About Music - 2

Melody and Emotional Stimulation

Music, with its melody, rhythm, and harmony, provides an emotional experience not only to the individual but to all living things. Melody, melodic structures, and harmonic arrangements introduce the listener to different emotional states. For example, a sad melody may evoke melancholy feelings in one person, while it may create excitement and happiness in another person. Likewise, while an energetic rhythm may create feelings of enthusiasm and happiness in one person, the same rhythm may cause melancholy and sad feelings in another person. For this reason, we can say that the power of music to affect human emotions is individual, there is no rule that every music will evoke the same emotions in everyone.

We can also say that music creates an internal language and shows that art provides a universal connection. The main reason for perceiving music is sound waves. When sound waves reach the ear, they cause the stimulation of different types of nerve cells with different structures and functions. This is thought to be the reason for the changes in our mood and behaviors such as keeping rhythm while listening to music. Research shows that music causes activation of the areas of the brain where emotions arise. Listening to music actually affects many things in your brain and body. So, we can say that it is a very broad subject. For example, listening to music stimulates the areas of the brain responsible for memory and reward mechanisms. -

Changes in Brain Activity

Technologies such as fMRI and EEG are used to understand changes in brain activity while listening to music. These technologies can map the effects of music on the brain, helping us understand which brain regions respond to music and how these responses are linked to mental processes. For example, as a result of these experiments and observations, we can conclude that the activation of motor regions in the brain while listening to music with a distinct rhythm explains the effects of music on the body. In this context, understanding the changes in brain activity of music reveals the profound effect of art on mental processes. Listening to music, playing music, composing music, etc. all cause different points in the brain to work differently.

According to many people and most experiments and observations, playing a musical instrument is considered one of the most complex tasks done by humanity because musicians simultaneously take the notes they perceive visually to their brains and convert them into motor commands there. And although this complex task is valid for every musician, some musical instruments affect the functioning of more parts of the brain, such as the piano. Because a person playing the piano uses both his right hand and his left hand simultaneously in a rhythmic manner, which is really a difficult and demanding job. In this context, musical instruments can be ranked from the most complex to the least complex. In addition, musicians need to know very good mathematics so that they can play notes rhythmically, and proportionally according to their beat times. Musicians see the note in a split second, read it, perceive it mathematically, and play it accordingly. When musicians’ brains were examined using the fMRI method, more gray areas were found in some parts of their brains. Gray matter is the part located at the outermost part of the brain and plays a key role in language, thought, memory, attention, cognition, and consciousness.

Mental Flexibility

Individuals may like to listen to a single type of music, or they may like to listen to songs in many musical genres. At the same time, some people listen to the same music all the time, and some people do not listen to the same music more than once. But one thing is certain, as we can understand with the concept of mental flexibility, listening to a wide range of different music and different types of music enriches a person’s mental flexibility. Because different tonalities and structures stimulate creativity by supporting brain plasticity. When you listen to a song with a stable rhythm for a long time, you will no longer hear that rhythm because you will have become so used to that rhythm that your brain will go numb. Instead, listening to different music with different rhythms helps things to happen in your brain that are different and especially beneficial for your mental health. Different types of music, such as classical, jazz, rock, rap, and pop music, create diversity in brain activity, which helps individuals’ intellectual diversity.

~Büşra ESKİYURT