutsch, Diana 10-13, Justus & Timothy., 33-40). Besides, people can perceive silence and sound and put them together so as to call the outcome music. In Bakan’s fourth proposition, he identifies the approach as the Human Intention and Perception (HIP) approach (Resnicow, Joel E., 10-22). In other words, the proposition tries to suggest that music is inseparable from the makers; or more specifically the people who perceive and experience it. Bakan gives numerous examples to show that music is a product of human intention and perception. This paper conducts research and gives appropriate examples to show that music is only identified as music if the person is making it has the intention for their words to be music.

Pitch: Auditory experience corresponding primarily to the frequency if vibrations, resulting in giver or lower tones.

The third chapter of Don P. Ester's book, Sound Connections, introduces many systems for teaching pitch and rhythm. The chapter discusses the benefits and disadvantages of the many systems, such as, Ester starts by introducing his idea of the criteria for selecting effective syllable systems. One of his many points is, “The syllables must connect very efficiently with the aural syntax of music, allowing the learner to easily link syllables to patterns before encountering notation.” The next being “The syllables must eventually link to musical symbols in a practical and intuitive manner.” The last being, “The syllables should be appropriate for use with all ages.” Ester also outlines specific guidelines for tonal and rhythmic systems that vary from each other. The most successful systems chosen by Ester meet these criteria points, and are outlined as to why they are the most successful.

When a person hears music, the impression is experienced first in the astral body. Then, the tones are consciously sent to the etheric body, and man overcomes the tones already there. This is the basis both of the pleasure of listening to music and of musical creativity.

In the lives of many musical content creators, the most important aspect of life itself is the melodic placements of notes in a musical number. These strategically placed notes, meant to thrill the brain with dopamine, in their content portrays the passion inside of them. Therefore, during a stimulating music festival, the crowd obtains the energy that was put into the songs, as the songwriter performs. At the world-renowned music festival, Coachella, thousands of people attend to experience exclusive music of their favorite artist. While listening, they show their enjoyment of a tune through exerting energy amongst the crowd. However, energy can also be heard through the sounds of another’s voice. When separated from one another due to various reasons, a family member or friend will feel excitement and energy just by the sound of their beloved companion’s voice. Through the eyes of a parent, watching their child grow into an adult is one of the most beautiful natural sights to see; however, once an adult, their baby must attend college or move out. Every once in a while, they will call to catch up with their parent; and during this time, both recipients feel a rush of happiness and energy while listening to the familiar voice on the other side. Overall, the feeling of energy is interpreted in different ways and

his book The World in Six Songs, Dr. Daniel J. Levitin explores how the influence of musical sounds on the brain has created and shaped human nature. He believes that the various functions of music have affected the evolution of human relations. These musical functions are performed by six types of songs: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. He feels that anthropologists, archaeologists and psychologists have neglected to thoroughly investigate how music has contributed to the development of human nature. Levitin is a research scientist, a psychologist, an author, a professional musician and record producer, and also professor at McGill University where he heads the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise. He has been published in both scientific and musical trade journals.

Otsuka, Yanagi and Watanabe (2008) trained 6 experimentally naive male Wistar rats to discriminate music from Bach and Stravinsky. The rats were approximately 12 weeks of age at the start of the experiment. The rats were trained on a concurrent-chain schedule that allowed the experimenters to observe any preferences towards four different styles of music: Bach, Stravinsky, white noise, and conspecific vocalization. The experimenters used white noise as a control in the study. The results showed that the rats did not have a strong preference to either Bach or Stravinsky. However, the rats disliked the conspecific vocalization compared to the white noise. The rats were able to discriminate between the four styles of music, but the

The “Mozart effect” is a statement based on research studies claiming that listening to the

Thesis: Music is a unique form of sound powerful enough to manipulate mood, feelings, and cognition.

Research and conducting experiments is the most effective way possible to gain an answer. The type of research is based on the situation, the hypothesis, and the resources the individual or group has on hand. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the Mozart Effect from two different journals and answer questions based on the research materials. The first article for examination is Music and spatial task performance.

The goal of this lab is to evaluate the effect of different music on test subjects taking math and literature tests, and see which music is the most distracting and the most helpful for subjects. . The objectives of this lab are to observe the effect that the pop, country, rock, and classical music have on the test subjects, and to measure the amount of problem marked wrong against the amount of problems not completed during the task.

Music elicits an emotional and cognitive response in all who listen to it. It is powerful at the individual level because “it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral” (Francis, 2008,