If music be the food of love, play on!

These words of Duke Orsino from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night may well reflect contemporary scientific thought on music

March 04, 2017 06:18 pm | Updated 06:20 pm IST

Regulating tones  We now understand better what happens in the brain when listening to music.

Regulating tones We now understand better what happens in the brain when listening to music.

Music is a mood-maker. How music affects the listener’s mood has long been a subject of study by psychologists and neuroscientists. Music, indeed, sound itself, affects the state of mind we are in for the moment. Volunteers who were put in a ‘happy’ mood listening to soothing music were asked to identify the facial expression of an individual or a face. They generally found the expression ‘happy’ or positive. And while ‘sad’ music (or just noise) was played, they identified the expression to be negative. (Is this the reason for the ‘mood music’ played in elevators in buildings - to keep the passengers in a friendly mood?) Sound cues affect the state of an individual mind leading to interpretation of visual emotions.

The reverse also appears true. Watching the anga cheshtai - the body/face distortions - a singer makes goes to affect (at least my) appreciation of the beautiful elaboration he makes of the musical phrases. It would appear far better to hear him on the radio or CD. The audio affects the visual, and the visual, the audio. The late musician M.S. Subbulakshmi was a grand exemplar of this interdependence. (There actually are some killjoys who had criticised some women singers who come dressed in ‘showy’ silk saris as being ‘impious’.)

What actually happens in the human brains during such experiences is fast getting understood. A recent paper in the journal Neuroscience (T. Quartoa et al, 2016, 341, 9-17) tries to implicate the mechanism by which the molecule dopamine triggers nerve cells in the brain and how it may differ from person to person, based on their genetics. Some of us want to have music played in the background while working and concentrating on it, while some others prefer silence; for the latter group, music in the background is a distraction. The above cited paper attempts to identify a relationship between genes and phenotypes in response to music.

Music therapy

That music can regulate mood and ‘arousal’ in everyday life and can be used to promote physical and psychological health has been known for quite some time. The neurochemistry of music is the title of a comprehensive and eminently readable review paper, published by Mona Lisa Chanda and Daniel J Levitin of McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, in April 2013. Since this review is not freely downloadable on the web, let me quote a few sentences from their paper. They point out that music evokes a wide range of emotions in the human mind: “from exhilaration to relaxation, joy to sadness, fear to comfort and even combinations of these. Many people use music to regulate mood and arousal, much as they use caffeine or alcohol. Neurosurgeons use it to enhance concentration, armies to coordinate movements and increase cooperation, workers to improve attention and vigilance, and athletes to increase stamina and motion”.

They further argue in this review that music influences our health through molecules and inter-cell connections that affect the brain neural circuitry in four major domains. These are (1) reward, motivation and pleasure (2) stress and arousal (3) immunity and (4) social affiliation.

Like a drug

When we experience music as thrilling, pleasing, peaceful or even provocative, a release of opium-like molecules have been detected, which trigger the brain circuitry in ways that offer pleasure and excitement.

The Montreal group says that pleasurable music activates the same neurochemical systems as cocaine does!

Some forms of music can reduce stress and modulate arousal levels. These are generally ‘relaxing music forms’- low pitch, slow tempo and no lyrics. Rhythm would be slow or not at all (as in meditative pieces). Such listening appears to reduce the levels of cortisone (a stress-reducing hormone) and norepinephrine (neurotransmitter). While stimulating music (army band march) produces an increase in heart rate and blood flow, relaxing music (meditative chants) reduces heart rate, pulse, blood pressure and so on.

Affects immunity

The third effect of music appears, surprisingly, to enhance immunity. Recreational music such as group singing or drumming has been studied and researchers found increased levels of the immunoglobulin A, a protein that acts against inflammation and infection. Western researchers have claimed that listening to opera is anti-inflammatory. I wonder what the Indian equivalent music would be.

The fourth domain is the role of music in social affiliation. Group singing, march past to an anthem, dancing together are all examples. Studies on volunteers engaging in such group activities show higher levels of the two peptide hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. It is these two hormones that are involved in mother-child bonding, effective motivational states and so on. Duets - both in synchrony, or ‘sawal-jawab’ type - are examples here.

These studies raise many other research questions. One of them is whether the effect of playing (or singing) music has the same effect as listening - active versus passive. And is music habit-forming as cocaine or alcohol is? How do we explain music therapy, or dance therapy? All these are exciting and challenging fields of medical and psychological research.

dbala@lvpei.org

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