tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/music-psychology-13797/articlesMusic psychology – The Conversation2023-03-09T17:15:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973012023-03-09T17:15:45Z2023-03-09T17:15:45ZWhy does music bring back memories? What the science says<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513748/original/file-20230306-24-wuyimv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C63%2C6072%2C3990&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Listening to certain songs can trigger some pretty intense memories.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/portrait-photo-of-smiling-woman-in-black-top-and-glasses-wearing-white-headphones-3765147/">Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’re walking down a busy street on your way to work. You pass a busker playing a song you haven’t heard in years. Now suddenly, instead of noticing all the goings on in the city around you, you’re mentally reliving the first time you heard the song. Hearing that piece of music takes you right back to where you were, who you were with and the feelings associated with that memory.</p>
<p>This experience – when music brings back memories of events, people and places from our past – is known as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251692">music-evoked autobiographical memory</a>. And it’s a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735619888803">common experience</a>. </p>
<p>It often occurs as an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721410370301">involuntary memory</a>. That is, we make no effort to try to recall such memories, they just come to mind spontaneously. </p>
<p>Research has recently begun to uncover why music appears to be such a good cue for invoking memories. First, music tends to accompany many distinctive life events, such as proms, graduations, weddings and funerals, so it can play an important role in reconnecting us with these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1041610215000812">self-defining moments</a>. </p>
<p>Music also often captures our attention, due to the way it affects our <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-our-song-the-musical-glue-that-binds-friends-and-lovers-across-the-ages-73593">minds</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/rhythm-on-the-brain-and-why-we-cant-stop-dancing-56354">bodies</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sad-songs-say-so-much-to-some-people-but-not-others-65365">emotions</a>. </p>
<p>When music draws our attention, this increases the likelihood that it will be encoded in memory together with details of a life event. And this then means it is able to serve as an effective cue for remembering this event years later.</p>
<h2>Positive memories</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.09.002">recent research</a> my colleague and I found that the emotional nature of a piece of music is an important factor in how it serves as a memory cue. </p>
<p>We compared music with other emotional memory cues that had been rated by a large group of participants as conveying the same emotional expression as the music excerpts we used. This included comparing music with “emotional sounds”, such as nature and factory noises and “emotional words”, such as “money” and “tornado”. </p>
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<img alt="Gig, with hands in the air and red lights and smoke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513752/original/file-20230306-18-98emau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Music can evoke memories and creates magical moments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-in-concert-1763075/">pexels/sebastian ervi</a></span>
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<p>When compared with these emotionally matched cues, the music didn’t elicit any more memories than the words. But what we did find was that music evoked more consistently positive memories than other emotional sounds and words. This was especially the case for negative emotional stimuli. Specifically, sad and angry music evoked more positive memories than sad and angry sounds or words. </p>
<p>It seems then that music appears to have the ability to reconnect us with emotionally positive moments from our pasts. This suggests that using <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-researchers-are-turning-to-music-as-a-possible-treatment-for-stroke-brain-injuries-and-even-parkinsons-171701">music therapeutically</a> may be particularly fruitful. </p>
<h2>How and when</h2>
<p>The familiarity of a piece of music also, perhaps unsurprisingly, plays a role. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221129793">another recent study</a>, we found that more familiar music evokes more memories and brings memories to mind more spontaneously. </p>
<p>So part of the reason music may be a more effective cue for memories than, for instance, our favourite film or favourite book, is that we typically reengage with songs more often over our lifetimes compared to films, books or TV shows.</p>
<p>The situations when we listen to music may also play a role. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575921">Previous research</a> shows that involuntary memories are more likely to come back during activities where our mind is free to wander to thoughts about our past. These activities tend to be non-demanding in terms of our attention and include things like commuting, travelling, housework and relaxing. </p>
<p>These types of activities align almost perfectly with those recorded in another study where we asked participants to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735619888803">keep a diary</a> and note when music evoked a memory, along with what they were doing at the time it happened. We found that daily activities that often go hand in hand with listening to music – such as travelling, doing chores or going for a run – tend to lead to more involuntary memories in the first place. </p>
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<img alt="Woman in record store." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513757/original/file-20230306-22-ijo2xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">When we listen to a piece of music from years ago, we seem to travel back to that moment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-red-and-white-plaid-shirt-checking-the-vinyl-record-6862365/">pexels/cottonbro studio</a></span>
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<p>This contrasts with other hobbies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2021.38.5.435">such as watching TV</a>, which can require our mind to be more focused on the activity at hand and so less likely to wander to scenarios from our past. </p>
<p>It seems then that music is not only good at evoking memories but also the times when we are more likely to listen to music are the times when our minds may <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-your-brain-decides-what-to-think-198109">naturally be more likely to wander</a> anyway.</p>
<p>Music is also present during many life events that are distinctive, emotional or self-defining – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-your-brain-decides-what-to-think-198109">these types of memories</a> tend to be more easily recalled. </p>
<p>Indeed, the power of music to connect us with our past shows how music, memories and emotions are all linked – and it seems certain songs can act as a direct line to our younger selves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Jakubowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Music, memories and emotions are all linked and certain songs can act as a direct line to our past.Kelly Jakubowski, Assistant Professor in Music Psychology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1184762019-06-12T11:57:25Z2019-06-12T11:57:25ZHeavy metal’s bad rep is unfair – it can actually have numerous health benefits for fans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278916/original/file-20190611-32342-182ygu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/excited-young-man-black-leather-jacket-390554533?src=Amt8Eyo3fddLzH7yQy2HTw-1-4&studio=1">Dan Drobot/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Due to its extreme sound and aggressive lyrics, heavy metal music is often associated with controversy. Among the genre’s most contentious moments, there have been instances of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-story-of-the-most-controversial-shirt-in-rock-history-61183/">blasphemous merchandise</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/an-ozzy-osbourne-fan-commits-suicide">accusations of promoting suicide</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/21/columbine-destroyed-my-entire-career-marilyn-manson-on-the-perils-of-being-the-lord-of-darkness">blame for mass school shootings</a>. Why, then, if it’s so “bad”, do so many people enjoy it? And does this music genre really have a negative effect on them? </p>
<p>There are many reasons why people align themselves with genres of music. It may be to feel a sense of belonging, because they enjoy the sound, identify with the lyrical themes, or want to look and act a certain way. For me, as a quiet, introverted teenager, my love of heavy metal was probably a way to feel a little bit different to most people in my school who liked popular music, and gain some internal confidence. Plus, I loved the sound of it. </p>
<p>I first began to listen to heavy metal when I was 14 or 15 years old, when my uncle recorded a ZZ Top album for me and I heard singles by AC/DC and Bon Jovi. After that, I voraciously read music magazines Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Metal Forces, and RAW, and checked out as many back catalogues of artists as I could. I also grew my hair (yes, I had a mullet … twice), wore a denim jacket with patches (thanks mum), and attended numerous concerts by established artists like Metallica and The Wildhearts, as well as local Bristol bands like Frozen Food.</p>
<p>Over the years, there has been much research into the effects of heavy metal. I have used it as one of the conditions in my own studies exploring the impact of sound on performance. More specifically, I have used thrash metal (a fast and aggressive sub-genre of heavy metal) to compare music our participants liked and disliked (with metal being the music the did not enjoy). This research showed that listening to music you dislike, compared to music that you like, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-012-9141-6">can impair</a> spatial rotation (the ability to mentally rotate objects in your mind), and both liked and disliked music are equally <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acp.1731">damaging to short-term memory performance</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278918/original/file-20190611-32331-12catmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Heavy metal has positive effects on fans of all ages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/heavy-metal-kidrock-roll-child-673660963?src=jd3t099rXGRtyXFtJ9y4SQ-1-20&studio=1">Sandy Morelli/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Other researchers have studied more specifically why people listen to heavy metal, and whether it influences subsequent behaviour. For people who are not fans of heavy metal, listening to the music seems to have a negative impact on well-being. <a href="http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/ndemers/sciproc/coping%20with%20stress.pdf">In one study</a>, non-fans who listened to classical music, heavy metal, self-selected music, or sat in silence following a stressor, experienced greater anxiety after listening to heavy metal. Listening to the other music or sitting in silence, meanwhile, showed a decrease in anxiety. Interestingly heart rate and respiration decreased over time for all conditions. </p>
<h2>Metalheads and headbangers</h2>
<p>Looking further into the differences between heavy metal fans and non-fans, <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2013-35730-001">research has shown</a> that fans tend to be more open to new experiences, which manifests itself in preferring music that is intense, complex, and unconventional, alongside a negative attitude towards institutional authority. Some do have lower levels of self-esteem, however, and a need for uniqueness.</p>
<p>One might conclude that this and other negative behaviours are the result of listening to heavy metal, but the same research suggests that it may be that listening to the music is cathartic. Late adolescent/early adult fans also tend to have <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2013-13053-002">higher levels of depression and anxiety</a> but it is not known whether the music attracts people with these characteristics or causes them.</p>
<p>Despite the often violent lyrical content in some heavy metal songs, recently published research has shown that fans <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.181580">do not become sensitised to violence</a>, which casts doubt on the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.84.5.960">previously assumed negative effects</a> of long-term exposure to such music. Indeed, studies have shown <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15298868.2015.1036918?journalCode=psai20">long-terms fans</a> were happier in their youth and better adjusted in middle age compared to their non-fan counterparts. Another finding that fans who were made angry and then listened to heavy metal music did not increase their anger but <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00272/full">increased their positive emotions</a> suggests that listening to extreme music represents a healthy and functional way of processing anger.</p>
<p>Other investigations have made rather unusual findings on the effects of heavy metal. For example, you might not want to put someone in charge of adding hot sauce to your food after listening to the music, as a study showed that participants <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Mcandrew2/publication/235910144_Violent_Lyrics_in_heavy_Metal_Music_Can_Increase_Aggression_in_Males/links/578e924e08ae35e97c3f7432.pdf">added more to a person’s cup of water</a> after listening to heavy metal than when listening to nothing at all.</p>
<p>Finally, heavy metal <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00146/full">can promote scientific thinking</a> but alas not just by listening to it. Educators can promote scientific thinking by posing claims such as listening to certain genres of music is associated with violent thinking. By examining the aforementioned accusations of violence and offence – which involved world-famous artists like Cradle of Filth, Ozzy Osbourne, and Marilyn Manson – students can engage in scientific thinking, exploring logical fallacies, research design issues, and thinking biases.</p>
<p>So, you beautiful people, whether you’re heading out to the highway to hell or the stairway to heaven, walk this way. Metal can make you feel like nothing else matters. It’s so easy to blow your speakers and shout it out loud. Dig!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Perham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you love heavy metal, it can boost your well-being in several different ways.Nick Perham, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1107112019-04-30T20:13:21Z2019-04-30T20:13:21ZWhy artistic differences in a band can be a good thing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265516/original/file-20190325-36273-12hqkt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Metallica singer James Hetfield (left) and guitarist Kirk Hammett perform on stage during Lollapalooza 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Ruiz/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of popular music is littered with <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-10-messiest-band-breakups-145565/">stories of internal feuds and external relationships </a> that drive cracks in bands or tear them apart. The Beatles, Metallica, the Stones, Oasis – the list is long. </p>
<p>These fights make great reading and help sell ageing musicians’ biographies by the bucketload. But what is often not talked about is the way conflict can have a positive effect on the quality of the songs written. </p>
<p>The Beatles’ 1968 hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J9NpHKrKMw">Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da</a> certainly succeeded by pop music’s measure of chart success. As Geoff Emerick, their long time sound engineer, recalls, it might never have seen the light of day if John hadn’t got fed up with Paul’s “granny music shit” and started madly pounding at the piano keys in frustration. This suddenly brought the track to life, becoming the song’s famous opening. </p>
<p>Fast forward 25 years to 2003, when Metallica hired a performance enhancing coach, Phil Towle, to be on hand in the studio while they were recording their 8th album, St. Anger. The internal feuding was well documented in the fascinating film Some Kind of Monster. </p>
<p>Vocalist James Hetfield was so controlling that he insisted they only work on the album for four hours a day; the rest of the band couldn’t do anything else musically outside of this time frame. This riled other band members such as drummer Lars Ulrich. Yet the album went on to top charts around the world. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The film Some Kind of Monster detailed conflict within Metallica while making their 8th album.</span></figcaption>
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<p>When romantic attachments within a band lead to a break up, things are more complex. Still, even these conflicts can be a source of great art. Think of <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Fleetwood-Mac-Rumours/release/1916905">Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours</a> – with tracks such as The Chain and Go Your Own Way – which sold 20 million copies in the United States alone. Or Richard and Linda Thompson’s last album as a husband and wife duo, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Richard-Linda-Thompson-Shoot-Out-The-Lights/master/64223">Shoot out the Lights</a>, which became their most critically acclaimed work. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Go Your Own Way was a break up song.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Of course not all band conflicts end with great art. Some just get messy. The Smiths broke up in 1987. When the band’s former drummer Mike Joyce took Morrissey and Johnny Marr to court in 1996 over royalty claims, the judge found in favour of Joyce, saying that Morrissey was “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/devious-truculent-and-unreliable-1314122.html">devious, truculent and unreliable</a>”. The Police, The Clash and The Pixies are other great bands that didn’t survive internal conflict.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265518/original/file-20190325-36283-1fo1g5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The members of Oasis arrive for the 2007 Brit Awards. The band broke up in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DANIEL DEME/EPA</span></span>
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<p>But we rarely hear about the precise moment when songs are being created, and how conflict between band members can be crucial to making better music.</p>
<p>As a contemporary music lecturer, I am often in a room with students deep into the songwriting process. I stress the importance of respectful and constructive communication when collaborating. But I’m aware that in studios and garages around the world there are bands at each other’s throats arguing about whether the chords in the bridge are any good or if the guitar sound in the chorus is right or whether that beat sounds too much like their last five songs.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.amphibianmusic.com/">my own band</a>, we argue all the time. We have been together for nearly 20 years and made five albums. The tracks for the last two albums were made mostly by the three of us in a room thrashing away at our instruments to generate and refine ideas.</p>
<h2>Creative sledging</h2>
<p>We set up a video camera in the corner of the room to capture the process.
