Wednesday 3 June 2015

Are Our Musical Preferences Predetermined?

Music Psychology: The Power of Vibrational Frequency -

"Have you ever wondered why you have a complete disdain for specific styles of music? 
This interesting phenomenon has been the subject of scientific inquiry, hoping to uncover the mystery as to why our musical preferences seem to be predetermined"

playalongjon's insight:
Are we attracted to certain types of music and are these preferences predetermined?  

Saturday 17 January 2015

How Music May Benefit And Affect Your Brain

 

How Music Affects and Benefits Your Brain

 I'm a big fan of music and use it a lot when working, but I had no idea about how it really affects our brains and bodies. Music is such a big part of our lives, and we react to it in many ways without even realizing.  More





playalongjon's insight:
Something which I experience everyday myself.

Saturday 27 September 2014

"Music Gives A Soul To The Universe" Plato

Plato-blue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 "Music Gives A Soul To The  Universe,   

  Wings To The Mind,  

Flight To The Imagination,

    And Life To Everything". 

        PlatoT
o Th
e Universe,

ngs To The Mind, Flight To The Imagination, 

And Life To Everything".

Related articles

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Music And The Brain : Exploring The Interaction Between Music And The Brain

Rendering of human brain.
Rendering of human brain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So what can music neuroscience teaches us about the brain?  In  the YouTube video below,  Aniruddh Patel, of the Neurosciences Institute discusses just what music can reveal to us about the mind and the brain. He then goes on to explore just what brain science can subsequently teach us about music and how it affects the brain itself.

 

 Music and the Mind

 


 Related articles
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Thursday 13 December 2012

Six Reasons Why Music Is Important To Us


Ever wonder why music is so  important to us and has such an impact on our emotions? Well wonder no more here they are ! The number one reason is 'Positivity', two & three reasons are 'Diversion and Mood Management', fourth reason is 'Forming Relationships', fifth reason is 'For Personal Identity' and the sixth reason is 'To Learn About Others (and the World)'

Would you like to find out more, well click on this this link which will take you to the article "The Psychology of Music: 6 Reasons We Love (and Need) Music"  where these 'reasons' were published.

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Saturday 25 August 2012

Music and Images


Can you  "see" while listening to music or do you belong to those who don't associate images with music?

In our modern world it is hard not to associate music with visual elements.  Images and music are often  and present together so it becomes more difficult to "dissociate music from images".  In the past however things were a little different :

"....... those who have a good musical culture love music have no visual representations when listening to their favorite kind of music. Any association between music and mental representations maybe accidental and temporary."  More

Sunday 5 August 2012

What Exactly Is Music?


Exactly what is music? How does the scientific community attempt to answer these sort of questions related to music and and its effects on human beings?  What happens inside our brains when emotions are released while we are listening to music? In fact what what makes our brains in the first place to connect to these 'electrical impluses and "converted sound vibrations" ?
"Electrical impulse and converted sound vibrations are just the beginning of the madness that  our brain must sort out and deal with "   More

Friday 27 July 2012

Why Does Music and Art Exist ?


The story of the evolution of aesthetics makes interested reading, why for example does music or visual art exists at all ?   How important were aesthetics in human evolution and later in human societies ?    The following article offers some interesting insights into these questions.
"One of the great mysteries of art is why it exists. Although our desire to create and enjoy art is so widespread that it appears as natural as eating or reproducing -– nearly every culture draws, dances, sings, recites poetry and tells stories -– the origins of human aesthetics are not clear-cut. What’s peculiar is that from a biological point of view art appears to serve no adaptive advantages whatsoever."  More

Sunday 10 June 2012

Let Us Have A Go 'At Musical Thinking' !


