Guest post: I’ve Got Music On My Brain by Vanessa Wheeler
Editors note: I read this article in Wired, so I reached out to Vanessa to check it out and write an analysis since I knew the cross section of science and music was a passion of hers. Pay attention because you’re about to get schooled on neuroscience and music.
I want to dance! Is the phrase many utter on a Friday night when they wish to go out after a long week, to relax and just feel good with their friends. Music has the power to make us feel a certain way. It can change, alter or encourage our moods for the day. Yet why do we feel these specific emotions and why are we completely stimulated and enamored by the outcome of those feelings? Could it be the structure, the complexity or the thrill of spontaneity that keeps us wanting more?
Whatever genre of music we tend to gravitate towards, there is a structural and organizational system in place. It may come in more of a direct form, such as a pop/rock song that introduces a verse or two and then leaves us dying to hear the “hook” or hoping for a change in the pace of the progression. Structure can even be found by following the chart to a jazz standard. Even though there is improvisation involved, the soloist follows and improvises on top of a mapped out progression of chords. Our brain craves and yearns for organization, whatever the genre and structure. This satisfies and excites our brain.
This habit of structure, organization and meter is introduced before we are even born. The many mothers who choose to blare Beethoven and Mozart to their bellies, with the usual intent to cultivate and educate their children in the womb aren’t really so far off. What is actually happening from this exposure is the introduction of musical structure, meter and tonality. This is only laying the foundation of what and how we will understand music down the road. It only takes twenty weeks after conception for the auditory system of the fetus to be a fully functioning system. Think back to your first memory of a song, you may think of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. At that young age we gravitate toward these simplistically structured songs that only add to and encourage our understanding of structure within music. I doubt many still jam out to Twinkle Twinkle and in time as we develop, we begin to crave complexity, meaning and understanding of music while keeping intact the underlying need for structure, thus creating a diverse language full of emotion and feeling.
Music itself can be identified as a language. Every language has structure, each with a set of grammatical rules put into place for correct communication. Yet beyond structure music also has the ability to create feelings and emotions without a verbal context. Music, like words, has the ability to make us cry, enlighten and transcend us. By alternating the pitch, rhythm and tempo, we are subsequently intrigued by these violations in communicating through music, which leaves us coming back for more.
Through the language of music our brain process enables us to have emotion and react to music. So what really goes through our brain when we hear music? In the book, This Is Your Brain On Music, Daniel Levitin discusses that while listening to music our brain becomes so orchestrated that there is a specific order in which the regions function. The activation of sound and the initial processing of its components begin in.
The auditory cortex and then move to the frontal regions, which deal with structure and expectations. Levitin further describes a network of regions involving arousal, pleasure (the mesolimbic system) and the production of dopamine, culminating in activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). The NAc is in the center of the brain’s reward system and is involved in the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which also has receptors within the cerebellum. It’s no wonder we feel emotion and have a reaction to what we are listening to. Between the cerebellum, frontal lobe, and the mesolimbic system, there is massive activity taking place all within one song.
As listeners we crave the thrill of complexity, spontaneity and structure in music. We can still relate to the simplicity and familiarity that our foundation of music understanding is based on. We have the innate ability to identify which sound will get us dancing, relax us, motivate us and inspire us. Music can sometimes be unpredictable, but we know no matter how good or bad it is, our brain will react in the same pattern and we will inevitably feel something.
Vanessa Wheeler is a Junior Publicist at The Chamber Group representing clients such as Big Boi, Miguel, and Kevin Cossum in addition to previously working with The Clipse, Drake, and Chiddy Bang.