Later, we looked at the footage and found two 30-minute sections of intense argument as we tried to come up with a bridge section in one song. The <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735617704712?journalCode=poma">most interesting discovery</a> was how important such moments of conflict were in propelling the musical ideas forward.</p>
<p>If we were stuck for an idea, or playing something that one of us thought was just lame, our drummer would often stop and offer a provocative sledge. “Play something other than clown music!” he’d say. Or, “this is not university, this has to be something that sounds good and has a bit of attitude”. Then we’d try again. This process worked in the opposite way that sledging does on the cricket field – it improved our musical performance. </p>
<p>Of course as a band we have a long shared history with a fair share of ups and downs. I would not recommend the “conflict as strategy” approach to a new band, and definitely not to a group of students.</p>
<p>It takes time for a band to reach what American psychologist and creativity expert <a href="http://keithsawyer.com/">Keith Sawyer</a> calls a state of group flow. Or as UK music psychologist <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frederick_Seddon">Fred Seddon</a> would put it, a state of empathetic attunement. But the results can move you way beyond the contemporary equivalent of “granny music shit”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Hill is a member of the band amphibian, part of the subject of this research.</span></em></p>There is a long list of bands that fell apart over artistic differences. But conflict between band members – and even some creative sledging – can be crucial to making better music.Matthew Hill, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963052018-05-09T11:06:53Z2018-05-09T11:06:53ZYour Spotify history could help predict what’s going on with the economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218265/original/file-20180509-4803-n8rhh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chilling-digital-device-headphone-relaxation-audio-362657822?src=4lBSRy5X4pJ1Y5aAYFGScw-1-37">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/andy-haldane-centre-for-data-analytics-for-finance-and-macro">has urged</a> his colleagues to examine the musical mood of the nation when contemplating changes to the bank’s interest rate. How could an increase in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/30/music-downloads-can-gauge-consumer-vibe-bank-of-england">Taylor Swift downloads</a> or a decline in the popularity of rock and roll be relevant for managing the economy? </p>
<p>It all comes down to measuring economic sentiment. This is a way of gauging how people feel about the economy, which behavioural economists use to make predictions about how it will respond to different policies. For example, if people are generally pessimistic about the economy then raising interest rates might encourage them to stop borrowing and spending by so much that it harms the economy.</p>
<p>For some time, researchers have been able to measure economic sentiment by analysing the language used in large numbers of online <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2504147">news stories</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187775031100007X">Twitter posts</a>. But recently, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323560860_The_Rhythm_of_Markets">researchers from Claremont Graduate University</a> have shown that sentiment may be extracted from pop music top-100 lists and music platforms such as Spotify. What’s more, these new sentiment indicators are at least as useful as conventional surveys of consumer confidence.</p>
<p>The idea is that songs have an emotional component that anyone can relate to, encoded in musical attributes such as the songs’ energy, tempo and volume. Online music services such as Spotify already use these kinds of attributes to categorise songs and <a href="https://qz.com/571007/the-magic-that-makes-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-so-damn-good/">recommend new music</a> to users based on similar tracks they have already listened to.</p>
<p>You can also understand the emotions expressed by songs from their lyrics, depending on your cultural background. These can be analysed using the same “natural-language processing” software that is used to assess the language of news and Twitter feeds.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All songs have emotional attributes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/20-december-2015-istanbul-turkey-spotify-353400926?src=4qqUH46oIfFfHRj1t8B9Ew-1-58">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This can be done in a simple fashion, encoding words’ positive or negative emotional loading, or more elaborately by matching words <a href="http://saifmohammad.com/WebPages/NRC-Emotion-Lexicon.htm">to eight core emotions</a>: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, trust and anticipation. The software then counts up the number of times each emotion is cued within a song’s lyrics.</p>
<p>By identifying the emotional components of the most popular songs, researchers can put together a picture of listeners’ own feelings and use this to predict economic sentiment. Running the emotion mapping exercise on all songs in a top-100 chart captures the lion’s share of new music being purchased and listened to on a month-by-month basis.</p>
<p>This is where the advantages of using “big data” from large numbers of people come to the fore. Survey results only tell you what people who have chosen to participate want you to know. Music charts, on the other hand, reflect actual consumer choices from a much wider group of people.</p>
<h2>Emotional downturn</h2>
<p>The Claremont researchers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323560860_The_Rhythm_of_Markets">applied this technique</a> to charts from before and after the 2008 global economic crisis. They found that, after the crash, the frequency of words associated with anger and disgust increased while the frequency of words associated with trust decreased. This type of evidence strongly suggests that music consumers’ states of mind do have a bearing on what music they choose to pay for and listen to.</p>
<p>This research and Andy Haldane’s comments suggest that both the music and lyrics of popular songs can indeed be used to predict economic sentiment, and even short-term stock market movements. Streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music are sitting on data that could help build a far more detailed map of economic sentiment than top-100 lists. Because these companies have data on individual households, we could even create sentiment indexes for different regions and groups of people (for example, based on how much they earn).</p>
<p>Calling for economists to consult the musical mood of the nation may seem somewhat surprising, bizarre even. But research suggests that the big data approach to tracking consumer sentiment really could be useful. It is just one aspect of the Bank of England’s general drive to broaden and diversify the sources of information it consults in its analyses and decision making. And that should be welcomed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The emotions associated with trends in popular music and lyrics can predict economic sentiment.Kim Kaivanto, Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster UniversityPeng Zhang, Lecturer in Economics and Finance, Guizhou Minzu UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793792017-06-14T09:20:34Z2017-06-14T09:20:34ZAnthill 14: Music on the mind<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173615/original/file-20170613-25855-1nt9qx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’ve got music on our minds in this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/the-anthill">The Anthill podcast</a>. We talked to psychologists, cultural historians, classical pianists and neuroscientists to find out more about what music does to our brains, and how it moves us.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head, playing on a loop, that you just can’t shift, you might find our first interview useful. We spoke to music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski at Durham University who <a href="https://theconversation.com/earworms-why-some-songs-get-stuck-in-our-heads-more-than-others-68182">researches the phenomena known as earworms</a>. She explained what the most common songs are that we get stuck in our heads, why – and some tips on how to shift them. Apologies if we provoke any unwanted earworms.</p>
<p>We then sent science editor Miriam Frankel off to look into how music works in the brain – and how it can help people whose brains have been damaged. There’s still a lot of research to be done on the topic, but she spoke to three scientists to find out what is known. Lauren Stewart and her colleague Maria Herrojo Ruiz at Goldsmiths University, share the findings of some of their studies into the impact music has on our brains and how it is helping them to understand conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and stroke. And Jörg Fachner, who studies music, health and the brain at Anglia Ruskin University, gives some moving accounts of how music has been used to wake people from comas, but also how it can haunt people in the form of hallucinations.</p>
<p>After hearing about what music can do to the brain, we wanted to find out how it makes us feel. Arts and culture editor Jonathan Este spoke to cultural theorist Ian Biddle to learn more about those pieces of music specifically designed to make us feel a part of something bigger: national anthems. He also asked Elaine Chew, a digital media expert and classical pianist at Queen Mary University of London, what it is about the music of national anthems that rouses emotion. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173750/original/file-20170614-21372-mw3dg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What is it about national anthems that moves people?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<hr>
<p><em>The Anthill theme music is by <a href="https://www.melodyloops.com/search/How+to+Steal+a+Million+Dollars/">Alex Grey for Melody Loops</a>. The piano music is taken from a <a href="https://www.freesound.org/people/IESP/sounds/340062/">recording by The IntraEnvrionmental Sound Project</a> of Lethbridge Sounds. The national anthems God Save the Queen, La Marseillaise, Wilhelmus and the South African National Anthem are from Wikimedia Commons. A big thanks to City University London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios.</em></p>
<p><em>Click here to listen to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/the-anthill">more episodes of The Anthill</a>, on themes including <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-10-the-future-73404">The Future</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-7-on-belief-69448">Beliefs</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-9-when-scientists-experiment-on-themselves-71852">Self-experimentation</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A podcast on what music does to our brains, and why it moves us.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorWill de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, UK editionAnnabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Head of AudioMiriam Frankel, Senior Science EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488502015-10-13T09:43:02Z2015-10-13T09:43:02ZAda Lovelace and the role models who guide women towards a life less ordinary<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98090/original/image-20151012-17843-1jfvb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C119%2C1422%2C1030&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Music or maths, or both?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/altemark/273968506/in/album-72157594490821625/">altemark</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A century before the first computers, Ada Lovelace wrote a study on the potential of Charles Babbage’s <a href="http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html">yet-to-be-built Analytical Engine</a>. Babbage’s Analytical Engine is regarded as the world’s first computer and Lovelace the world’s first computer programmer. She foresaw how Babbage’s design could be a general purpose computer, that it might manipulate not merely numbers but also music, even one day composing complex and scientific pieces. The Analytical Engine, she wrote: “weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves”.</p>
<p>Almost 200 years on, much of what she proposed is now possible. Software today can <a href="http://www.music.mcgill.ca/bkn25/videos.php">compute aspects of our understanding of music</a>, while models of harmony and other musical elements can encompass music of ever increasing complexity. Software can analyse compositions and extract the underlying musical structures. </p>
<p>With the right software and inputs, computers can indeed now <a href="https://vimeo.com/15378877">generate complex pieces</a> – following in the style of, say, classical composer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/feb/11/contemporary-music-guide-toru-takemitsu">Toru Takemitsu</a> or jazz master <a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/tatum.html">Art Tatum</a> – by learning or mimicking recurring musical patterns.</p>
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<p>Computer programs can also <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mathemusicalconversations/videos">extricate the sensual dimensions of musical expressivity</a>, for example, the subtle differences between two different musician’s performances of the same composition. Mathematical and computational models have become valuable tools to interrogate what we know about music, and to open up new possibilities for musical expression. “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatsoever to originate anything”, Lovelace wrote, but by making music and science amenable to calculations they are “thrown into new lights, and more profoundly investigated”.</p>
<p>Lovelace made prescient predictions about computing despite living in a time when women were denied education. How did she surmount the odds to make such <a href="https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html">remarkable insights about computing</a> centuries before computers existed?</p>
<h2>Helping hands</h2>
<p>Outstanding role models have been found to be especially important to women, indicating to women that “<a href="http://www.hw.ac.uk/documents/same-gender-role-models.pdf">someone like me can be successful</a>”. Lovelace was not short on role models: her mother Annabella was well-schooled by former Cambridge University professors in classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science, contrary to convention. In turn, Annabella ensured her daughter was taught science and mathematics by the best minds in England (albeit as an antidote to her father Lord Byron’s artistic “madness”). Among Ada’s mentors was the Scottish astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville.</p>
<p>Role models are even more important because of the <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/aboutus.html">unconscious associations</a> we inevitably make between gender and the kinds of activities deemed suitable or appealing for men and women. This implicit bias tends to limit women to stereotypical roles, such as caring rather than executive positions. Women are judged more harshly than men: students <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/13/female-academics-huge-sexist-bias-students">rate female university lecturers more negatively</a> than male lecturers for the same performance. Applications for academic science positions are <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474">judged more favourably when associated with a male name</a>, leading to a higher starting salary and more career mentoring. Women leaders who <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-for-women-who-negotiate">act assertively and authoritatively</a> are viewed more negatively than men expressing the same traits. And so on.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61826/original/8zdmbt97-1413369057.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ada, Countess of Lovelace and ‘Enchantress of Numbers’, as Babbage called her.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ada_Lovelace_1838.jpg">William Henry Mote/Ada Picture Library</a></span>
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<p>So while stand-out female role models exist, they often do not have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. All-male lineups of keynote speakers at technology conferences are not uncommon, while women remain a minority in the highest echelons of classical music performance, composition and scholarship. The proportion of women working as I do at the intersection of music and technology, two male-dominated fields, is extremely small indeed.</p>
<p>Yet I was fortunate to have as mentor <a href="http://web.mit.edu/jbamb/www/">Jeanne Bamberger</a>, professor of music and urban education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – a remarkable woman and a pioneer in music and artificial intelligence. A former child prodigy, Bamberger had studied with pianist <a href="http://schnabelmusicfoundation.com/artists/artur-schnabel/">Arthur Schnabel</a>, theorist-composer <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/roger-sessions-mn0001379964/biography">Roger Sessions</a>, and composers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/07/olivier-messiaen-steven-osborne-beyond-time-and-space">Olivier Messiaen</a> and <a href="http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/ernst_krenek/">Ernst Krenek</a>. A formidable woman unafraid of new ideas, she worked on music software such as <a href="http://www.tuneblocks.com">Impromptu</a> for music research and teaching. She introduced me to the early work of Christopher Longuet-Higgins and Mark Steedman, and inspired in me a lifelong passion to use mathematics and computing tools to investigate and explain what it is that musicians do, how we do it, and why.</p>
