Theorys on the relationship between music and the mind?

[KomodoMK]

Music to my little fishy is very powerful, so much so that he would rate it his #1 drug. I would like to understand the mechanics of how it affects the mind and central nervous system, and how it can produce such powerful effects. Here are some of the things that puzzle me that I hope someone can give insight on or at least provoke a good discussion.

Little fishy loves MDMA on it's own, it produces feelings that words can't describe, but the potency of this chemical seems to increase 10 fold if he plays his desired music. The effect of this is of such magnitude that MDMA without music almost seems dull. The music tends to mainly increase the euphoria. Where people generally say drugs increase music appreciation, little fishy would say the music increases drug appreciation. Does anyone know of any scientific reason behind this phenomenon?

Another thing that puzzles me is why is music so prominent when it comes to association with memory's and emotions? Why can music have such a huge impact on your emotions and influence your mood to the extent in can make you over the moon with joy or cry your eyes out?

Has anyone ever experience a 'shudder' feeling that reverberates down your spine or had the head tingles (feels like all your hairs standing on end) when you hear a song that means a lot to you due to association with a memory, emotion or both? What triggers that?

How come our perception of what sounds good and causes these effects on the mind differ so widely?

There are so many questions but these are good to start with. I think there has to be a lot more at work here than simple changes of neurotransmitter levels in the brain. Maybe it a complex effect on many of the neurotransmitters?

[Burnt]

Has anyone ever experience a 'shudder' feeling that reverberates down your spine or had the head tingles (feels like all your hairs standing on end) when you hear a song that means a lot to you due to association with a memory, emotion or both? What triggers that?

Yes I have. I can't say exactly what triggers it although I am sure its being researched by someone.

There are so many questions but these are good to start with. I think there has to be a lot more at work here than simple changes of neurotransmitter levels in the brain. Maybe it a complex effect on many of the neurotransmitters?

Everything we experience is a complex of different neurotransmitter systems doing there thing. Its not just one especially for such a complex response. However from a neurochemical point of view it is entirely feasable that the stimulis of the music triggers many events to occur in the brain that come out in the form of feeling good. Why or how this happens I am not sure as I have never looked into it. I doubt anyone knows for sure but it must be being researched somewhere.

[lostmente]

i think mdma uninhibits appreciation, be it of yourself, others or their actions (which lead to creation). This could be due to increased ability to visualise effort and passion behind something...maybe due to a blending of the critical thinking (used to break down what we experience) and emotional association. It would be hard to find music that one cannot appreciate...although there are notable exceptions like tv ad music

[humdroid]

Rythym is primal.
the mind likes primal.
It makes for nice brainwaves and better thinking

The water torturers knew this, so they used dis-rythym to send their tortured into insanity.
The torturerers spred the hate.
The musies spread the love.

Reputation Comments on this post:

you're exactly right about rhythm and brainwaves. good post.

[Nature Boy]

Oddly enough, SWIM has never thought of MDMA as the drug that really fuels musical appreciation. Perhaps one feels a desire towards energetic music but for SWIM, LSD and magic mushrooms are far more effective and enjoyable when it comes to tunes. That might have more to do with SWIM's taste in music too though: prog rock, acid rock, space rock etc.

[Burnt]

^^ LSD + music = brain orgasm

[KomodoMK]

Last night little fishy went to his best friends and they watched a DVD of a rave from new years eve. One of the songs in the set was a tune that he did his first ever pills too. It caused the head to tingle and a 'shudder' effect that starts in the shoulders and works it's way down the back. At the same time his mind wandered into those blissful memories and an overwhelming feeling of euphoria overcome him. This all lasts maybe 1 second, but damn what a nice feeling.

I can't even begin to comprehend the complexity of the mechanics at work to create such an effect.

For me music is just as important for my well being than food and water. We eat to fuel our bodies and keep them in working order. I use music to do the same for my mentality. Music is mind food.

