Introduction
Do the sound waves in music affect the way you think? Can classical music make you smarter? The psychology of music is normally overlooked as a branch of musicology. The psychology of music explains the understanding of musical behavior and the effects of different sound patterns, or pitch, affecting peoples moods. Modern music psychology is mainly factual. Music-psychological knowledge tends to exceed on the basis of interpretations of data about musical behavior and experience. Music psychology is a field of research with practical purpose for music education, performance, composition, medicine, and therapy. It examines the effects of music on people, on both an individual and societal level. Music psychology has become an intriguing branch of science, still generally new but testing an impact. As the relationship between music and technology grows, researchers are finding new and contemporary ways of collaborating with music.
Every new experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. As a child, it is the most critical time for building the physical, mental, and emotional foundations that will support us for the rest of our lives. To improving creativity, learning and listening to music can continue to be useful throughout life. During the first three decades of life, metal brain development is affected by natural brain maturation and interacting with ongoing experiences. This article, I will explain the effects of classical music and how it can improve your ability to think.
How does Music Affect your brain?
Music psychology, which is a branch of musicology, aims to explain the understanding the effects of musical behavior. Many sound frequencies, called pitch, can form a melody. Melody is the part of music that is memorable and music that doesn’t have much of a melody often lacks direction.Corresponding harmonies can produce a variety of effects on a song. Harmonies can range from bright and uplifting to dark and depressing.
Music therapy is used to complement more traditional forms of medicine. Music can be a very powerful tool in relieving stress, and can be used in several ways. Scientists studies show that certain types of music can aid relaxation by lowering heart rates and blood pressure. Brainwave relaxation music works better than other types of music for altering your brain waves due to the background tones or beats. White noise, pink noise or brown noise fixed in the background with entrainment has the same soothing effect. The process to smoothen your mental hardships, cure any pain and replaces it with peace. Even when a newly born child doesn’t sleep, the mother of the child sings to the child as they fall asleep.
Music can affect your brain in a negative way and a positive way. Music and songs are filled with very catchy rhythmic tunes that often maintain the same lyrics or pitches. When something is repeated enough times it becomes apart of muscle memory and whether or not you mean to or not, you ,will want to do what ever the song is advertising. This is why we should all be careful to things we allow ourself to listen to. A lot of music in the music industries promote violence and ignorant behavior towards negative things, which if you listen to repeatedly long enough you will want to do what they are promoting and you will do it unconsciously. This is just like on television or in movies where they promote really violent actions, they have everyones mind thinking about it. Although most of these facts are off strong ,sometimes proven theories, this doesn’t mean that everyone will react in the same negative way because every mind is different, and everyone has had different experiences to interact with.
Music can also have a negative affect as well as a positive one. Songs that give off good “vibes” or positive emotions can have just of an impacting role for your brain. Positive music can enforce positive behavior, lack of depressing thoughts, and can pump you up and give energy. It can also enforce positive choices, thoughts, and behaviors.
Can Classical music make you smarter?
A sound frequency, or pitch, can form a unique melody that can affect brain patterns. There have been multiple studies that say that classical music relaxes the brain and helps it focus. It only works with various music, mostly just instrumental songs, nothing with chorus or words. In addition to relaxing and focus that classical music brings, it also improves creativity and learning abilities in children. When your brain is relax, the level of imagination and creativity that I child can have can is at it’s highest. This is why when children dream, they come up with interesting new stories. When you relax the brain with classical music, it gives a whole new way to look at things. When you sleep with classical music on during the the night, it relaxes the brain and created a whole new way for higher creativity as well when you play classical music while you work. When you play classical music in the background of learning school subjects, it can increase the brain into higher learning patterns.
Classical music in the background of everyday activities that you need the most focus on, can improve your brains logic and thinking on the subject. Music can also help you multi-task. Multi-tasking can stress a person out sometimes and stress there brain. It has been proven that men struggle in multi-tasking more than women because of the maturity of certain brain patterns. Listening to classical music can relax the brain so that doing tasks become easier.