<p>While I’ve never questioned my choice to enter into this mathemusical world, it’s hard to ignore how few women there are. I was usually the only, or one of only two, female students in my computer science or mathematics classes, or on my operations research doctoral program. So it was with some satisfaction (deserved or not) that I found my <a href="http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/9139">doctoral dissertation at MIT</a> on the mathematical modelling of tonality signed by four women: professors Jeanne Bamberger, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/%7Egeorgiap/www/">Georgia Perakis</a> (who <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/awards/PECASE/recip_details.jsp?pecase_id=96">preceded me</a> in receiving the <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/awards/PECASE/recip_details.jsp?pecase_id=168">Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers</a>), <a href="https://esd.mit.edu/Faculty_Pages/barnhart/barnhart.htm">Cynthia Barnhart</a>, now chancellor of MIT, and myself.</p>
<p>So <a href="http://findingada.com/events-2015/ada-lovelace-day-live-2015">Ada Lovelace Day</a>, this year marking the 200th anniversary of her birth, is a recognition of the need for visible and outstanding female role models in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-probably-havent-heard-of-these-five-amazing-women-scientists-so-pay-attention-38329">celebration of the achievements</a> of women working in these fields. </p>
<p>Lovelace may have been a computing pioneer, but the percentage of women studying computer science has <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding">plummeted since 1984</a> due to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/what-really-keeps-women-out-of-tech.html">lack of sense of belonging</a>. This feeling, even more acute for women who veer off the beaten track into more esoteric fields, can be countered by education and role models – something we desperately need more of if we are to capitalise on the Ada Lovelaces of today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine Chew receives funding from the EPSRC and AHRC. </span></em></p>If computer pioneer Ada Lovelace had strong women role models even in her day, we must ensure women continue to do so today.Elaine Chew, Professor of Digital Media, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395502015-04-08T10:05:07Z2015-04-08T10:05:07ZHow the brain reads music: the evidence for musical dyslexia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77219/original/image-20150407-26502-1jind05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could dysmusia be to reading music what dyslexia is to reading text, and dyscalculia is to math?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-108652397/stock-photo-music-sheet-with-pencil.html?src=vw4RKS7nP1WdcUtILeRZDQ-1-76">Sheet music via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music education in the western world often emphasizes musical literacy, the ability to read musical notation fluently. But this is not always an easy task – even for professional musicians. Which raises the question: Is there such a thing as musical dyslexia? </p>
<p>Dyslexia is a learning disability that occurs when the brain is unable to process written words, even when the person has had proper training in reading. Researchers debate the underlying causes and treatments, but the predominant theory is that people with dyslexia have a problem with <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4xOOcpshF5sC&pg=PA1&dq=Dyslexia,+Learning,+and+the+Brain+Introduction&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_RUkVfm6LITYsAWzy4HQDQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Dyslexia%2C%20Learning%2C%20and%20the%20Brain%20Introduction&f=false">phonological processing</a> – the ability to see a symbol (a letter or a phoneme) and relate it to speech sounds. Dyslexia is difficult to diagnose, but it is thought to occur in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528651/">up to 10% of the population</a>.</p>
<p>In 2000, Neil Gordon, a retired pediatric neurologist, proposed the idea of musical dyslexia (<a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2F10.1111%2Fj.1469-8749.2000.tb00073.x%2Fpdf&ei=PhkkVePYBMmpsAXT04GQBQ&usg=AFQjCNHrdd0It69Yg_fHZuCr6775vN2_eQ&sig2=_4dskIWJLvSN92194cumRw&bvm=bv.89947451,d.b2w">dysmusia</a>), based on growing evidence that the areas of the brain involved in reading music and text differed.</p>
<p>The idea that dyslexia could affect the reading of non-language symbols is not new. For instance, dyscalculia is the difficulty reading and understanding mathematical symbols. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608014002179">Recent research</a> supports dyslexia and dyscalculia as separate conditions with unique causes (dyscalculia is thought to be caused by a deficit in spatial processing in the parietal lobe). If the brain processes words and mathematical symbols differently, why not musical symbols too?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77221/original/image-20150407-26488-1qgxhe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reading music is a whole brain activity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-215469265/stock-photo-professional-female-flutist-performing-on-stage-with-sheet-music.html?src=vw4RKS7nP1WdcUtILeRZDQ-2-96">Flutist via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Music’s written system</h2>
<p>Western music, like language, has a highly evolved coding system. This allows it to be written down and transmitted from composer to performer. But music, unlike language, uses a spatial arrangement for pitch. The page is divided into staffs of five lines each. Basically, the higher a symbol is placed on the staff, the higher the pitch. </p>
<p>Unlike letters in text, pitches can be stacked, indicating simultaneous performance (chords). Music also uses a system of symbols to indicate how pitches should be played. Symbols can indicate duration (rhythm), volume (dynamics) and other performance cues. Music also utilizes written words to indicate both the expressive features of the music and the lyrics in vocal music. Lyrics may be in languages not spoken by the performer. </p>
<p>Due to differences in the physical features of the written systems, it makes sense that the brain would read music and text differently. This appears to be the case – at least to some extent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77211/original/image-20150407-26502-l0cuuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reading music and reading text use different systems in the brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246050170/stock-photo-violin-and-books-on-a-red-background.html?src=5AecHeasdJvkvnYFlVK-xQ-1-0">Violin and books via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
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<h2>Text and music reading in the brain</h2>
<p>In the brain, reading music is a widespread, multi-modal activity, meaning that many different areas of the brain are involved at the same time. It includes motor, visual, auditory, audiovisual, somatosensory, parietal and frontal areas in both hemispheres and the cerebellum – making music reading truly a whole brain activity. With training, the neural network strengthens. Even reading a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19320551">single pitch activates this widespread network in musicians</a>. While text and music reading share some networks, they are largely independent. The pattern of activation for reading musical symbols and letters is different across the brain. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77223/original/image-20150407-26515-xgag6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Composer Maurice Ravel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMaurice_Ravel_1925.jpg">Bibliothèque nationale de France via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Brain damage, especially if it is widespread, as was the case with the composer Maurice Ravel, (perhaps best known for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r30D3SW4OVw">Boléro</a>), will likely impair both text and music reading abilities. Ravel had a form of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yaDzEjEaio8C&pg=PA348&lpg=PA348&dq=ravel+frontal+lobe&source=bl&ots=EOwX4HUJMa&sig=9G5GClVdKs-_xSYx1lWU14Gpkjw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qBokVe3AOoGZsAXnoYDgBw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=ravel%20frontal%20lobe&f=false">frontotemporal lobe dementia</a>.</p>
<p>However, there have been cases where a more limited brain injury impaired reading of one coding system and spared the other. </p>
<p><a href="http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/10/2554">Ian McDonald</a>, a neurologist and amateur pianist, documented the loss and recovery of his own ability to read music after a stroke, though his ability to read text was unaffected. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/excerpt-the-minds-eye.html">Oliver Sacks</a> described the case of a professional pianist who, through a degenerative brain disease (<a href="http://www.alz.org/dementia/posterior-cortical-atrophy.asp">Posterior Cortical Atrophy</a>), first lost her ability to read music while retaining her text reading for many years. <a href="http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/106/2/435">In another case, showing the opposite pattern</a>, a musician lost his ability to read text, but retained his ability to read music. </p>
<p>Cases where music and language seem to be differently affected by brain damage have fascinated researchers for centuries. The earliest reported case of someone who was unable to speak, but retained his ability to sing, was in the 1745 article, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vaAVKnt5-AYC&pg=PA18&dq=One+a+mute+who+can+sing&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V_QjVbzhAoKpsAX1zYDoDQ&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=One%20a%20mute%20who%20can%20sing&f=false">On a Mute who Can Sing</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, the Russian composer, <a href="http://www.psy.org.ru/af%26comst.htm">Vissarion Shebalin</a>, lost his language abilities after a severe stroke, but retained his ability to compose. Maintaining the ability to sing in the absence of language has led to the creation of a therapeutic treatment called <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04859.x">Melodic Intonation Therapy</a> that essentially replaces speech with song. This allows the patient to communicate verbally. These cases and many others demonstrate that music and language are to some extent separate neurological processes. </p>
<p>Differences in reading ability can occur even within musical notation. <a href="http://www.ac-psych.org/en/download-pdf/volume/2/issue/2/id/18">Cases</a> have been reported where musicians have lost their ability to read pitch, but retained their ability to read rhythm, and vice versa. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16246591">fMRI studies</a> have confirmed that the brain processes pitch (spatial information) and rhythm (symbol recognition) differently. </p>
<h2>Musical dyslexia</h2>
<p>The research starts to imply how a specifically musical dyslexia could occur. This deficit may be centered on pitch or musical symbols or both. No conclusive case of musical dyslexia has yet been reported (though <a href="http://bit.ly/1FhNEEN">Hébert and colleagues</a> have come close) and efforts to determine the effects of dyslexia on reading musical notation have been inconclusive. </p>
<p>Children in western cultures are taught to read text, but not always taught to read music. Even when they are, inabilities to read music are not generally treated as a serious concern. Many gifted musicians are able to function at a professional level purely learning music by ear. Among musicians, there is a wide range of music reading proficiencies. This is especially apparent with sight reading (the first performance of a notated piece). Identifying musical dyslexia could help explain why some musicians read well and others don’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Mishra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If the brain processes words and mathematical symbols differently, why not musical symbols too?Jennifer Mishra, Associate Professor, Music Education, University of Missouri-St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385312015-03-24T09:45:13Z2015-03-24T09:45:13ZHow music helps resolve our deepest inner conflicts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75736/original/image-20150323-17716-1dre6c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Music unifies the world into a whole. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/192/477100921_fb691cb234_o.jpg">Feliciano Guimarães/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Billions of people enjoy music; many feel that they can’t live without it. </p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>It’s a question that has puzzled scientists and philosophers for centuries. 2,400 years ago Aristotle <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5967.html">wondered</a>, “Why does music, being just sounds, remind us of the states of our soul?” </p>
<p>In the 19th century Darwin tried to decipher if our ability to create music evolved by natural selection. Of all human faculties, only music seemed beyond understanding; flummoxed, he came to the <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Descent_of_Man_and_Selection_in_Rela.html?id=LYEQAAAAYAAJ">conclusion</a> that “music is the greatest mystery.” </p>
<p>More than 200 years ago, Kant declared music <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1217">useless</a>. And near the end of the 20th century, celebrated psychologist Steven Pinker – also unable to comprehend its purpose – called music <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Mind-Works-Steven-Pinker/dp/0393334775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427121760&sr=1-1&keywords=how+the+mind+works">“auditory cheesecake.”</a> </p>
<p>A few years ago, the respected journal Nature published a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/scienceandmusic/">series of essays</a> about music. Their conclusion? That it’s impossible to explain what music is and why it affects us so strongly – and that it’s <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/pdf/453287a.pdf">not even clear</a> if music can serve “an obvious adaptive function.”</p>
<p>But my <a href="http://msx.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/22/1029864912448327">recent</a> <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00179/full">research</a> suggests otherwise: music <em>is</em> an evolutionary adaptation, one that helps us navigate a world rife with contradictions.</p>
<h2>The crippling effect of cognitive dissonance</h2>
<p>Music’s effect on our brains is closely related to what’s been dubbed “the greatest discovery in social psychology” of the 20th century: cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that people experience unpleasant feelings when they either possess contradictory knowledge, or are confronted with new information that opposes existing beliefs.</p>
<p>One way we alleviate dissonance is through suppressing or rejecting this contradictory knowledge. </p>
<p>Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Grapes” illustrates this common human response. In the tale, the fox is distressed over the fact that he can’t reach a bunch of grapes. Even more unpleasant is the dissonance he experiences: the grapes are so tempting and so close – yet unattainable.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75734/original/image-20150323-17680-hbzefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘If I can’t have it, I don’t want it’: the fable ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ illustrates cognitive dissonance, a core human response to conflicting information.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_19994.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>As a result, the fox attempts to alleviate the dissonance by rationalizing, “Oh, you aren’t even ripe yet! I don’t need any sour grapes.”</p>
<p>During the 20th century hundreds of experiments <a href="http://www.psych.nyu.edu/amodiolab/Publications_files/Harmon-Jones_Advances_2009.pdf">confirmed</a> this common psychological response. When faced with dissonant thoughts, children, teens and adults all responded the same way: <em>if I can’t have it, then I don’t need it.</em> </p>
<p>A manifestation of cognitive dissonance is the rejection of new knowledge. Even some great scientific discoveries have had to wait decades for recognition and acceptance, because they contradicted existing beliefs that people didn’t want to surrender. For example, Einstein didn’t receive a Nobel Prize for his Theory of Relativity – now considered one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind – because it contradicted our core beliefs about space and time.</p>
<h2>Music helps us grapple with dissonance</h2>
<p>So if people are willing to deceive themselves or ignore new information, how has human culture evolved? After all, the foundation of culture is the accumulation of new knowledge – much of which contradicts existing knowledge. </p>
<p>Consider language: when language emerged in our species, every new word was a nugget of new information that contradicted an existing idea or belief. A powerful mechanism of the mind must have evolved to enable our ancestors to overcome these unpleasant dissonances that split their world, and allowed them to keep contradictory knowledge – to absorb new words rather than immediately discarding them. </p>
<p>Could it be that this ability was <a href="http://www.frontiersin.org/cognitive_science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00179/full">enabled by music</a>?