[KomodoMK]

Originally Posted by betsym

KomoMK MUST be a brain surgeon or something. Swim couldn't have said it better herself!Music is more important than food and water to her, too. Music is not only mind food, it is soul food. Swiy has a a little hide-away that has all her lava lamps, black lights and black light posters, cd/mp3 player/stereo in it etc..This is where she goes to "experience" good memories all over again and get back into the same mood she was in when the events the memories are made of took place. Swim has had surgeries where they actually payed music in the operating room both before and during the surgery to calm and relax the patient. Music has to be pretty powerful stuff for hospitals to use it and swim has no bad memories from any of those surgeries.Who says music isn't a drug? Let's just hope it doesn't get banned or something or there might be a revolt!

Nice to see someone shares my enthusiasm and appreciation for music! <3

[bob_arctor]

I can recommend reading Oliver Sacks recent book "Musicophilia" - at least it should engender some threads to follow in this interesting quest

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

"
Oliver Sacks's compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people--from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome who are hypermusical from birth; from people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds--for everything but music.


Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson's disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer's or amnesia."

Reputation Comments on this post:

Looks like an interesting book. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Synesthesiac]

On the scientific side of things, how and why people respond the way they do to music is a very under-researched area in my opinion. We do know a few basic things, Brodmann area 47 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodmann_area_47 seems particularly atuned to prediciting sequences in music, and other active areas of the brain listening to music have been studied, and vary considerably from person to person. MDMA is swims drug of choice for increased music appreciation. It would be wonderful if he could find one even better than this. Some people say LSD, which he's gonna have to try.

This is the only publication I've found that goes all the way down to possible neurochemical explanations for music appreciation:

V. Menona, and D.J. Levitind, The rewards of music listening: Response and physiological connectivity of the mesolimbic system - NeuroImage 28 (2005) 175 – 184

They come to the conclusion that the Ventral tegmentum releasing dopamine is what causes the main pleasurable experiences. But I think that saying that just dopamine is what makes us appreciate music is silly. There should be much more than dopamine involved, music should make our brain release a plethora of music specific chems, as its effect on people is quite unlike anything else we experience. The effect of some music on swim is nothing like any of the doparegenic drugs he's tried.

Another thing to consider is that everyone hears music differently, even though the sound vibrations are always the same. There have been some studies done on people who cant hear differences in pitch at all for example, so all melodic modern music sounds terrible to them, all they enjoy listening to is drumming and very rhythmic music. And there are people that have no sense of rhythm at all, and cant even clap a simple beat. These people were mystified their entire lives about how people could enjoy 'normal' music, as to them it doesn't sound anything like we hear it. Pitch is a purely psychological construct. But pitch can also be created and determined definitively in sound waves. Its how we hear the pitch of the physical sound in our heads that the purely psychological part.

So, we all hear music differently even though physically it is the same, and we all associate music with different times in our lives, thus songs get associated with different emotions of varying strengths, and so I would say music can probably be capable of releasing any neuro-chemical possible in the brain. Thats probably why music can be so powerful. Asking the question which drugs are responsible for our appreciation of music doesn't really make sense in this case because it varies from person to person so much depending on how they hear the music and what they associate it with, it'd probably be easier to ask which drugs aren't responsible for music appreciation.

But thinking of music as drug gives me a headache. Theres something about thinking about music this way that just doesn't make any sense, that I cant articulate or put my finger on. Before I start rambling about anthropology and philosophy, theres some really good comments made in the reviews of the book This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession at amazon that got me thinking about this. I'll have the book soon too, so I'll add any interesting things to this thread as I read it about the brain and music.

There are questions that are too big for science; are there gods, for instance, or what is love? And maybe we will never fully find out scientifically why music does what it does and why we care about it so. But for many reasons, music ought to be a profitable subject for scientific enquiry. It is, as Pythagoras knew, an activity strongly rooted in mathematics, and the physics of music is fairly well understood. It is as universal as language; all human cultures have some sort of music, indicating it does something indispensable. And we are increasingly able to figure out, with our sophisticated brain imaging gadgets, what brains do when they hear or think about music.