Do you ever ask yourself why your like music ?  Do you  wonder what exactly is in music that  moves you ?  Also why does listening to music has such an emotional impact on you ?  What about your tastes in music, where do they come from ?  Marvin Minsky attempts to answer some of these questions in in his article "Music, Mind, and Meaning"
"Why do we like music? Our culture immerses us in it for hours each day, and everyone knows how it touches our emotions, but few think of how music touches other kinds of thought. It is astonishing how little curiosity we have about so pervasive an "environmental" influence. What might we discover if we were to study musical thinking?"  More

Friday 30 March 2012

Why Do We Feel The Way We Do When We Listen To Music ?


Why do we feel the way we do when we listen to music ?  Maria Popova in her article "  7 Must-Read Books on Music, Emotion & the Brain"  attempts to answer this question by providing the reader with
 "..... seven essential books that bridge music, emotion and cognition, peeling away at that tender intersection of where your brain ends and your soul begins."   Read More

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Rock Music: Are We Witnessing Its Demise ?



During the past few years how often have, we heard about the demise of Rock Music?  At the moment it may be in a temporary state of hibernation but eventually, it will rise again from this dormant slumber and those 'gentle'  electric guitar riffs will be heard once again.  An interesting article by Jason Axelrod  titled  " Debating the death of rock music" explores this further:
"If you take a glance at music history over the past 50 years, you’ll notice rock bands used to dominate the pop charts. At one time, even in the recent past, rock was synonymous with popular music."  Read More

Tuesday 28 February 2012

The Benefits That Music Can Bring You



Music has the ability to tap those hidden resources that lie in each of us and help us cope with those challenges that life often throw at us from time to time.   Siobhan Faith explores in her article  'The Healing Benefits of Music' the link between music and healing.
"Music can also be a great source of healing. It can calm and soothe, rejuvenate, energize, relax, inspire and restore. Music can have an amazing transformative effect in harmonizing our body systems. In fact, studies have shown that using music with the intention of healing has brought about positive effects on the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems." MORE

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Various Affects of Music On The Brain

Via Scoop.it - the psychology of music

"Brain functioning, moods of an individual, emotions and behaviors have great connection with music. All of them can be altered, changed and improvised according to the requirements and perceptions with the assistance of ... "Via health.ezinemark.com

Sunday 1 January 2012

The Sounds of Colour: A look at Synaesthesia in Relation to Music and Colour


Let us begin this article by asking the question what is 'synaesthesia'? Well synaesthesia can be described as people having 'hallucinations'. A hallucination roughly speaking is usually an error of the brain in its interpretation of the mass of sense-data, which our senses send to the brain.  The the most common example of this is the falling sensation, this is when a person thinks they are physically falling when they are on the verge of falling to asleep.

The most typical of these synaesthesia experiences is probably in relation between music and colour. This is when a person sees colour when he or she hears music, this is often known as  as 'colour hearing'.  This particular experience has been known since antiquity.

A number composers have actually been fascinated by this concept of 'colour hearing'. They have included Sir Arthur Bliss, whose composition 'The Colour Symphony', offers a vivid recollection about his own personal colour perceptions that may have passed through his mind and imagination while he was composing this symphony.  Each and every one of the titles of the movements is in fact a colour. 'The 'First Movement': Purple the Colour of Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty and Death. The 'Second Movement': Red the Colour of Rubies, Wine, Revelry, Furnaces, Courage and Magic. 'The 'Third Movement' : Blue the Colour of Sapphires, Deep Water, Skies, Loyalty and Melancholy. The 'The 'Fourth Movement': Green the Colour of Emeralds, Hope, Joy, Youth, Spring and Victory.

For other composers musical keys seemed to have held a great deal of interest.  Beethoven for instance is known to have referred to the B minor key as a black key.  If one accepts black as being a symbol associated with death together with suffering and many other darker emotions, Beethoven must have thought of this key as gloomy and sad.  This music however is not as  nearly as so dark, tragic and heartbreaking as when the key of B minor was used by J.S. Bach in his own compositions. The music which flowed from this genius mind in the B minor key is some of the most despairing, desolating and painful music within that key.