While language splits the world into detailed, distinct pieces, music unifies the world into a whole. Our psyche requires both. </p>
<p>Several experiments have proven music’s ability to help us overcome cognitive dissonances and retain contradictory knowledge.</p>
<p>For example, in <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130619/srep02028/full/srep02028.html">one experiment</a>, an experimenter gave a group of four-year-old boys five popular Pokemon toys. Playing with each boy individually, she had them rank, one by one, their preferences for the five toys. Then the experimenter told each subject that she needed to leave for few minutes, and asked him not to play with his second-ranked toy. When she returned, she re-initiated play and found that the formerly second-ranked toy was entirely ignored. When confronted with conflicting information (“I like this toy, but I shouldn’t play with it”), each boy apparently rejected his initial preference for it. </p>
<p>But when the experimenter turned on music when leaving, the toy retained its original value. The contradictory knowledge didn’t lead the boys to simply discard the toy. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432813000557">another experiment</a>, we gave a group of fifteen-year-old students a typical multiple choice exam, and asked them to record the difficulty of each question, along with how much time it took them to answer each one.</p>
<p>It turned out that more difficult questions were answered faster (and grades suffered), because students didn’t want to prolong unpleasant dissonance of choosing between difficult options. However when Mozart’s music played in the background, they spent more time on the difficult questions. Their scores improved.</p>
<h2>Life’s big choices become more informed</h2>
<p>Beyond multiple choice tests, we’re constantly confronted with choices in our day-to-day lives – from the mundane (what to buy for lunch), to the major (whether or not to accept a job offer). We often use both intuition and pragmatism when evaluating complex situations, but we also incorporate emotion. </p>
<p>And then there are choices related to two universal themes of our existence – love and death – which are inherently steeped in contradictions. </p>
<p>With love, we’d like to fully trust it. But we know that to fully trust is dangerous – that we can be betrayed and disappointed. With death, one of the most difficult contradictions of all is our longing to believe in spiritual eternity and our knowledge that our time on Earth is finite.</p>
<p>Is it any coincidence, then, that there are so many songs about love and betrayal? Or that we are drawn to sorrowful songs in times of mourning?</p>
<p>The idea is that music – which can convey an array of nuanced emotions – helps us reconcile our own conflicted emotions when making choices. And the more diverse, differentiated emotions we possess, the more well-founded our decisions become. Whether it’s choosing to play with a toy or deciding to propose to a boyfriend or girlfriend, our research shows that <a href="http://www.iiisci.org/Journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/iCK872YO.pdf">music can enhance our cognitive abilities</a>. </p>
<p>Thus, because we constantly grapple with cognitive dissonances, we created music, in part, to help us tolerate – and overcome – them. </p>
<p>This is the universal purpose of music.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leonid Perlovsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>According to recent research, music is an evolutionary adaptation that helps us navigate a world rife with contradictions.Leonid Perlovsky, Visiting Scholar, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/373162015-03-16T09:39:20Z2015-03-16T09:39:20ZHealthy songs: the amazing power of music therapy<p>When I was a child, on most Fridays, my dad, mom, brother and I would travel to Cape Cod to visit my grandparents. For my father, this drive would come after a long day of work, during which he had already commuted from our home, an hour outside of the city, to Boston, where he worked as an accountant, and back home again. He was an intense man, and during these drives to the Cape we were often silent, on edge – unsure how to interpret his sullen and grave demeanor. </p>
<p>After we arrived, my grandmother would typically begin playing a mix of classical music, folk songs and pop songs on her spinet piano – and I would watch my dad’s face transform: his jaw would slacken, while the lines between his eyebrows softened, lifting the intensity of thought that always seemed to burden him. </p>
<p>This was my first experience of the power of music.</p>
<p>Nearly two decades later, I learned of music therapy as a profession. I was a rising junior in college and, without hesitation, I switched my major to learn how to clinically wield music’s ability to transform and heal – a power I had observed years earlier. </p>
<p>Music therapy has grown from relative obscurity to a practice that is becoming fairly mainstream, largely due to the advocacy of colleagues in the field, along with media coverage of the burgeoning profession. Jodi Picoult came to Berklee College to study music therapy to develop the main character – a music therapist – of her novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sing-You-Home-Jodi-Picoult/dp/1439102732">Sing You Home</a>. Meanwhile, following the gunshot injury she sustained, Representative Gabby Giffords underwent rehabilitation efforts that <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyNews/gabby-giffords-finding-voice-music-therapy/story?id=14903987">included music-based interventions</a>. Although she initially couldn’t speak, she could sing, an ability that was used to further her speech recovery. And films about music’s capacity for healing and improving quality of life include the recent releases <a href="http://www.aliveinside.us">Alive Inside</a>, <a href="http://nickreedent.com/about/">The Lady in Apartment 6</a>, <a href="http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com">Landfill Harmonic</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Music-Never-Stopped-J-K-Simmons/dp/B004QL7JTE">The Music Never Stopped</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aJybkNAg3Ew?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for The Lady in Apartment 6. ‘My world is music,’ said the film’s subject, 109-year-old Alice Sommer. ‘I am not interested in anything else.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Doctor-writer Oliver Sacks’ essay collections, like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Musicophilia-Tales-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/1400033535">Musicophilia</a>, introduced stories to the public that explained the ability of music to promote skill learning and/or recovery in the face of severe disability and trauma. Research in neuroscience has backed up many of Sacks’ observations. For example, people who have suffered strokes or have been diagnosed Parkinson’s disease <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1525/mp.2010.27.4.263?uid=3739696&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105624714671">are better able to walk while listening to rhythmic music</a>. In the case of strokes, people who can’t talk can often sing. Singing is then used to facilitate recovery of speech. This has been the case of Representative Gabby Giffords.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74681/original/image-20150312-13502-1nplyt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oliver Sacks’ essays – like those in the collection Musicophilia – have helped promote the benefits of music therapy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Oliversacks.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-862998781/music-therapy-with-premature-infants-research-and">Another study showed</a> that premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit left the ICU, on average, 11 days earlier if they used a device that played lullabies triggered by their sucking. And children who have had orthopedic surgery will report lower levels of pain <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/244921013_The_Effects_of_Music_Entrainment_on_Postoperative_Pain_Perception_in_Pediatric_Patients">when doctors offer post-operative music therapy</a>. </p>
<p>In my practice as a speech language pathologist and music therapist, I’m able to use music to serve a variety of patients with an array of needs. Children with autism tend to be more attentive to musical sounds than speech sounds (especially when they’re very young), so I’ll use music to foster their linguistic and cognitive development. In my work with hospice patients, I’ll use quiet music that has a lulling rhythm to help even out their ragged breathing (which is sometimes very difficult for families to watch). </p>
<p>For cancer patients, I’ll use songs of hope and resilience. And by pairing music with imagery, such as relaxing nature images, I’ve helped patients preparing for surgery achieve a state of tranquility that can decrease their need for anesthesia and pain medication. I’ve used the same protocol to decrease the use of anti-anxiety medications among hospice patients I’ve served. Ultimately, carryover is the endgame: we help patients take the tools they’ve learned in music therapy and apply them to their everyday lives.</p>
<p>As a professor of music therapy at the Berklee College of Music, I’m preparing the next generation of music therapists to work in a variety of settings: early intervention programs, public schools, hospice and palliative care, cancer clinics, nursing homes and private practice. For many students, it’s an attractive opportunity – a chance to use their artistry to make the world a better place.</p>
<p>Every week, our Berklee students Skype with a group of child soldiers in Uganda. These young adults have suffered a great deal: forced to kill as children, they often started with their own family members and neighbors. They’ve emerged from the bush traumatized and without purpose. We’re teaching them to use meditative practices in music to calm their minds and to infuse meaning into their lives. As our students share therapeutic practices with the child soldiers, they, in turn, perform and share their music and dance for our students.</p>
<p>It’s this fusion of what many consider two distinct, incompatible entities – art and science – that ultimately elevates both; and the two, as one, can more readily accomplish their shared purpose: the healing and betterment of humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Howland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From serving newborns to treating hospice patients, music can be used in medical and psychological treatment with surprising – and real – results.Kathleen Howland, Professor of Music Therapy, Berklee College of MusicLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/353672014-12-23T20:07:07Z2014-12-23T20:07:07ZAll together now – three evolutionary perks of singing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66963/original/image-20141211-6030-14ko55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cranking out a tune cements our social networks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yoursecretadmiral/3117590062">Julie/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’re enjoying the one time of year when protests of “I can’t sing!” are laid aside and we sing carols with others. For some this is a once-a-year special event; the rest of the year is left to the professionals to handle the singing (except, perhaps, some alone time in the shower or car).</p>
<p>Music – and singing in particular, as the oldest and only ubiquitous form of music creation – plays a central role in our lives and shared community experiences, and this has been true for every culture for as far back as we can trace our <a href="http://msx.sagepub.com/content/12/1_suppl/147.short">human ancestors</a>. </p>
<p>So does singing in a group provide specific and tangible benefits, or is it merely a curious ability that provides entertainment through creative expression?</p>
<p>This is a question currently of great interest to evolutionary theorists, linguists, psychologists and musicologists. The debate took off when psychologist <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/biocv">Steven Pinker</a> stated his opinion that music is a spandrel – a useless evolutionary by-product of another, useful, trait. In this case, he <a href="http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1998_02_07_independentsunday.html">suggested</a> that music is a spandrel of language development, providing no advantage and serving no purpose. </p>
<p>There are strong links between music and language development, although there is no consensus on the actual nature of the relationship. <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5N-5ufxUuJkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=mithen+language+music&ots=Nmz7BqWOGN&sig=cORWFrjZRXp0u0foYweaNXpVgsA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=mithen%20language%20music&f=false">Arguments</a> include theories that:</p>
<ul>
<li>language developed from music</li>
<li>music sprang from language</li>
<li>they both developed from a proto-language that was musical in nature</li>
<li>they developed concurrently.</li>
</ul>
<p>A <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/33/3/269.short">strong body</a> of <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jaah/2010/00000001/00000001/art00003">research</a> conducted with choirs indicates that membership has many benefits to individual wellbeing and physical health. It is possible these effects are due to people – the singers – participating in something they enjoy doing. Or, there may be something more elemental taking place.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67200/original/image-20141215-6051-1fxqo67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8725928@N02/8067503236">janwillemsen/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If these findings are viewed through an evolutionary lens, though, there is compelling evidence that music making provided some very specific benefits for our ancestors. Specifically, there are three theories which have been proposed that, if true, may explain these effects while suggesting that group singing is still beneficial to all:</p>
<ol>
<li>singing creates a shared emotional experience</li>
<li>singing increases social bonding</li>
<li>singing improves cognitive function.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Sing us a song, you’re the hominid</h2>
<p>Our hominid ancestors used music to create <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40285265?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105364197793">shared emotional experiences</a>. This would have been particularly important for early hominids struggling to survive, because emotions serve as a kind of “red flag” to our cognitive processing systems, signalling that something critical requires attention. </p>
<p>Emotions prioritise the many options that we may have at any given time, and reduces “data overload” from the bombardment of senses that we experience. Hominids, like many other primates, could have developed very small social groups, or even no social groups. </p>
<p>But the ability for a large group to work cooperatively together was more advantageous than individuals attempting to survive alone. In order to cooperate, individuals needed to subsume their individual priorities for action, and learn to delay gratification so that the good of the group could take precedence (such as forgoing eating or sleeping in order to build a shelter). Group singing likely provided a rewarding, positive activity where emotional empathy could be developed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AARrVAHnkdY?wmode=transparent&start=131" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Only Boys Aloud at a Britain’s Got Talent audition.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We know that interacting with music today is, for <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-why-some-people-just-dont-like-music-28605">almost everyone</a>, both an emotional and overwhelmingly positive experience. Music is also used to reinforce positive moods and manage negative moods. Adolescents regularly use music as an effective <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/35/1/88.short">mood regulator</a>. </p>
<p>Others put music to targeted purposes; many athletes use music to put them in a mood state that supports peak performance (and research shows it to be an <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25202850">effective strategy</a>). Music’s ability to change or reinforce a mood relies on the same principle of emotion contagion. </p>
<h2>Social significance</h2>
<p>Second, music engagement would likely have led to increased <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1221-9_9#page-1">pro-social behaviours</a>. This would be supported by a shared emotional state, which relies on empathic skills (empathy) to spread. </p>
<p>But music is also at the centre of where we first learn to be sociable – in the <a href="http://msx.sagepub.com/content/3/1_suppl/29.short">mother-infant bond</a>. Infants are mesmerised by their mothers’ infant-directed singing. It is a communication tool between mother and infant, and is highly companionable in nature. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66953/original/image-20141211-6057-bmefis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/drstrangeglove/5060393739">Mary Helen Leonard/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Listening to a mother sing has an immediate and profound impact on an infant’s arousal and attention, including physical responses. These musical communications are highly effective despite the infant not understanding the linguistics involved. They are also universal; lullabies are recognisable as such in virtually <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pmu/10/2/73/">every culture</a> on Earth.</p>
<p>There are strong indications that group music making and social behaviours are still linked today. Individuals with <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40300863?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105364472083">Williams Syndrome</a>, in addition to profound cognitive deficits, are known for both their love of music and their incredible sociability.</p>
<p>Music therapy has been shown to reliably <a href="http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004381/BEHAV_music-therapy-for-people-with-autism-spectrum-disorder">improve social behaviours</a> in individuals on the autism spectrum. Choir members consistently report that <a href="http://rsh.sagepub.com/content/121/4/248.short">social bonds</a> are one of the primary benefits of choir membership. </p>
<p>More experimental studies indicate that instrumental jazz musicians use the <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv?language=en">communication centres</a> of their brains when coordinating play, and that guitarists and even audience members experience synchronised brain waves when a duet is played (see video below). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DQwDVf3ydUM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Studies also show that musical interactions increase both <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/41/4/484.short">empathy</a> and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513810000462">pro-social behaviours</a> in children. </p>
<p>Taken together, the evidence points to a strong link between co-creation of music and improved social bonding.</p>
<h2>Getting ahead</h2>
<p>Finally, evolutionary theorists argue that it was their musicality that allowed hominids to develop what is known as the “<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5843/1344.short">social brain</a>”, while others argue that the complex brain we enjoy today developed to keep track of large social networks. It may have been a bit of both.</p>