There are descriptions here of surprising research that makes clear how truly ready our brains are to incorporate musical experience. Fetuses in the last three months of gestation, for instance, can hear music within the womb, along with other outside and inside noises. Experiments have shown that if you repeatedly play a song into the womb, and then make sure the child does not hear it again after birth until it is one year old, and then play the music again, the infant will prefer hearing the womb-music rather than completely novel music. This was true whether the experimental music was Vivaldi or the Backstreet Boys.

[.......]

Half-whispered in the background, it's hard to get too far away from suspicion. The question remains: Does analyzing music scientifically take away from the aesthetic appreciation?

I had once thought of music as the ultimate proof of the glorious irrelevancy of science. But it's really no different than any other pleasure. Does learning cosmology detract from the beauty of a star filled night? Can a couple of physics lessons dull the gaping excitement of seeing a massive rainbow absorb the sky? I conquered this ambivalence personally, while lying in the sun, on a hot day, at altitude, following a final in a physics class. Everything clicked together in my head, the nuclear reaction I watch sizzling eight minutes and eighteen seconds ago, the light as waves, the heat as energy, the energy as mass, the waves as particles. It all clicked, and it was fine. We were all vibrating together in the same rich meaninglessness, and a good feeling felt good whether I purposefully conquered every little detail or it blindsided me and left my head spinning.

That's the day I got it. That science is not a static pool of knowledge. It is not a religion. It is not a method. It is a process, and a spiritual one at that. That was the day, lying there, absorbing photons and resonating passively in the hum, the Ohmmmmm. Science is as much a quest as any other system of belief. And nothing is off limits. Nothing is reduced by knowing that another layer of explanation can be sought out.

And what better subject to tackle scientifically than the beauty of music. Like consciousness, like science, music too is an arbitrary punctuation around organically transmitted, unconsciously determined, preferred patterns of influenced interactions.

So, how's the book?

Not bad. He does a nice job of illustrating the importance of music in our lives and the emotional impact music can convey. He has a nice introductory section where he defines the basic terms of music such as pitch, rhythm, tempo. It's the kind of stuff you get the first week in a music appreciation class, and Levitin does a nice job with it. He never takes his eye off the bigger questions though, for example, he opens his definition of pitch with the disclaimer: "Pitch is a purely psychological construct." He then needs an introduction to neuroscience before he can connect the two streams, discussing the hotter than ever topics of mind, brain, and consciousness.

Synesthesiac added 88 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

Originally Posted by bob_arctor

I can recommend reading Oliver Sacks recent book "Musicophilia" - at least it should engender some threads to follow in this interesting quest

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

Yeah, I got that last christmas. Its good.

Reputation Comments on this post:

nice. forgot all about Brodman's area--knew it was essential for language interpretation. music is a different kind of ...

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by Nature Boy

Oddly enough, SWIM has never thought of MDMA as the drug that really fuels musical appreciation. Perhaps one feels a desire towards energetic music but for SWIM, LSD and magic mushrooms are far more effective and enjoyable when it comes to tunes. That might have more to do with SWIM's taste in music too though: prog rock, acid rock, space rock etc.

Swim found that appreciation of all varieties of musical genres increased greatly under the influence of MDMA. When it was mixed with amphetamines, another MDxx or other adulterants he needed something faster paced even in a tranquil environment, and the sensory enhancement felt less refined (and less intensive). Swim doesn't really feel that LSD or psilocybin enhanced his appreciation of music anywhere near as much as MDMA, but they did alter the way it is perceived sometimes in an enjoyable manner. Still, MDMA is what originally spurred swim to blindly delve into the world of electronic music. There is just something about bass-heavy percussive beats that melds perfectly with the MDMA mindset. Auditory stimuli in general seem to evoke pleasure whilst one is rolling, but lower frequencies of sound in rhythmic succession hold special appeal. The effect is intensified in venues with powerful sound systems. This is partially due to the heightened social element, but could also be influenced by tactile perception of sound waves. Swim recalls a former physics instructor postulating that perhaps some of the sound emitted matches the natural frequency of internal organs, causing them to resonate and induce euphoria (or contribute to it in the case of someone on MDMA). That was a while ago and swim didn't really check up on it more so he isn't sure how accurate a theory this is, but it is certainly an interesting train of thought.