Music always helps break the psychological barriers that we face everyday to improve mental growth and physical growth. When your brain is relaxed it can process more information at once. So if you were studying for an exam the night before and then sleep with classical music on at night, research states you are most likely to remember it the next day what you studied consciously or unconsciously. A relaxed mind helps you think at your highest, rather than a stressed mind. A stressed brain has been proven to make you forget things and not be able to really process any information as well, or if not slower than you would not stressed.
Learning to play a musical instrument can even enforce relaxed concentration. Developing concentration can help many children and adults focus better in their other subjects. Music can also help people to read. Then the you play classical music, it helps you focus better on the task at hand and help you become less distracted. That is why when your mind is at ease, everyday task become much easier.
The “Mozart Effect”
It has been said that exposing babies to classical music, even in the womb, can increase their IQ and their other aspects of their logical development. So can the “Mozart Effect” really prove that classical music makes you smarter? Many researchers support comes from the group of babies who were born throughout the nineties, showing that classical music temporarily improved students’ test scores on both parts of a general intelligence test. Decades of research has presented different kinds of “enriched environments” can enhance the brain’s development. Neuroscientist Marian Diamond proved that rats that grow in enriching environments, like humans, their brains would show enhanced development . Brains showed greater cell density and more complex networks of connections between neurons than did the brains of rats who have been living alone in small plain cages.
In conclusion,whether or not it’s classical music or hip-hop, music does have an effect on the brain. We must all be mindful of all the things we listen to and allow ourselves to listen to because it will affect your mind in either a positive or negative way. We all must be aware of the things we do and the people we hang out with too because your brain learns from everything around you. So with all my research I have done, I have found that Classical music does affect the brain by enhancing its learning patterns to help you think at your highest. So maybe studying with classical music before that exam might just help you out after all.
References
Kesan, C., Ozkalkan, Z., Iric, H., & Kaya, D. (2012). The Effect of Music on the Test Scores of
the Students in Limits and Derivatives Subject in the Mathematics Exams Done with Music. Online Submission,
Travis, F., Harung, H. S., & Lagrosen, Y. (2011). Moral development, executive functioning,
peak experiences and brain patterns in professional and amateur classical musicians: Interpreted in light of a Unified Theory of Performance. Consciousness & Cognition, 20(4), 1256-1264. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.03.020
Quantum Jumping. (December 26 2011). http://www.quantumjumping.com/. In How Music
Affects the Brain: Enhance Learning, Attitude, and Health. Retrieved June 20 2013,from http://www.quantumjumping.com/articles/subconscious/how-music-affects-the-brain-enhance-learning-attitude-and-health/.
Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas. (Fall 2007). http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/. In Does classical
music make babies smarter?. Retrieved June 20 2013, from http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_classical_music_make_babies_smarter.
Scott Severance. (Copyright©1999). http://www.scottseverance.us/. In The Psychological
Effects of Music. Retrieved June 20 2013, from http://www.scottseverance.us/music/effects_of_music.htm.
Richard Pamcutt. (March 2006 Copyright©2005-2006). http://www.uni-graz.at/. In The
Psychology of Music. Retrieved June 20 2013, from http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/musicpsychology.html.
Nancy K. Dess. (September 1 2000). http://www.psychologytoday.com/. In Music on the
Mind. Retrieved June 20 2013, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200008/music-the-mind.
Giselle E Whitwell. (May 1 2011). http://birthpsychology.com/. In Importance of Prenatal
Sound and Music. Retrieved June 20 2013, from http://birthpsychology.com/free-article/importance-prenatal-sound-and-music.\
Wikipedia . (June 3 2013). http://en.wikipedia.org/. In Music Psychology. Retrieved June 20
2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_psychology.
Frederick Travis, Harald S. Harung, Yvonne Lagrosen. (December 2011).
http://ehis.ebscohost.com/. In Moral development, executive functioning, peak experiences and brain patterns in professional and amateur classical musicians: Interpreted in light of a Unified Theory of Performance.
Ransom Riggs. (September 17 2007). http://mentalfloss.com/. In Can classical music make
you smarter?. Retrieved June 21 2013, from http://mentalfloss.com/article/16976/can-classical-music-make-you-smarter.
Media History and Development 