<p>By creating a shared emotional experience and increasing members’ pro-social behaviours, group singing supported complex social networks. Tracking and managing complex social networks may have led to the development of the neocortex. This brain region supports the suite of abilities known as <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/executive+function">executive function</a>, which provide the skills necessary to make and implement long-term plans. </p>
<p>It also supports cognitive flexibility, which is a style of fluid cognition that allows humans to successfully pair concepts that don’t generally go together, resulting in creative, insightful, and elegant ideas and solutions. </p>
<p>We already know that a positive mood state <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740801703129">supports</a> cognitive flexibility, while stress and anxiety act as <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.3.468#.VI6nV3s2V4M">inhibitors</a>. Co-creating music may support improved cognitive skills through other pathways as well, although these links have not been explored.</p>
<p>Of course all theories concerning the use of music by early hominid groups is conjecture, resting on the scant pieces of evidence the fossil record leaves us as well as what we know about our own musicality today. But the questions are important, because it can inform us about our own relationship to music. </p>
<p>If the theories outlined here are correct, it may benefit us both as individuals and as a community to normalise and promote music co-creation. Participating in singing ought to be more than a once-a-year activity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Maury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’re enjoying the one time of year when protests of “I can’t sing!” are laid aside and we sing carols with others. For some this is a once-a-year special event; the rest of the year is left to the professionals…Susan Maury, PhD candidate in Psychology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/354312014-12-12T05:11:18Z2014-12-12T05:11:18ZPlease don’t rock around the Christmas tree<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SOszvL9lgSs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In case you’re not sick of it yet …</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at … zzzzzz snooooore. It’s that time of year again, and at the risk of promoting bah humbug over chestnuts roasting, I’m very Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to traditional Christmas music. </p>
<p>This Christmas, please don’t put another lump of Bing Crosby on the radio. Once we reach December we seem to forget the golden rule that excess does not lead to happiness, so that repetition of any song leads to us hating it.</p>
<p>But before you get me up in the middle of the night to show me the Ghost of a Music-Free Christmas Future, let me give you a timely reminder - there is an alternative to Bing, Nat, Spector and the gang. </p>
<p>Last week Apple switched on no fewer than <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/05/apple-flips-switch-on-holiday-themed-itunes-radio-stations-">10 different Christmas music stations</a> that you can access via iTunes Radio, including the magnificent “Country Holiday”. </p>
<p>Of course the broader internet is a music-lovers’ dream at Christmas. You can wallow in the celtic mid-winter festival via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5f9eZR51Sw">The Snows They Melt the Soonest</a> or the usually-dark Christmas edition of the always excellent <a href="http://www.jointhecircle.net/Arctic-Circle-Radio">Arctic Circle Radio podcast</a>; you can bathe in the warm tranquil glow of <a href="http://www.pandora.com/station/play/642288054007766939">Hawaiian Christmas</a>; you can check out <a href="http://www.kerrangradio.co.uk/music/features/13-totally-rocking-christmas-songs/">Kerrang Radio’s 13 (of course) totally rocking heavy metal Christmas songs</a>; or you can listen to all those well-worn Christmas songs mashed up with classic Beatles tracks by searching Spotify for “The Fab Four Hark!”. </p>
<p>And of course there may be non-Australian readers who don’t know <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSsffF2xhA">Six White Boomers</a>, which to me overcomes the baggage to evoke the perfect Christmas down under.</p>
<p>Given that so many of us already do this, it is all the more surprising that shops, bars, hotels and the like don’t, and instead just rely on the same tired old songs that go on a loop from late October. </p>
<p>Just before going to university I worked in a supermarket over December and January, and must have heard White Christmas 20 times a day. To a point they need to do this. Customers are in-store for only a few minutes and so need their own personal dose of Bing. And there is plenty of evidence now that customers will buy products that are suggested by the music they hear in-store - <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6656/abs/390132a0.html">French music increases sales of French wine</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01370.x/abstract">classical music increases sales of everything</a> (by making customers feel wealthier) - so businesses can’t be blamed for playing Christmas music to Christmas shoppers. </p>
<p>But they could learn something from the way in which the rest of us listen to Christmas music. Start playing it later in the year when people are really engaging with Christmas (rather than simply doing their shopping before the stores get crowded), and use the fruits of the digital age to play us something new and wonderful.</p>
<p>Have a happy and musically-varied Christmas!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at … zzzzzz snooooore. It’s that time of year again, and at the risk of promoting bah humbug over chestnuts roasting, I’m very Ebenezer Scrooge when…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343252014-12-03T06:13:28Z2014-12-03T06:13:28ZExplainer: how are learning languages and music linked?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66058/original/image-20141202-20560-8kohma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will learning sax make you better at French?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bestrated1/356212189/in/photolist-xtFtt-37EXJa-2a7RpE-omE89P-dJJveq-u1PhD-83MEgV-aNgPqz-cTUUUQ-KuaYM-8vuJut-HeC7X-7Zg3Ki-aECtAL-agehhR-8MbpVX-aokDRn-cCcHWf-caFqV1-9CR1u-6q5nex-9hFkiB-cox4sG-adE4EQ-rWTLa-7Zg3gx-f4vscn-9hFn3R-oKTPTS-oexA9p-5wmBuM-b7EQ1a-sMv4i-6q9vmf-7wUP3-7w2TnU-A8rTn-asyc4d-eSMSmD-oC2M1g-ckzCG9-gb5L3e-fAusH-agyN3p-phPje4-6iC4B8-7Zjemo-4yakPs-3bKrn6-i8eHQA">Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music is what penetrates most deeply into the recesses of the soul, according to Plato. Language has been held by thinkers from Locke to Leibniz and Mill to Chomsky as a mirror or a window to the mind. As American psychologist <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Music_Language_and_the_Brain.html?id=EkItxyZqNecC">Aniruddh Pattel </a> writes:
“Language and music define us as humans”.</p>
<p>The two are facets of a single cognitive system. Under the brain’s hood there is a simple computational operation, taking basic elements like words or simple sounds, combining them in a step-by-step manner and producing a larger structured object such as a flowing sentence or a melodious musical phrase.</p>
<p>This is all just in the mind, but needs to happen before language is “externalised” as speech or writing and music is expressed through performance or by the simple act of tapping your foot to a rhythm. </p>
<p>But there are further questions to ask about the relationship between music and language, such as whether musical education and expertise influence our way with language or if it makes us better learners of a second or third language. On the other side, it would be great to know if fluency in more than one language makes it easier for us to learn an instrument. And if people who are bilingual, trilingual or quadrilingual listen to music in a different way. </p>
<h2>Benefits of bilingualism</h2>
<p>Several studies have shown that both bilingualism and musical training and practice appear to protect people against the onset of dementia and other cognitive decline in later life. As Canadian psychologists <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012735">Ellen Bialystok and Anne-Marie DePape pointed out</a> in a 2009 article, the mechanisms responsible for these effects are rather poorly understood, more so in music than in language. But they do point at some interesting possibilities. </p>
<p>Several of the studies reviewed in a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221315/">2011 paper</a> by Finnish music and education researcher Riia Milovanov and her colleagues, showed that mastery of more than one language as well as mastery of music involves higher levels of executive control. These are the mechanisms responsible for overall management of cognitive resources and processes – including attention shifts, working memory, reasoning, and switching between tasks. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66061/original/image-20141202-20598-yre9yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Less daunting if you play piano?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=6qAoNR2MEeRrbN2_waK2NQ&searchterm=learn%20mandarin&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=222109120">Foreign languages via f9photos/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other studies reviewed in the same article showed that musical training correlates with better language-learning skills. Learners with a musical background were found to be better at pronouncing the sounds of a second language and at perceiving the relevant contrasts between sounds in that new language. </p>
<h2>Close connections</h2>
<p>Research has mostly concentrated on the benefits of musical knowledge for pronunciation and the perception of linguistic sounds. In a series of studies, Milovanov and her colleagues found that in Finnish-speaking children and adults, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18182165">musical aptitude correlates significantly</a> with better pronunciation skills in English. This may be because neural resources and pathways are partly shared between language and music and that people with higher musical ability and training use the right hemisphere of their brain (traditionally music’s domain) more for processing of linguistic sounds. </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://psych.colorado.edu/%7Ekimlab/zatorre.etal.tics2002.pdf">some evidence</a> showing lateralisation of speech and music – meaning that music and language are processed in different brain hemispheres, with the left one for language and the right one for music. But conversely, American psychologist Diana Deutsch has shown there is <a href="http://dianadeutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/JASA-2006_119_719-722.pdf">a significant connection</a> between speaking Mandarin, Vietnamese or any other tone language and possessing perfect or absolute pitch. This points again to a close connection between music and speech. </p>
<h2>Rhythm and the brain</h2>
<p>But speech is only one way that language is expressed. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lO692qHDNg&feature=youtu.be">more recent study, American researcher Reyna Gordon and her collaborators</a> found that children’s perception of rhythm also has a significant influence on their use of different morphological and syntactic features, such as the use of verbs in the past tense.</p>
<p>Earlier studies <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17720685">have compared brain responses to sentences</a> ending with “incongruous” words, such as a singular noun where a plural one would have been expected: “John played with all three child”, and musical sequences with incongruous chords. Researchers found that the brain responses showed significant interactions, strongly suggesting that linguistic and musical syntax overlap in the brain.</p>
<p>There is <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Music_Language_and_the_Brain.html?id=EkItxyZqNecC">mounting evidence </a>that linguistic and musical processing engages similar cognitive resources. Coupled with the formal similarities, there seems to be strong evidence that a significant part of what is called Universal Grammar (the initial state of the innate language faculty), also underlies the music faculty. The strongest and boldest hypothesis is that, apart from their basic building blocks, language and music are in fact identical.</p>
<p>Given what is known about brain plasticity and changes in synaptic and neural pathways as a response to practising something <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2013.00279/abstract">throughout a person’s lifetime</a>, it’s not surprising that the greater use of language will show up in musical ability and vice versa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Tsoulas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Music is what penetrates most deeply into the recesses of the soul, according to Plato. Language has been held by thinkers from Locke to Leibniz and Mill to Chomsky as a mirror or a window to the mind…George Tsoulas, Senior Lecturer, Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/348792014-12-01T08:57:54Z2014-12-01T08:57:54ZWhy do we like sad music?<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vztj_TnUQyY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Harry Patch by Radiohead.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A magnificently scornful piece in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/28/odesza-oceaan-sylas-sad-bangers">The Guardian</a> this weekend flagged the trend for “sad bangers”, music in which, “Sensitive lads across the land have abandoned their cardies and acoustic guitars for varsity jackets and libraries of soft synths”. </p>
<p>Not to be confused with neo-classical cross-overs, such as the magnificent A Winged Victory for the Sullen, sad bangers are much closer to TV Scandic noir theme music by artists such as Ólafur Arnalds which, “Carry the faint imprint of dubstep, house or R&B without ever threatening to rattle your speakers.” </p>
<p>The accompanying visual images are of Icelandic tundra, craggy lakes, and big, cloudy skies: you get the idea. The Guardian journalist isn’t a fan: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a feeble attempt to persuade you that the music’s lack of commitment or thrust is somehow enigmatic, rather than a cop-out. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am not an emotional man. To paraphrase Jerome K. Jerome, if my eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because I have been eating raw onions, or have put too much Worcester over my chop. Nonetheless, like everyone else, I love sad music - Radiohead’s Harry Patch has understandably been everywhere over the past few months, for instance - raising the question of why is it so popular?</p>
<p>There are two types of explanation, namely those from social psychology and those from cognitive neuroscience. </p>
<p>The most mainstream social psychological explanation is provided by the well-known process of downward social comparison. Put simply this says that we can feel better about ourselves by focusing on someone who is doing worse: we gain an improved sense of self-regard by telling ourselves that we are experiencing nothing like the emotional turmoil experienced by the musician playing a sad song.</p>
<p>This is not terribly convincing to my mind though. I would be absurdly narcissistic to find Harry Patch beautiful simply because, as a British passport holder, it reminds me how fortunate I was to have avoided conscription into the British army in the first world war: it is moving because there is something poignant about the passing of the last Tommy. </p>
<p>Similarly, if we like sad music because it allows us to tell ourselves we are nothing like the musicians playing it then we would be very unwilling to identify with the musician in question. And of course, the makers of sad music, most notably The Smiths, have tended to attract the most die-hard fans who actually identify themselves very closely indeed with the musicians.</p>
<p>Another social psychological explanation for the popularity of sad music at the moment comes from broader consideration of culture. We know that people like to listen to music that mirrors the more general emotional tone of their current life circumstances, and so it is not surprising that sad music should be popular in late 2014 when almost every country in the western world is experiencing some degree of social, political, or economic turmoil. </p>
<p>By this argument, sad bangers are popular because they provide an opportunity for positive, thoughtful reflection on one’s life, acting as an acoustic sherpa that guides you through the valley of sorrow and back onto the sunny side of the street. </p>
<p>Again this social psychological explanation seems weak. It is not as though music in a minor key only reaches the charts when there is a recession. Although many fans of The Smiths won’t have cared for Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies of the mid- to late-1980s, some would have benefited from the stronger economy of the time, making economic turmoil unconvincing as a necessary and sufficient pre-cursor to Morrissey’s popularity.</p>
<p>Instead it makes more sense to ignore sociocultural factors and instead focus on what is happening inside the mind and brain of the listener when hearing sad music. One theory argues that listening to sad music leads to the release of opiates, as the body prepares itself to adapt to a traumatic event: of course, since all that is really happening is that the person is listening to music, and so no traumatic event ever actually materialises, the listener is left with a body full of opiates and nothing nasty for them to mitigate: pleasure ensues. </p>
<p>Other cognitive neuroscience approaches have focused on what we really mean when we say that we perceive a piece of music is “sad”. Meta-mood explanations are similar to the downward social comparison approach, and describe how we might feel sad in response to a piece of music, but also feel happy at a more abstract level about feeling this sadness. </p>
<p>It is important to distinguish the sadness we perceive in a piece of music (i.e., the emotional valence of the music) from the emotion actually experienced as a consequence (i.e., happiness). </p>
<p>Some go even further and argue that one can explain liking for sad music by distinguishing two types of pleasure, namely immediate sensory pleasure (which results from listening to happy music) and analytical, detached pleasure (which can be, for instance, the sense of satisfaction arising from sad music). </p>
<p>There may even be a special separate set of aesthetic emotions which are only employed in the context of the arts, and which are entirely separate from our normal, everyday emotions. </p>
<p>We may experience feelings of transcendence and awe that come about only in the context of artistic experiences - when did you last experience transcendence and awe while doing the ironing - and some form of sadness might be another of these special aesthetic responses to music that is actually pleasurable because it is qualitatively different from normal, everyday sadness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A magnificently scornful piece in The Guardian this weekend flagged the trend for “sad bangers”, music in which, “Sensitive lads across the land have abandoned their cardies and acoustic guitars for varsity…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343012014-11-27T19:26:09Z2014-11-27T19:26:09ZThe secrets of self-taught, high-performing musicians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65550/original/image-20141126-4234-10bki5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Daddy Cool's Ross Wilson learnt to sing harmonies in a choir, aged 10.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We rightly marvel at the skills of a talented musician, especially witnessing them perform live. But how does someone become so skilled? </p>