Here is a snippet from an old experience report of swim's about his first time taking MDMA. Looking back, he should have edited it before posting but I'll quote it below as is.

Originally Posted by Swim

Finally after what seemed like an eternity swim gasped, “wooooooowwwww!” A huge grin spreading across his face. He looked around at the room he had been sitting in for the past 40 minutes. The same room he had spent countless hours upon hours chilling in smoking with his friends. It seemed to take on a new life. It coursed with energy. Energy… He felt a sense of energy coming from deep within his soul. He had never felt so energetic and high in his life. He felt as though he was pure adrenaline. He stood up effortlessly and simply stood in place moving his limbs. Feeling the grace with which they swept through the air with no effort whatsoever. He felt light as a feather. It was at this moment the music hit him.

The music, the music! Swim always had a deep love and appreciation for music, and was even getting into electronic music a little with the help of his friend, but he had never heard music like this (and probably never has again, even with repeated mdma experiences). He felt as though he was listening to music for the first time, as though music was a completely hidden mystery and he was the explorer who managed to discover it. The sounds reverberated through his body and soul. He felt as though his entire body was an ear that absorbed the sound, pushing it to his heart which ate it up like a car eats fuel. He was immersed in the music like never before. Nothing else mattered. He began to move his arms and legs to the beat, no that doesn’t even explain it. He became the beat. His entire body attuned itself entirely to the music so that his mind didn’t even need to send signals for it to move, it just took on a life of its own, a symbiotic organism composed of his body, his soul, and the music.

Back to the central topic. I read This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel J. Levitin last year and found it pretty enjoyable, though not all it could have been. I wish the writer had listened to - and hence wrote about - a more eclectic variety of music, and expositions of musical theory could be greatly improved in some instances. Still, the book is a solid introduction to what we know about the neurological basis for musicality while still being fairly entertaining, and it is augmented by a handy bibliography to help guide further exploration of the topic.

[Synesthesiac]

Originally Posted by Bajeda

Swim recalls a former physics instructor postulating that perhaps some of the sound emitted matches the natural frequency of internal organs, causing them to resonate and induce euphoria (or contribute to it in the case of someone on MDMA). That was a while ago and swim didn't really check up on it more so he isn't sure how accurate a theory this is, but it is certainly an interesting train of thought.

Now thats an interesting thought. I always feel that the physical feeling of the vibrations when on certain substances is what helps add to the appreciation, not just the state of mind it induces, which is probably why bassy sounds are particularly nice.

So, if we go along with this theory, I am thinking along the lines that certain drugs when in your body bind to certain cellular molecules and effect their ressonant frequencies, so that they respond much greater (or less) to music. Most will not have much effect, but some drugs could be perfect to increase this vibratory state, in the body or even in the brain where the sound is processed. There probably is a theory that takes this into account somewhere, but I wouldn't have a clue what to search for.

[Bajeda]

I don't know if a drug could increase the propensity for resonance within the human body, and don't think it could alter the natural frequency of any intra-body system. I was thinking more along the lines of MDMA's abiliity to enhance sensory perception. Tactile sensations are greatly intensified under the influence of MDMA, so perhaps you are more able to pick up on (or your brain simply pays more attention to) internal resonance. Large speakers at a club could produce sufficient intensity and range of frequency to create this effect - theoretically - which is experienced while sober or on other psychoactives but much more pronounced with substances that enhance sensory input like MDMA. I think rhythm is a different story, yet still an important factor concerning perception of music on MDMA. That said, I'm way out of my league here so far as the science goes, so I'm going to end the speculation here until I get a chance to do further reading on the subject. I'm sure someone with a more specialized background in neuroscience would be more helpful.

