REACTIONS TO SOUND AND MUSIC
The French professor Emanuel Brigand (Universitè de Bourgogne) has done
experiments in which he is exposing persons to music. We do not need much,-
one note or chord may be enough. He has played short fragments of a piece of
music, down to a tenth of a second duration, for his test objects. The
persons were, in spite of that, capable of recognizing music and moods.
This observation is supported my Professor emeritus in psychology Alf
Gabrielsson at the University of Uppsala. He collected stories of the
strongest musical moments of thousand persons from 13 to 91 years of age.
Most of these experiences are attatched to living music,- the good
live-experiences. What kind of music is of less importance.
The most common reactions are joy, happiness – a feeling of being totally
engulfed,- to lose the sensation of time and space,- to lose control, being
surprised, touched and overwhelmed. And- a fraction of a second exposure may
be enough!
Explanations may be found in the “Handbook of Music and Emotion” that was
published by Oxford University Press last year.
Why does this happen? The music psychologists Patrik Juslin at University of
Uppsala and Daniel Västerfjäll at the University of Göteborg have collected
and interpreted research results within music psychology, neuroscience,
anthropology, psychology of recall, psychology of emotions and biology. All
this completed by own studies.
Juslin explains some of their findings in The German journal Die Zeit and
the Swedish magazine Forskning och Framsteg.:
Music, especially the rhythm, reaches the brain stem, the oldest element of
our processes of thought, often called the reptile brain. It reacts on
tones without engaging the consciousness, just like we stop and startle when
we hear a Bang! It makes our pulse increase when we hear fast and treble
notes, while slow rhythms and bass notes have a relaxing and calming effect.
The researchers claim that these emotions/feelings emerge already while in
the mother’s womb. The brainstem reacts to changes. These are very fast
reflexes in the central nervous system. So-called episodical remembrance
seems to play the most important role in this context. Music is associated
with the situation when we heard it for the first time, or we connect it
with special episodes.
One example is the well-known “oh dear, they are playing our song” which we
connect with the moment sparks flew between a pair that once were in love.
(And maybe still are?)
According to the researchers, we start creating such memories already at 3 –
4 years of age. But the most and strongest memories seem to originate from
the adolescent years or from early adulthood (15 – 25 years of age). In
this period appear most of the situations that mold our identity and our
taste of music.
Music creates more than memories. It invites to associations and starts the
fantasy flying out, usually within a cultural frame. Of all factors that
contribute to our emotional reactions to music, only the immediate reaction
in the brain-stem is dissociated from cultural influence, according to the
scientists. Everything else is a result of cultural influence and our own
personal experiences.
Sources: Die Zreit, Forskning & Framsteg, Behavioural and Brain Sciences.
By Olav Skille