<p>Obviously hours and hours of <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=D2UAAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=the+road+to+excellence&ots=PHRVHgwnVr&sig=hgurNM1Yobe0UVustDMvDIpGxks#v=onepage&q=the%20road%20to%20excellence&f=false">dedicated practice is a necessity</a>, and many musicians received appropriate guidance from teachers at a young age. </p>
<p>But perhaps most interesting are the stories of those musicians that did not receive such formal teaching – those “self-taught” musicians that we often read about. </p>
<p>Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Prince – three of the all-time greats – all claim to be self-taught guitarists. Even John Lennon and Paul McCartney were largely self-taught musicians. More recently, Californian R&B sensation <a href="http://www.hernameisbanks.com/">Banks</a> confesses to have learnt to play the piano by writing songs with the toy keyboard that was a gift from her mum when she was 14. These are only a few of many examples.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65547/original/image-20141126-4217-1vxjzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jimi Hendrix performing at The Fillmore East, 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/06/20/0305735613477180">a 2013 study </a> by Peter MacIntyre and Gillian Potter of guitarists and pianists linked informal practice (self-teaching) with heightened motivation to play music, ranging from formal recitals to informal jam sessions. </p>
<p>Furthermore, those that learnt their skills via informal practice were more inclined to write and create music. Indeed, more guitarists than pianists came from informal practice backgrounds. </p>
<p>The question must be asked then: how is it possible that someone can attain such a level of expertise without any teacher providing the necessary instructions and guidance? </p>
<p><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vInfBe94KWcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA59&dq=implicit+motor+learning+masters&ots=Tfmd2UXdOw&sig=G_tjqNNJ05qZ7Jxv3UAwhjH1ALQ#v=onepage&q=implicit%20motor%20learning%20masters&f=false">Research over the past few decades</a> has demonstrated the advantages of learning a skill implicitly: that is, to learn a skill without conscious awareness of the underlying processes of what is being learnt.</p>
<p>John Frusciante – guitarist for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – had taught himself how to play a number of songs by The Germs by the age of 10, but states that he didn’t really know what he was doing! Indeed, the inability to verbally describe the step-by-step processes is a characteristic of an implicitly acquired skill. </p>
<p>Ross Wilson, front man of legendary Aussie rock group Daddy Cool, who was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/daddy-cool-inducted-into-hall-of-fame-at-the-age-music-victoria-awards-20141120-11q40o.html">inducted</a> into the The Age Music Victoria Hall of Fame last Wednesday <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/six-burning-questions-for--ross-wilson-20140207-326ii.html">described</a> his early musical days as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My mum asked me to join a choir when I was 10. I found myself learning how to sing harmonies without even knowing what was happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wilson was evidently learning to sing harmonies in an implicit manner.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65537/original/image-20141126-4234-fu85oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US singer-songwriter Banks performs on the Auditorium Stravinski stage at the 48th Montreux Jazz Festival, July 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Importantly, the advantages of acquiring a skill implicitly (as opposed to explicitly) are clear. Research shows that complex motor skills acquired implicitly are more <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02446.x/abstract">durable under pressure</a> (performing in front of an audience for example) as the likelihood of consciously controlling movements is reduced. </p>
<p>Pressure often causes people to think about the step-by-step processes of what they are doing and this often leads to slips in performance. But if the skill was learnt without any knowledge of the step-by-step processes, the performer’s automatic mechanisms take over. </p>
<p>Similar themes are also evident in other domains such as sport. American professional golfer Bubba Watson <a href="http://www.augusta.com/masters/bubba/">claims</a> to have never had a golf lesson in his life and yet he won the sport’s most prized possession, the US Masters, for the second time earlier this year. According to Bubba:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a kid, you don’t think of the mechanics and I have to get my grip this way or be stronger or weaker. You just think, ‘I did this and it went that way.’ So that’s how I did it, by practising feel. So now my shots are all feel.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65546/original/image-20141126-4258-eaajzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American golfer Bubba Watson plays out of the bunker on the 12th during the 2nd round of the Australian PGA Championships at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bubba’s comment draws parallels with self-taught musicians such as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25576571">Banks</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes my chord progressions are a little bit different, or don’t really make sense. I mean, I even hold my fingers differently than you’re supposed to. But it makes the music 100% based on emotion and intuition and not at all about maths.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So what does this mean for teachers and instructors? It would be crude of me to say that they’re unnecessary, as it is obvious that formal coaching can expedite the learning process. However, these examples of self-taught experts demonstrate the value of learning a skill (seemingly) implicitly. </p>
<p>As MacIntyre and Potter state in their study of guitarists and pianists: “Less restrictive environments that allow individuals to persue their interests and provide personal choice tend to enhance creativity”. </p>
<p>Accordingly, it seems that the role of the instructor should not be to overload the learner with unnecessary information (even if it is with good intentions), but rather to encourage the implicit acquisition of skills. </p>
<p>No doubt the great teachers and coaches are already doing this, even if they are not consciously aware of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Buszard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We rightly marvel at the skills of a talented musician, especially witnessing them perform live. But how does someone become so skilled? Obviously hours and hours of dedicated practice is a necessity…Tim Buszard, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute of Sport, Exercise & Active Living (ISEAL), Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345892014-11-24T00:34:58Z2014-11-24T00:34:58ZWhat do fans of Spotify and meat pies have in common?<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65268/original/image-20141124-1055-18d7ti7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screen grab of the YouGov profiler for meat pies.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kiss your lunchtime web surfing plans goodbye, because I guarantee that whatever page you were planning to visit next, you will instead want to go to <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/">YouGov</a>.</p>
<p>We know that your <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-your-musical-taste-say-about-your-personality-and-lifestyle-28268">musical taste tells everyone else an awful lot about your personality and lifestyle</a>. However, the YouGov site goes a step further in this, and provides a publicly-available searchable database of how liking for a given cultural object correlates with demographics, such as age, sex, social class, political views, typical jobs, and monthly spare cash; lifestyle choices such as favourite foods, hobbies, sports, general interests, niche interests, and pets; personality factors; brand preferences; entertainment choices such as favourite movies, TV shows, and celebrities; favourite web sites, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages; and media usage, such as time spent online and newspaper readership. </p>
<p>The era of big data is beginning to have implications for our ability to predict liking for a range of cultural objects.</p>
<p>For example, the typical Spotify user, based on data from 2,218 people, is an upper class man aged 25-39 who lives in London. He has left-leaning political views; works in media, publishing, advertising, marketing, or IT; and has £500-£999 spare cash per month. He likes to eat chorizo and salsa; plays a musical instrument; enjoys cycling, archery, and video games; has niche interests in culture, exercise, and science and technology; and is most likely to have a cat as his pet. </p>
<p>In terms of personality he describes himself as geeky, clever, and funny, but can also be lazy, procrastinating, and withdrawn. His favourite brands include XBox 360, Dropbox, and Gumtree; he uses an online supermarket for food shopping; buys his clothes from relatively cheap fashion chains; and drives a VW. His favourite films are Gravity, Blue Velvet, and Twelve Monkeys; he enjoys watching The Office on TV; and takes an interest in Chris O’Dowd, Seth Rogan, and Ellen Page. On Twitter he follows DJs on alternate radio stations, and on Facebook he looks at the Arrested Development page. He is online over 50 hours a week, reads The Guardian, and watches TV for 1-5 hours per week (particularly Family Guy).</p>
<p>Of course the more niche you go so the smaller the sample on which the YouGov data is based, and the more cautious one must be in assuming that the profile is truly representative. Moreover, there is a clear lack of data even for major cultural phenomena - the profile for jazz fans is based on a sample of only 155 people - and the data appears to be valid for the United Kingdom only.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the site works for almost any brand, TV show, or other cultural object you care to input. The 1,855 lovers of meat pies surveyed have moderate political views, work in engineering, are interested in science and particularly cars, regard themselves as knowledgeable, enjoy war films, and spend a lot of time online. </p>
<p>In the meantime the YouGov site illustrates one particular point wonderfully. Before the era of big data we believed that the inter-relationships between cultural preferences were esoteric, idiosyncratic, and very difficult to predict. The YouGov profiler indicates that they are anything but. I’m off now to find out what meat pie lovers have in common with jazz fans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Kiss your lunchtime web surfing plans goodbye, because I guarantee that whatever page you were planning to visit next, you will instead want to go to YouGov. We know that your musical taste tells everyone…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328222014-10-16T19:30:36Z2014-10-16T19:30:36ZWant to win? Let music give you the edge<p>Let’s hope the Wallabies are inspired by a rousing rendition of the national anthem as they prepare to face their old enemy the All Black’s at tomorrow’s Bledisloe Cup match. The Kiwis invariably come out fighting after the chest-thumping, thigh-slapping ritual of their traditional haka.</p>
<p>The last time the Australian team prepared to do battle on the field, an incomprehensible version of the anthem left them <a href="http://www.foxsports.com.au/what-the-fox/argentine-singer-butchers-advance-australia-fair-before-wallabies-v-pumas-rugby-match/story-fnn4peyo-1227080428816">chuckling with mirth</a> at kick-off rather than fired up with nationalistic fervour.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gHZ17anodtY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Did Argentinian tenor Marcelo Zelada deliberately botch his rendition of Advance Australia Fair? The Pumas went on to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-05/wallabies-suffer-shock-loss-to-argentina/5791252">defeat the Wallabies</a> 21-17 so perhaps Zelada was onto something.</p>
<h2>More than just easy listening</h2>
<p>Millions of joggers habitually cope with the physical discomfort of running using the distractive effects of music, in particular by synchronising their stride rate to the tempo of the music.</p>
<p>Swimmers now embrace the tedium of endless laps by tuning in to their favourite tracks, thanks to tiny MP3 players that clip onto goggles and deliver music through the cheekbone direct into the inner ear. </p>
<p>For athletes to be headphone-clad has been de rigeur for many years but it now appears to be almost compulsory.</p>
<p>After music devotee Michael Phelps swam to an all-time record of eight Olympic gold medals in 2008, one of his first tasks when arriving home was to personally thank rap artist Lil’ Wayne for the inspiration he had provided in Beijing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61821/original/ywk4gx25-1413358954.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What does Michael Phelps (left) listen to before a race? It’s usually rap artists like Eminem and Lil’ Wayne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/3652749376">Flickr/JD Lasica</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But is the ubiquitous use of music by athletes and exercisers justified or simply hype? Well, decades of research on the use of music in sport and exercise has confirmed some powerful effects and surprising benefits. </p>
<h2>Music and performance</h2>
<p>The first published <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23267224.1911.10651270#.VDuQUfmSyyc">study</a> on the subject, in 1911, showed that cyclists in a six-day race in New York produced faster lap times when a brass band was playing.</p>
<p>Although it was impossible to separate the effects of the music from the increased crowd noise that it generated, this humble observation paved the way for the many scientific studies that have followed. </p>
<p>A recent meta-analysis of more than 100 empirical investigations of music in sport and exercise conducted over the past century has confirmed that music produces significant beneficial effects on psychological responses, perceived exertion, physical performance, and even physiological functioning. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61955/original/nmv34kyj-1413437534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Listening to the right music can improve your performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sangudo/6145833799">Flickr/Sangudo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although it should be no surprise that music influences psychological responses, – especially our moods, emotions and feelings – the ways that athletes use music to manipulate their pre-competition mindset are occasionally surprising.</p>
<p>Olympic rowing champion, James Cracknell, listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Get On Top to inspire him to the ultimate effort is logical enough. </p>
<p>But what music would you recommend to an Olympic super-heavyweight boxer before his gold medal bout? Tina Turner’s Simply The Best or Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger would be popular choices. But how about Japanese classical music?</p>
<p>When you’re a technical boxer trying to generate the qualities of speed, lightness, precision and relaxation to outbox a brawling opponent then his choice of music starts to make sense. It certainly worked for Great Britain’s Audley Harrison, a former student of mine, at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. </p>
<h2>The rhythm of exercise</h2>
<p>Music has the capacity to reduce perceived exertion by about 10% when used during physical activity, which explains the enduring popularity of exercise-to-music classes.</p>
<p>The stimulative and motivational properties of up-tempo music, with lyrics that encourage effort (Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, Britney Spears’ Stronger) and associations of glory or success (M People’s Search For The Hero, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive) typically help exercisers to work harder for longer by masking the objective level of effort. In turn, this produces a performance benefit that some elite performers have been able to exploit.</p>
<p>Ethiopian superstar runner, Haile Gebrselassie, the double Olympic 10,000m gold medallist and multiple world champion, has broken several world records while running in time to the high-tempo song Scatman, the rhythm and tempo of which he describes as “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2013/may/10/haile-gebrselassie-interview">perfect for running</a>”.</p>
<p>A 2012 <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21803652">study</a> conducted with elite triathletes at the Queensland Academy of Sport showed that treadmill running to exhaustion was increased by a staggering 18% when participants ran in time to music that included everything from Oasis and UB40 to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, compared to completing the same task without music.</p>
<p>Such clear performance benefits have caused music to be labelled a “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/raiseyourgame/sites/motivation/psychedup/pages/costas_karageorghis.shtml">legal drug</a>” by some commentators. </p>
<p>Perhaps for this reason, many sports prohibit listening to music while performing. The New York Marathon famously tried to “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/sports/01iht-run.1.8142612.html">strongly discourage</a>” competitors from using personal listening devices in 2007, ostensibly for safety reasons.</p>
<p>The outcry and outright defiance from a large proportion of recreational runners who used their iPods regardless, caused race organisers to subsequently restrict the ban to elite runners, many of whom prefer to focus attention on sensory feedback from their own bodies rather than, as they see it, the distracting effects of music.</p>
<h2>Sing when you’re winning</h2>
<p>Of course nothing can prevent athletes from creating their own musical rhythm during a race, like six-time marathon kayak world champion, Anna Hemmings, who gained an edge by singing R. Kelly’s The World’s Greatest to herself, but only during the world championships so as not to dilute its impact. </p>
<p>Other <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21803652;%20http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22828457">recent studies</a> have demonstrated greater physiological efficiency when exercising to music, notably the completion of identical workloads using significantly less oxygen consumption than without music. This indicates that music effects are far more than just a psychological phenomenon.</p>
<p>Whether the physiological benefits are explained by greater biomechanical efficiency derived from a metronome effect, improved blood flow derived from a generalised relaxation response, or some other mechanism that is not yet well understood, there is little doubt about the wide-ranging potential benefits of listening to music.</p>