[KomodoMK]

Synesthesiac, post #12 was exactly what I was looking for when I started this thread, really appreciate that post. Can't seem to give you the reputation you deserve for that as I must have already done so recently, but that post won't go unrewarded!

When I get a litte more spare time I'll read through the articles you linked to and make my observations.

Thanks for taking the time to write/research!

[Richard_smoker]

i agree, good one Synethesiac.

Brodman's area of the brain is absolutely vital for the interpretation of language and interpretation of the various cues of context, including body language, hand gestures, appropriateness of words and congruency of words with various body movements & gestures and even being able to perform the role of an interrogator or "human lie detector."

Women tend to be more 'in-tune' with the capacity to judge congruency, and thus are viewed as being more intuitive and better judges of things like character and honesty by hearing and watching someone's communication style and language. It is theorized that beautiful women--those who are continuously hit on by men for whatever reason--develop a skewed view of language patterns and will frequently dismiss people around them more frequently as result of their finely-honed skills of rejection based on clues that may indicate ulterior motives--obviously arising from the developed need to reject so many men who might be hasty to impregnate them, but wouldn't be likely to stick around to support their child.

back to the OP & on the topic of music...

music--in all its forms--and in creating/composing, playing, and hearing & appreciating music is very similar to our own spoken languages, and it makes perfect sense that Brodman's area is responsible for interpreting the communication 'code' that is music.

Humdroid, I belive you're correct about rhythm being a very earthy, "basic" phenomenon. Most rhythms are actually based on the 60 to 80 beat per minute rhythm of our own HEARTBEAT! think of a baby being lulled to sleep as it's held by its mother, and the sounds of her heartbeat providing background rhythmic sounds.

So, rhythms can bring back SO many subconsciously-accepted & known associations, including galluping of horsess or an accellerated heartrate from fear and running to exhaustion will make your heart itself feel like it's galluping in your chest from beating so hard--frequently, this could be taken all the way back to childhood when exertion and feeling winded is common with most competetive activities or sports, as is an emotionally supercharged memory involving being terrified of something and running away from that perceived danger--another common experience in childhood.

The second concept behind the mystery of music aside from rhythm is HARMONY and the various theories of harmonics.

This is the COMPLEX repeating patterns of several notes "going together" to create chords, scales, and recognizeable patterns. These are also easily manipulated to create different recognition-patterns that are generally 'universal' emotions brought about by hearing songs or music.

Although one does NOT need to understand the complexities of harmonics in order to play, hear/appreciate, or even compose music, there are some pretty complicated patterns that have arisen from the study of musical notes and keys that have an essentially mathematical progression that could be demonstrated or reproduced by equations or mathematical matrices--and obviously the various rhythmic styles can be incorporated as a 2nd, completely different math-based model to turn "sounds" or even "melodies" into what we commonly know as 'music.'

this is a very interesting topic, and if someone is interested, they should watch the movie, "August Rush." it's currently on HBO--about an orphan-child-prodigy whose parents are both musicians, and...if you like music, you'll LOVE this movie! that's all i'll say. -DICK

[bob_arctor]

August Rush, SWIM will check that one out then...

One thing SWIM has noticed since entering a life where psychedelics started influencing basically any views on things SWIM had is that before this stage, SWIM was very active musically and completed lots of tracks, worked with electronic music on computers via the computer underground demoscene.

After, when SWIM grew older and was able to buy electronic instruments, quirky digital synthesizers where the "digitalness" of digital signal processing in to low fidelity, so that digital artifacts where left in the sound, not just because of digital/analog converters - and the analog synths who are inpredictable in them selves, some easily affected by temperature changes, the surprising characteristics of different filters depending on the components used... SWIM fell into a whole new world were the exploration of the components of sounds, digital or analog became central rather than "making music".

