Music For Your Ears

By RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

Music has been a historical hit parade, since very ancient times.

Modern science testifies to the fact that some of the networks in the human brain seem to be solely dedicated to music. This has prompted neuroscientists to rethink their ideas on the nature of intelligence. To cull a commonplace example: listening to one’s favourite tune can help children/adults work better with words, maths, and also make an improved effort in sport.

What has been most exciting, today, is the discovery of music’s neural upshot, or priming -- its harmonious, integrated impact on our mind, body and soul.

Cognitive Power

Music, researchers suggest, might help us derive more cognitive power, thanks to its unique ability to “tap” both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Says Elizabeth Miles, a noted ethnomusicologist: “Maybe, you think of yourself as left-brain, if you’re analytical or word-driven type, or right-brain, if you’re creative or visual. In general, the left brain handles symbolic activities, like language and logic, while the right brain is responsible for direct perception, including spatial tasks and abstract intuitive leaps.” She explains: “Listening to music actually taps both sides, potentially uniting creative and analytical functions in the mind.”

New studies have shown that listening to music increases the coherence between different areas of the brain. It is like using your computer RAM -- to detecting and predicting patterns that activate many cognitive processes. As Nobel laureate physicist Brian Josephson outlines: “Music is like atoms in terms of quantum theory.” He proposes parallels between DNA and music ideas, and also theorises that music stimulates a primary level of consciousness. Not only that. Josephson likens balance-imbalance conditions in bio-systems to the tension and release patterns found in music -- and, suggests that music "models" can help maintain balance in the human organism.

Appropriate music, especially classical, researchers suggest can actually enhance reading comprehension in children and adults. Reason? Music plumbs our mental potential like no other. It can significantly raise spatial and temporal reasoning, vocabulary, facts, formulae skills, and concentration. The idea is self-explanatory.

In The Backdrop

Music, played at the backdrop of your mind’s ear, especially when your kids study, or you work, can add energy to your own, and your child’s, efforts. In addition to this, music also has the ability to increase your physiological arousal, because the basis for utilising music to fine-tune your brain is simple. Music has an elegant structure, a mathematical basis, and an orderly progress through time: these are elements that can organise and drive your thoughts through a long workday at school, office and/or the sports arena.

As a matter of fact, the ear is the first sensory organ to develop in the mother’s womb, preceding even the nervous system. Hence, sound is our first source of information about the world. After we are born, the primary function of the auditory system is orientation and self-defence: one that is designed to detect, locate, and identify sound, and then integrate such signals into propulsive behaviour for self-preservation. Example: fleeing from an infuriated bee that you hear charging from the rear.

From an evolutionary standpoint, hearing is life itself. This explains why nature has given us a sophisticated system for processing sound in the brain, body, and nervous system. However this maybe, nature and nurture are both necessary if your/child’s ken for music is to be tapped and used with good effect.

Sound Advantage

There are other advantages too. Music is more powerful than herbs; it has great healing properties. Music not only stimulates the emotional centre of our brains, but also our long-term memory.

So, playing soft background music -- or, what is called Focus Music – especially, quiet classical melodies, with not more than 60 beats per minute, at the workplace, or, while studying -- is a very effective strategy for many people. It helps us not only to relax, but also cope with stressful situations -- with enhanced effect.

This is not all. Studies have demonstrated the mind-altering power of music -- an all-natural alternative for mastering your moods, and making more of your life. Science, as a matter of fact, is convinced about the power of sonic energy -- the power of sound that can play a big part in your fine-tuning your moods, motivation levels, and your/child’s success.

Needless to say, it has also been suggested that one can, with great advantage, use music as a mind-enhancement tool, with the right soundtrack -- a sort of therapeutic model that can help us handle anxiety, improve your/child’s creativity, boost IQ/EQ, control pain, get energised, relaxed, and have a better work, home and marital life.

Music List: Sound Therapy For Mind, Body & Spirit

• Vedic chants, slokas, stotras, mantras, and hymns.
• Mozart, Divertimento.
• Beethoven, Symphony # 9 in D Minor; Opera 125.
• Bach, 6 Symphonies.
• Mahler, Poco Adagio.
• Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, 4 Concertos; Opera 8 #1-4.
• Igor Stravinsky, Symphony in 3 Movements.
• Carnatic classical music: Vadya Lahari, featuring A Kanyakumari on the violin.
• Carnatic classical music: Laya Vinyas, featuring Trichy Sankaran on the mridangam.
• M S Subbulakshmi, Suprabhatam.
• The Beatles, or the "Popsicals."
• The magical Hindi film numbers of Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar.
• The eternal effulgence, or timeless gems, of Shankar-Jaikishan, including the duo's Jazz compositions; and, the soulful melodies of Ilayaraja.
• P B Sreenivos "The Rafi of South India," and S Janaki.
• Soothing ghazals; Sufi music.
• Affirmed, therapeutically-effective ragas: Abheri, Anandabhairavi, Chittaranjani, Hari Kambhoji, Lalita, Sahana, Shankarabharanam etc.,