<p>There’s no shortage of ways to use music to your advantage and many different musical genres have been shown to boost athletic performance, although preferably not something that leaves the Wallabies giggling before taking on the All Blacks in Brisbane tomorrow evening.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Terry receives funding from the Queensland Academy of Sport.</span></em></p>Let’s hope the Wallabies are inspired by a rousing rendition of the national anthem as they prepare to face their old enemy the All Black’s at tomorrow’s Bledisloe Cup match. The Kiwis invariably come…Peter Terry, Professor of Psychology, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/307762014-08-21T03:35:55Z2014-08-21T03:35:55ZDavid Cameron is wrong to place age limits on music videos<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57052/original/6vb6rmhg-1408617958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/MARIUS BECKER</span></span>
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<p>Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced this week that from October <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/20/uk-music-video-youtube-age-ratings/?ncid=rss_truncated">all music videos shown in the United Kingdom will carry a movie-style age-appropriateness rating</a>, stating whether each is appropriate for 12, 15, or 18-year olds. But far from shielding young people from semi-pornographic depictions of women and gun-toting rappers, the research shows that Cameron may be worsening any problem and acting on the basis of dubious logic.</p>
<p>We’re all familiar with the thought process, as the US and Australia have tried similar measures in the past: if young people are told that they shouldn’t watch these videos then they will dutifully obey. And to an extent Cameron is right: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992.tb00772.x/abstract">research from as far back as the early 1990s showed that 10-12 year olds agreed that sexual music videos were not appropriate for them</a>. </p>
<p>But in many other respects Cameron’s arguments are simply not supported by the research.</p>
<p>First, it is not clear whether labelling music as inappropriate makes it less or more attractive to young people. One study found that 11-14 year olds were less interested in an album when it bore the “parental advisory sticker” than when it did not, but another found that when students were told that an album had been declared legally obscene then they actually liked it more.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Megadeth’s anti-censorship <em>Hook in Mouth</em>.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, by attaching an age-related warning to a given video, Cameron is sending a clear message to young people that he believes that video will have a harmful effect. Unfortunately the research shows that sending this message in and of itself causes the music to have harmful effects. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197104001101">In one study I played the same song to all the participants</a> but, before they heard it, one group of people was told that the song had been criticised by protesters for causing suicide, whereas another group was told that the song had been praised by health professionals for helping young people to work through difficult issues. </p>
<p>Hearing the song worsened the mood of only the “suicide” group, whereas people in the “health professionals” group were unaffected. Similarly, other research shows that <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1985-03124-001">listeners only perceive backwards-masked messages in music specifically when they are told to expect these</a>.</p>
<p>Third, the logic underlying Cameron’s argument is clearly influenced by something called the third person effect. Research on this shows that one gains self-esteem by believing other people to be more influenced by a given object than is oneself: “You will be influenced by sexual and violent videos, even though I am not, and so I am better than you”. Also, we believe that the extent to which other people are influenced is a function of the social distance between us and them. For example, <a href="http://crx.sagepub.com/content/24/2/153.abstract">students believe themselves to be least influenced by violent and misogynistic rap lyrics followed by other students at their on university and then all other young people</a>. </p>
<p>Does Cameron believe he is made more sexist or violent by watching music videos? If not then why does he think other people will be? The third person effect explains why a gentrified Tory Prime Minister believes that media-savvy kids can be influenced by music videos even though he is not.</p>
<p>Consistent use of highly-sexualised images of women is obviously demeaning and creates a false perceived norm that might well influence fans’ future attitudes and behaviour. Similarly, nobody wants young people watching glamorised violence, particularly when <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02533.x/abstract">in music videos that violence is so often depicted as not causing pain or other ‘bad’ consequences</a>. </p>
<p>But these are not issues of concern only to the under-18s, and “badging” the videos as age-inappropriate may have a counterproductive effect on all but the youngest viewers.</p>
<p>Oh, and how on earth will Cameron enforce it? </p>
<p>He should think again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced this week that from October all music videos shown in the United Kingdom will carry a movie-style age-appropriateness rating, stating whether each is appropriate…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/304022014-08-12T02:06:21Z2014-08-12T02:06:21ZBad rap for rap<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56222/original/b9y4y9f9-1407808489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Chris Pratt with his wife actress Anna Faris for the World Premiere of Marvel’s ‘Guardian of the Galaxy’, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Nina Prommer</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt can currently be found battling in multiplexes around the world, but as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdqfR0wRTbI">recent viral video</a> of him shows, he also has a magnificent ability to rap. (Just don’t hold me responsible for anything offensive in there). </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WdqfR0wRTbI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Guardian’s Chris Pratt Rap’s Eminem’s “Forgot About Dre” w/ DJ Whoo Kid.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Of course Hollywood actors are hardly famed for being shrinking violets or an inability to sing, and so Pratt’s expertise should not be a massive surprise: when watching the video I found myself wondering if it would have gained so much attention had Pratt been so good in performing a musical style less subject to negative stereotyping.</p>
<p>This is particularly interesting because the evidence shows that rap fans are in reality some distance from being the dangerous gangstas of their stereotype, and in many ways are remarkable for being so unremarkable. A few years ago I ran <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20518436">a survey of around 30,000 people</a>, looking at the extent to which liking for 104 music styles related to a range of personality traits. </p>
<p>Fans of rap scored relatively highly on measures of being outgoing and also self-esteem. Both of these of course are traits absolutely essential to having the courage to take on Hollywood, and so again Pratt’s rapping proficiency should not surprise us.</p>
<p>However, given that similar scores on self-esteem and being outgoing were recorded among fans of Latino, samba, blues, funk, jazz, easy listening, reggae, disco, chart pop, and soul, it is clear that these personality dispositions are anything but unique to rap fans. (And I wonder if the Hollywood glitterati are also more likely than most to like these other musical styles too.) </p>
<p>Similarly, fans of rap score relatively high for a trait called sensation-seeking, which is a desire to seek out new and exciting experiences and a willingness to take risks in order to obtain these. Again, however, fans of rap appear to be anything but unique in this, since heavy rock fans also tend to score higher than most for sensation-seeking, and so it is not surprising that they are more likely to engage in risky driving or risky sexual behaviours.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/35/1/58.abstract">my research on lifestyle</a> correlating musical taste shows that many aspects of rap fans’ day-to-day lives do not appear to be particularly distinctive. For instance, a relatively high proportion of rap fans were raised outside two-parent families, but this is no different to fans of country or soul. Similarly, rap fans live with a greater number of people than do others, but probably only because they are also more likely than most to live in a detached home. And despite being stereotypically radical, rap fans are not much in favour of increasing taxes to support public services or of supporting greener energy sources.</p>
<p>So next time we see that a Hollywood star can rap we should certainly enjoy it, but perhaps not be quite so surprised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt can currently be found battling in multiplexes around the world, but as the recent viral video of him shows, he also has a magnificent ability to rap. (Just don’t…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/303192014-08-08T08:21:26Z2014-08-08T08:21:26ZWine and song<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/56113/original/rfm4w24y-1407721054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zesak Militancia Grafika</span></span>
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<p>Rudy Kurniawan this week became <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/nyregion/wine-dealer-sentenced-to-10-years-for-defrauding-clients.html?_r=0">the first person to go to jail for selling fake wine</a>. In addition to his ten year sentence he was ordered to pay US$20m, plus millions in restitution to victims, including at least one billionaire and a restaurateur, who were conned into buying over US$20m worth of mixtures of older and newer wines that had been prepared in Kurniawan’s kitchen. </p>
<p>Vintage wine is ripe for such nefarious practice. Any psychologist could tell you that the more ambiguous the stimulus, the more likely it is that people’s judgements can be biased: if there are fewer objective cues concerning what is “right” or “correct” so one has to resort to basing one’s views on other less reliable information, and so it is unsurprising that something so difficult to evaluate objectively as wine should allow con-men to fool consumers.</p>
<p>The extent to which judgements of wine can be biased is illustrated well by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02072.x/abstract">research I published just a couple of years ago</a> showing that the taste could be influenced even by background music. </p>
<p>I gave people a glass of wine and asked them to drink it while either no sound played in the background or they instead heard one of four types of music: some of the music was chosen because I thought it sounded “refreshing” (Just Can’t Get Enough by Nouvelle Vague), some of it “heavy” (Carmina Burana), some of it “subtle” (Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers), and some of it “mellow” (Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook). </p>
<p>Drinkers were then asked to rate the taste of the wine according to these same four dimensions. Ratings of the wine reflected the characteristics of the music that played in the background. For example, red wine was rated as 60% more “heavy” when people heard heavy music rather than no music; and as 41% more subtle when people heard subtle music rather than no music. </p>
<p>So it is easy to see how vintage wine can be the subject of fraud. However, the effects of sound on taste are not just limited to wine or even just to music. </p>
<p>More recently I re-ran the wine experiment, this time using orange juice. If we played The Beach Boys from the stall offering the juice so customers thought it came from California, whereas if we played Chinese music they thought the juice came from China. And these effects are not unique to music. If instead we played the sound of a babbling brook, customers regarded our juice as fresher and thought that orange juice could help prevent a wider range of medical conditions compared to when we played the sound of traffic.</p>
<p>And these kind of effects are not unique just to my own research. Others have found that potato chips are rated as fresher when the sound made biting into them is louder; oysters taste more pleasant when eating them is accompanied by a “sounds of the sea” soundtrack rather than the sound of farmyard chickens; and people tend to implicitly associate sour foods such as vinegar and lemon juice with high-pitched sounds and bitter-tasting foods such as coffee and chocolate with low-pitched sounds.</p>
<p>So there are strong psychological reasons why we should take pity on the billionaires and restaurateurs conned by Mr Kurniawan: by tricking them into buying fake wine, he demonstrated that the taste buds of these wealthy connoisseurs are no more reliable than are our own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Rudy Kurniawan this week became the first person to go to jail for selling fake wine. In addition to his ten year sentence he was ordered to pay US$20m, plus millions in restitution to victims, including…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/291072014-07-11T09:10:50Z2014-07-11T09:10:50ZMusic and drug use<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C6rahFZwCUA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Remember Human Traffic?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For this weekend only, Balado in Perthshire is transformed into the fifth largest town in Scotland as it hosts the annual T In The Park music festival. The event this year sees <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/28259057">a zero tolerance approach</a> from organisers with regard to festival-goers taking substances that induce legal highs. This once again highlights that, although drug usage is potentially very dangerous, there is only a poor level of popular understanding of the nature of the relationship between this and music.</p>
<p>There is reasonably clear evidence that fans of certain musical styles are more likely than others to use drugs, and to a very disturbing extent. A <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8857377">study from Glasgow in the mid-1990s</a> found that, of those involved in the dance music scene there, 97.8% had used cannabis, 93.3% amphetamine, 91.9% LSD, 91.1% ecstasy, 85.2% nitrites, 81.5% psilocybin, and 70.4% cocaine; that respondents had tried an average of 10.7 drugs; and that out of 17 drugs, at least half of the respondents had used 15 of them within the past year. </p>
<p>However, the link between music and drug use is far more complex than this might suggest. </p>
<p>First, it tends to be context-dependant. The Glasgow study found that 59% of ecstasy users last did so in a nightclub, whereas only 9% did so at home; whereas only 3.8% of heroin users last did so in a nightclub. Zero tolerance of drug-usage at festivals or nightclubs could only reduce use of certain types of drugs. </p>
<p>Second, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1694429/">other research</a> shows that the popularity of particular musical styles is similar among adolescents who do and do not use drugs, so that drug use is a poor predictor of musical taste: the latter tells you little about someone’s propensity to engage in the former. </p>
<p>Third, the stereotypes of the most “druggy” musical styles are nothing more than that: in <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/35/1/58.abstract">one study</a> I found that although fans of dance music, hip hop, and DJ-based music had tried the widest range of drugs, only fans of DJ-based music had tried significantly more than had fans of jazz, opera, and blues: there has yet to be an attempt to shut an opera house as a den of drug-fuelled squalor. </p>
<p>Fourth, drug usage seems to be more prevalent among fans of musical styles who tend to have personalities or lifestyles indicative of vulnerability to drug use: <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/215606948_Ecstasy_use_at_large-scale_dance_events_in_the_Netherlands">taking ecstasy at dance music events</a> is more common among 16-21 year olds, those with lower levels of education, those working part-time or unemployed, and those with friends who take the drug. In other words, people with a greater statistical propensity to take drugs rally around certain musical styles, but it is difficult to argue that the music is the most probable cause of the drug use. </p>
<p>Fifth, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9489049">research from Western Australia</a> shows that those who used drugs in the context of dance music had a good level of knowledge about drug-related harm: on eight out of the 10 questions they were asked, more than 90% of respondents got the correct answer, so that their drug usage appears to be an informed choice.</p>
<p>Clearly drug usage is dangerous in any context, and the T In The Park organisers are right to take a zero tolerance approach to legal (or illegal) highs. But many of the widely-held conceptions about the links between music and drugs are questionable. A better-informed understanding of the relationship would be far more effective in reducing usage. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
For this weekend only, Balado in Perthshire is transformed into the fifth largest town in Scotland as it hosts the annual T In The Park music festival. The event this year sees a zero tolerance approach…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/283352014-06-23T06:22:10Z2014-06-23T06:22:10ZWhy is it good to crowdsurf at Handel concerts?<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51906/original/xv5ptm37-1403505324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Azzaroni</span></span>
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<p>Dr David Glowacki is a highly-respected research fellow of the Royal Society, and expert in non-equilibrium molecular reaction dynamics – no, me neither – but is also our newest, and arguably most unlikely, musical hero after being ejected from a performance of Handel’s Messiah for, wait for it, crowd surfing. </p>
<p>London’s <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/22/leading-scientist-ejected-from-classical-concert-for-attempting-to-crowd-surf-4771395/">Metro newspaper reports</a> that the artistic director at Bristol’s Old Vic had encouraged the audience to “clap or whoop when you like, and no shushing other people” in order to make the atmosphere more “accessible and informal”. Dr Glowacki’s ejection is therefore sad for three reasons. </p>
<p>First, it illustrates how classical music gigs are nothing like as lively as they used to be. Fights in the auditorium appeared to be <em>de rigeur</em> in the early years of the 20th century. </p>
<p>In addition to the well-known riot at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, there was similar trouble at a 1905 performance of Richard Strauss’ Salomé; a 1917 performance of Erik Satie’s Parade; a 1923 performance of George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique; a 1923 performance of Erwin Schulhoff’s Ogelala; a 1923 performance of Edgar Varèse’s Hyperprism; a 1926 performance of Maurice Ravel’s Chansons madécasses; and Stravinsky himself was a victim twice over, since a 1930 performance of his Symphony of Psalms went down no better than did the premiere of Rite in 1913.</p>
<p>Second, the research shows that the currency of calm in the stalls is partly the <em>reason why</em> classical music gigs are not so much fun. In common with emotional reactions to most other things, music produces a stronger response if it is more arousing. </p>
<p>There is a clear arousal-based component to the most common strong reactions to music, namely shivers up the spine, tears, laughter, goosebumps, racing heart, quasi-physical feelings (e.g. “I was filled by an enormous warmth and heat”), and intensified perception. </p>