The Russian composers Rimsky-Korsakov and  Scriabin  both developed strong associations  between particular musical keys and colours though each interpreted these associations in their own way. Though generally there are disagreements  among composers on what colours relate to what musical keys, these differences are fundamentally unimportant compare to whether these types of relationships and connections exist any way.

Different parts of the orchestra have even being given colours, black for instance has been given for strings and voices, red for brass and drums, blue for wood. It has even been suggested that to help to make orchestral scores easier to read, the above colours ought to be used in the printing of the staves committed to the different families of musical instruments.  Associations have also  been made between timbre and colour such as cello - indigo blue,  human voice - green,  trumpet - red, bassoon – violet and so forth.

So  irrespective whether or not an individual person has actually have has personal knowledge of “colour hearing” for themselves, there do exist  people for which the synaesthesia experience connecting music and colour is a very real experience and not simply an 'hallucination'.

Friday 23 September 2011

Can Listening To Music Make You A Happier Person ?


Are we a happier person after listening to music ?  Well there have been various studies over the years trying to answer this question .   Here is an article which expounds on the subject further.

"Music & Emotions: Can Music Really Make You a Happier Person?  Music affects us all. But only in recent times have scientists sought to explain and quantify the way music impacts us at an emotional level. Researching the links between melody and the mind indicates that listening to and playing music actually can alter how our brains, and therefore our bodies, function".   MORE

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Choosing The Right Genre Of Music

When deciding on what music to listen to it is important to choose the right genre of music for the mood you are in at the time.
" Research has proven that music could be a major mood lifter particularly when one is undergoing tough times. At least every person encounters a downhill in life and during such times, music would probably be the best thing to address such situations else one would find it extremely tough to cope. " MORE

Tuesday 19 April 2011

A Musical Synesthesia Experience

Maurice Ravel - "Daphnis et Chloƫ - Suite No.2" ('Daybreak')

This is a great example of French impressionist music. The synesthesia experiences this piece of music evokes in me is that of a sound picture in where waves from the sea are lapping to the shore while I watch a summer sunrise and experiencing the first breezes of the morning across my face.

It occasionally happens that a great work is better known by excerpts. Such has been the fate of Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe every since its creation. While occasionally performed as a ballet, it is usually heard in concert, represented by its final three numbers: "Lever du jour" (Daybreak), "Pantomime" and "Danse generale." Ravel himself designated these excerpts as Suite No. 2 after the score's completion in 1912.  MORE

Monday 7 February 2011

Gary Moore The Blues and Rock Guitarist Dies

Yesterday the sad death of Gary Moore the blues and rock guitarist was announced.
"Moore grew up on Castleview Road opposite Stormont's Parliament Buildings, off the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast and started performing at a young age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight. Moore got his first good-quality guitar at the age of 14, learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way despite being left-handed. He moved to Dublin in 1968 at the age of 16. Moore's early musical influences were artists such as Albert King, Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in his home town of Belfast, his own style was developing into a blues-rock sound that would be the dominant form of his career."  MORE
Gary Moore is best known for his involvement with the rock band 'Thin Lizzy'  who he first joined in 1973  and rejoined them several times more throughout his career.  Before joining 'Thin Lizzy' Moore was with the rock band 'Skid Row'.  In 1974 he joined Jon Hiseman's ‘Colosseum II’ and stayed with them until 1978 when he then followed mainly a solo career.  Gary Moore however collaborated with many major artists throughout his solo career like George Harrison, Albert Collins, BB King, Albert King and Greg Lake,Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, the Beach Boys and Ozzy Osbourne, just to name a few.

His fine rock and blues guitar virtuoso playing will be sadly missed.

Some Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Moore

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/06/gary-moore-thin-lizzy-dies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12377862

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/gary-moore-dies

Discover the Hurdy Gurdy: A Musical Journey Unveiling the Enchanting Sounds of a Timeless Instrument

The Hurdy-Gurdy Player (Le Joueur de Vielle) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Did you know that the hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument tha...