Just fooling around with modular synthesizers made SWIM, a math dud, become interested in math again because of the possibility to use analog shift registers, XOR, OR, AND functions implemented in modules... Almost never anything is recorded. SWIM feels enlightened in some way that the present, the sound happening right now, it isnt so bad if it goes lost into eternity.... Psychedelics in connection with music machinery has allowed SWIM to lose some of the heavy burdens of for example stress and guilt for not finishing a track to a compilation or The Big Artistic Project.

SWIM thinks Bob Moog (RIP) expressed some of this in his statement in the documentary Moog which was made just a couple of years ago... in SWIMs eyes he is perhaps a little bit idealistic in his thinking, kind of new age:y.. but still it is interesting to see how this solid engineer, master technician of analog circuits, lets himself, almost like some heuristical function, be carried away by his "intuition" to imagine some kind of "inner contact" with the material he is working with and seeing how musicians react to his instruments:

The more you get into material and matter, all you realize is in matter, there is energy. There is a blur between energy and consciousness. All material is conscious to some extent or another. All material can respond to some extent or another to vibrations of energy that is different to energy you learn about in physics. There are all sorts of reliable information now on people and animal being able to be able to effect the operations of machines—even of computers—and I think that has great implications for what goes on between a musician and his instrument.

There is a level of reality where there is no time, and there is no space, there is just energy. And we have contact with that through the intermediate layers, so, if the right channels—if the right connections are established, I don’t see why a piece of matter, a piece of broken glass or and old record can’t make contact through this very high level of reality that has access to everything past and future. I suppose my instruments do retain some sort of memory of me. I know that when I’m working on them I feel (not explicitly, I don’t hear voices in my head or anything) that I’m making a connection with it.

The circuit diagram, that is then converted into a circuit board, which then becomes a part of an instrument is something that is a record that I made. So I guess in that sense it is something that is certainly a memory

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Moog

Also perhaps a relevant quote by a Kraftwerk member:

”The dynamism of the machines, the ”soul” of the machines, has always been a part of our music.
Trance always belongs to repetition, and everybody is looking for trance in life, in sex, in the emotional, in pleasure, in anything, in parties.... The machines produce an absolutely perfect trance”

- Ralf Hutter

This became a sort of jumbled post, but SWIM realised this shift in SWIMs view of reality, or application of SWIMself to it (in this case synthesisers and drum machines). Next step is starting to build those little creatures SWIMself, with their own idiosyncrasies to control the user when creating sounds, in a sweet sweet non-linear feedback loop..

[Richard_smoker]

Bob,

cool post. i've messed around with a lot of those concepts which you describe...in fact, i once was fairly deep (over my head) in creating modules on various computer programs--fruity loops, various DJ & sound production & synth warez, and VJ (video-DJ) program--and i was like you, also caught up with the amazing combinations that are to be had through wiring the signal through analog & tube amps. I also played around extensively with different 'triggers' (?i can't remember what the actual name for this is--you know like (piano-style) keyboards, (computer) keyboards, joysticks...and my analogue components would be things like guitar (going into computer), pedals and amp (coming out of computer).

this was some of the most fun i've ever had with music and like you, i never recorded ANY of it...in fact, i really have almost no recollection of the ACTUAL sounds or music itself, but about a year and a half LATER (after this 'hobby' was sorta thrown to the wayside), I started playing the regular piano again, and the impact this former hobby (lol, and the movie August Rush) had on my piano playing/improvisational/melodic skills were in a word UNBELIEVABLE!

honest. it was almost like the infinite nature of the sound-tweaking & eternal nature of creative liberty unleashed by the digital/analogue-computer/triggers/strings combination was like a key opening a door to a previously unknown door in my mind. AMAZING! (but you've got to be willing to listen!)

-DICK