<p>A heightened state of physiological arousal, that would intensify reactions to the music, would only be accentuated by a loud and active auditorium of the type that the Old Vic clearly doesn’t really want. </p>
<p>Third, any comedian can tell you that there is money to be made in giving people a good time, and live pop music continues to prosper because it understands that intuitively: it does everything it can to get a physiological reaction from the audience via light shows, dance moves and thunder flashes. </p>
<p>Classical music has of course tried to steal some showbiz sheen from pop, but this has tended to involve lip gloss and cleavage or the occasional firework: the package always leaves me feeling like an elderly uncle trying to dance at a wedding disco, rather than feeling that I’m at a <em>vital event</em>. </p>
<p>Just as with pop music, if you want sombre reflection then play the music on iTunes in your study, but if classical music is serious about getting punters through the door then it needs to learn how to party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28335/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Dr David Glowacki is a highly-respected research fellow of the Royal Society, and expert in non-equilibrium molecular reaction dynamics – no, me neither – but is also our newest, and arguably most unlikely…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/277242014-06-06T08:57:55Z2014-06-06T08:57:55ZBanning heavy metal fans from pubs isn’t just unfair - it’s simply inaccurate<p>The headline says it all. The Chronicle, which reports all the news that is fit to print in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England notes that “<a href="http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/city-tavern-newcastle-rock-fans-7176377">Rock Fans Were Kicked Out Of A Newcastle Pub Because Of Their Outfits</a>”. The seven giants of rock were booted out of the City Tavern solely for wearing the standard metal uniform. Prior to a refurb, the bar ran regular rock nights and still has no dress code; 93% of respondents to the newspaper’s own poll disagree with the move, which is simply the latest in a long history of bizarre acts of censorship aimed at music fans.</p>
<p>Eric Nuzum’s book, Parental Advisory, and <a href="https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/brief-timeline-censored-music">The American Civil Liberties Union</a> website both provide some other wonderful examples of this nonsense. The ACLU report, for instance, that in 2000 a Louisiana judge ordered officials to return music to a skating rink owner, which had been confiscated in the belief that it had caused a car park fight: the fact that the music included some Britney Spears and even Disney’s Tarzan soundtrack might make this measure seem heavy-handed to some. The site similarly reports that attending a Backstreet Boys concert was sufficient to cause school students to be suspended in Texas (and not on grounds of their poor musical taste either), and that wearing a Korn t-shirt that simply features the band’s name has similarly been enough to get you suspended from school in Michigan.</p>
<p>The academic literature similarly details the pervasiveness of the stereotypes of musical subcultures. One study showed that simply presenting a criminal defendant as an author of rap lyrics cause him to be perceived as more likely to be guilty; and whereas rap fans are portrayed as a threat to others, heavy rock fans are stereotyped as more likely to self-harm. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, clear differences do actually exist in the personality and lifestyles of the people who like different musical styles. Rock fans score higher than most on measures of having a personality that is sensation-seeking and open to new experiences, and I have also found evidence that fans of 35 different musical styles differ on such wide-ranging variables as political beliefs, number of holidays taken, whether they would like more friends, frequency of taking a bath, and the types of alcoholic drinks they consume.</p>
<p>So given that real differences exist, it is possible to some extent to understand why certain groups of fans get picked upon. However, the problem is that the stereotypes are so often inaccurate. The manager of the City Tavern might like to know that my data shows that the fans who apparently take least care of their appearance are those who like opera, as they take the fewest baths and wash their hair least frequently. </p>
<p>The fans most likely to be a real danger to themselves are not metal-heads, but instead those who like blues, as they smoke more than others. Perhaps most importantly for a publican, I should also point that, with the exception of those who go to nightclubs a lot, fans of jazz drink the most. Given all this, I would imagine that the Newcastle Seven are much more desirable customers than the boss of the City Tavern seems to think. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The headline says it all. The Chronicle, which reports all the news that is fit to print in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England notes that “Rock Fans Were Kicked Out Of A Newcastle Pub Because Of Their Outfits…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/274512014-06-02T05:25:51Z2014-06-02T05:25:51ZThe socioeconomic zeitgeist and musical taste<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49969/original/282972tr-1401688051.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US vocalist Ronnie James Dio of British heavy metal group ‘Heaven and Hell’ on stage during a concert in Oslo, Norway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Terje Beniksby Norway Out</span></span>
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<p>Last week, <a href="http://www.citylab.com/politics/2014/05/how-heavy-metal-tracks-the-wealth-of-nations/371473/">citylab.com</a> reported that there is a strong correlation between the number of heavy metal bands in a particular country and various measures of quality of life, such as economic output per person, the number of people with a degree, and life satisfaction. </p>
<p>The argument is that, “Heavy metal springs not from the poisoned slag of alienation and despair but the loamy soil of post-industrial prosperity”, so that contented people get bored and begin to rebel.</p>
<p>As much as I would love to subscribe to the notion that this is a true (and perhaps even causal) relationship, I’m rather more skeptical. If we can’t even get clean drinking water to large areas of the planet I don’t see how we can count the number of Black Sabbath cover bands that play there either. There is also the real possibility that the finding simply reflects the musical culture of industrialised nations: there is no indication yet of a surge in the popularity of heavy metal in China, Indonesia or India that matches their rapid rate of economic growth.</p>
<p>But neither is it as incredible as you might think that there could be a relationship between the broader socioeconomic zeitgeist and musical taste.</p>
<p>One of my all-time-favourite pieces of research studied the lyrics of the best-selling songs in the USA from the 1950s up to the later 1980s. The lyrics were analysed in terms of the extent to which they dwelled on gloomy themes. </p>
<p>The research then showed that changes over time in this amount of “pessimistic rumination” could predict changes in consumer confidence some months later, and that this in turn of course predicted upwards and downward changes in the American economy. And since the changes in the lyrics came before the changes in the economy it would seem that pop music was anticipating, rather than merely reflecting, the onset of boom or bust.</p>
<p>This sounds outlandish, but makes more sense when we remember that populations comprise individuals. It isn’t the least bit controversial to claim that happy music makes <em>you</em> feel happy or that sad music makes <em>you</em> feel sad. </p>
<p>So if an entire population hears happy or sad music then the entire population ought to feel happier or sadder. And since the research studied the lyrics of the best-selling songs, this represents the music that was on radio station playlists and so receiving population-wide exposure. From there, neither is it a great leap to claim that people who feel sadder feel less optimism about the future, and so rein in their spending. </p>
<p>Even if you don’t buy the intuitive reasoning, there is direct evidence that music is related to measures of mood at the level of entire populations. For instance, one study carried out across 49 cities found that suicide rates could be predicted by the frequency with which country and western was played on the radio; and other research shows that suicide rates can be predicted by variations in subscription rates to a leading heavy metal magazine.</p>
<p>So liking for heavy metal may or may not relate to quality of life, but since populations are made up of people, it is not surprising that music that can influence one person can influence everyone and lead to population-wide effects.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Last week, citylab.com reported that there is a strong correlation between the number of heavy metal bands in a particular country and various measures of quality of life, such as economic output per person…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/268932014-05-19T04:56:29Z2014-05-19T04:56:29ZMusic is the soundtrack to your life – what’s on your playlist?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48821/original/fc9qccsq-1400466598.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Music can be used as part of a 'healthy process of self-regulation'.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sascha kohlmann</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all know music can move us emotionally. But how does it impact on our behaviour? That relationship’s not immediately clear. </p>
<p>A YouTube clip was doing the rounds on social media a while ago – the music from one of the most chilling scenes in the 1975 film Jaws had been quite cleverly changed. Instead of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9QTSyLwd4w">original hair-raising theme</a> that we all know by composer John Williams, the scene was accompanied by the delicate ballet music of Tchaikovsky. </p>
<p>The effect was startling. It could have been a completely different film – one about a fun-loving dolphin. It’s a good example of what an incredibly powerful mood-setter music is. So many of our favourite films just wouldn’t have the same impact without the music.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48810/original/3cmgvsr9-1400464388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ed Yourdon</span></span>
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<p>It’s the same outside of the cinema – a fact that has been instinctively understood by humans since written records began. In ancient China, more than 4,000 years ago, <a href="http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/8402699/The_sick_child_and_music_">flute music was prescribed</a> to calm an over-excited foetus. </p>
<p>The Egyptians also seemed to use music for therapeutic purposes at least as early as 1500 BC. Then there is the much-loved biblical tale of King Saul being soothed by the playing of David’s harp in the Old Testament.</p>
<p>Today, we often use music to “get into” a mood – using soft music and lyrics to set the scene for romance which, as a seduction tactic, can be quite effective. <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/38/3/303.refs">Researchers in France found</a> that women who were exposed to love songs were more likely to respond to a request for a date than those who were in a control group and did not hear this music.</p>
<p>At other times, we may use a fast, up-tempo piece of music at the gym to get us working harder. Music has also been used across the centuries to <a href="http://vimeo.com/72609411">pump up soldiers in the face of battle</a>, the same energising facets of the music being drawn upon, in this context to promote aggression (see famous Wagner scene from Apocalypse Now (1979) below).</p>
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<p>So does that mean that music can be both good and bad for you? Potentially, yes. </p>
<p>But music exists within a socio-cultural context and it is how the music interacts with other factors that produces a particular result. </p>
<p>So, at the gym it is how and why the music is framed that helps to promote its invigorating qualities for the desired work-out ends. Where it could lead to aggression, there are contextual factors that influence the way in which it’s processed and in turn how it affects us.</p>
<p>Recent anti-noise bans that <a href="https://theconversation.com/live-music-in-australia-offensive-noise-or-good-vibrations-13530">prevented live music being played</a> in many Australian pubs connected loud music with aggressive behaviour.</p>
<p>The truth is that rock music might indeed encourage patrons to move faster, be more pumped up, and perhaps drink more, be less inhibited, louder, and so manifest a whole range of behaviours than might be regarded as anti-social, leading to an aggression response. But, these are not generated from the music itself, rather in the context and the alignment of many interacting factors.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/48809/original/p83tmxwj-1400464113.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">masha krasnova shabaeva</span></span>
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<p>Perhaps the most useful way to reflect on the positives of music is that it can be part of a “healthy process of self-regulation” as American music therapist <a href="http://mtp.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/2/69.abstract">Bridget Doak says</a> and, when negative, it may be part of an “unhealthy, distress-addiction cycle”. </p>
<p><a href="https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/52950/EMR000125a-Garrido.pdf">Researchers have found</a> that people listen to sad music for a variety of reasons. Some may find that having a good cry while listening to a piece of music is a good way to let go of bad feelings. For others it may give them a chance to think through things that are making them feel sad in their own lives and reach a point of resolution. </p>
<p>But some people do not have such effective ways of making themselves feel better. People with mood disorders, for example, often engage in behaviours that can make them feel worse, and music can be a part of that behaviour.</p>
<p>Music can have such a powerful impact on mood. Whether or not our lives resemble a light-hearted ballet or a scene of terror in shark-infested waters may have much to do with the music that surrounds us on a daily basis. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Professor Davidson will give <a href="http://vca-mcm.unimelb.edu.au/events?id=707">a public talk</a> on the use of music in daily life at the University of Melbourne on Tuesday May 20 at 6.30pm. <a href="http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-authors/book/my-life-as-a-playlist/">My Life As A Playlist</a> (2014) by Jane Davidson and Sandra Garrido is published by UWA Publishing. You can participate in research and learn more about the interaction between music listening choices and personality <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/arts/playlist/#!/home">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Davidson receives funding from The Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Garrido does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We all know music can move us emotionally. But how does it impact on our behaviour? That relationship’s not immediately clear. A YouTube clip was doing the rounds on social media a while ago – the music…Jane Davidson, Deputy Director ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The University of MelbourneSandra Garrido, Postdoctoral Research Fellow , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/244882014-03-18T06:44:22Z2014-03-18T06:44:22ZMusic for pleasure … on International Happiness Day<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">gonzalo baeza</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44222/original/hvyxh7r7-1395180460.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">gonzalo baeza</span></span>
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<p>Thursday March 20 is the <a href="http://www.dayofhappiness.net/#context">United Nations International Day of Happiness</a>, and so I thought a short post would be in order to help you to select some appropriate music for the day. </p>
<p>Numerous researchers have identified musical characteristics that make music feel “happy”. These rules are not perfect, but if you follow them, your odds of ending the day with a smile on your face will be much higher than if you simply trust the DJ on the radio. </p>
<p>An ascending melodic line is generally regarded as happier than a descending one. A ¾ (i.e., waltz) time signature tends to be more relaxed and carefree than does 4/4 or 2/4 time. And a smooth, even rhythm (think bossa nova here) is more conducive to an unimpeded flow of playfulness than is a rhythm that sounds jerky or disjointed. </p>
<p>As long ago as the 1930s, research was even able to rank order the characteristics that music should have in order to be happy. Major mode is the most important, followed by (in descending order of importance) high pitches, simple harmonies, flowing rhythm and fast, unvarying tempo. </p>
<p>It also helps if the music is loud, has bright timbres (i.e., strings not tubas), and staccato articulation and fast attack times (think “da-da-da-da” rather than “deeeeer-deeeeer-deeeeer-deeeeer”). Moreover, if you want to avoid accidentally listening to something that will make you sad then avoid (in descending order of importance) minor mode, low pitch, slow tempo, complex harmony and firm, rigid rhythms.</p>
<p>If you’re not too interested in music theory then another approach allows you to skip all this jargon and instead just focus on two criteria. Namely how much you like the music and how arousing you find it. Music that is happy is usually that which you really, really like and which is arousing (or more simply, which feels like it is giving you a physical jolt). </p>
<p>It is important that the music fulfils both above criteria though. If you really, really like it but don’t find it arousing then it will simply leave you supremely relaxed rather than happy per se. And if it is arousing but you don’t like it then you will probably just find it really unsettling and unnerving.</p>
<p>There are two really important factors I haven’t covered here at all. First of all, some music will be happy because it has special associations just for you. </p>
<p>Most people, for example, would regard goth classics like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq7xyjU-jsU">Bela Lugosi’s Dead</a> by English gothic rick band Bauhaus as pretty maudlin stuff, but if it is the music you danced to on your wedding day then (god help you and) you will probably still find it quite uplifting. </p>
<p>Second, from a research perspective, we still have very little idea about how lyrics affect your emotional response to music. Interestingly though, people tend to be quite bad at interpreting lyrics - one study found that 36% of teenagers at the time thought that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zwPVU92-XQ">Physical</a> by Olivia Newton-John was an attempt to get listeners to exercise more. As such, even explicitly happy lyrics might not have the desired effect on listeners, so try to avoid placing all your hopes on the lyrics mentioning the word “smile” a lot.</p>
<p>Have a good day! :)</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Thursday March 20 is the United Nations International Day of Happiness, and so I thought a short post would be in order to help you to select some appropriate music for the day. Numerous researchers have…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.