The saying goes that “music tames the wildest beasts“. This is a maxim that appeals to the powerful effect that a melody can have on us. To people who have never experienced this “powerful effect” of music, imagine that you walk down a street, immersed in your day-to-day problems and suddenly, you hear a song. A couple of chords are enough to start a journey in time and bring to the present a memory that you thought was already forgotten. A simple melody has the power to awaken your emotions, to get a smile and to keep the daily headaches of life at bay.
Oscar Wilde said that “the art of music is the closest one to tears and memories”. However, music is a resource that we can use not only to awaken our feelings but also to promote our learning and improve our memory. These conclusions are the result of the various studies that researchers from around the world have carried out to clarify the powerful effect that this artistic manifestation has on us.
Recent research has shown that music activates large areas of the brain. This data is derived from the study carried out by Alluri and emphasizes that when we listen to a melody, some areas of our brain are activated, such as the auditory, the limbic and the motor. This brain stimulation occurs regardless of the musical style we are listening to.
Argentinean singer-songwriter León Gieco says that “music is a broad thing without limits, without borders, and without flags“. Perhaps this universality means that music can also be used as a valuable resource to improve our learning of foreign languages. Ludke came to this conclusion after observing a group of people who were studying Hungarian. The study revealed that students who learned this language by singing sentences obtained better results than those who simply repeated them. Studies of this type led researchers to consider that music provides an additional bonus to our brain that helps improve memory and retain things better.
Music to travel in time
Another scientific revelation confirms a fact that we have all always taken for granted. To travel in time, one of the favourite tickets we use is music, especially when we want to evoke the memories of our adolescence, one of the stages that most mark the life of a person. According to data published by Krumhansl & Zupnick, listening to melodies of our adolescence transports us in time instantaneously. It is not necessary to listen to our favourite music to start this journey through our memory, but it is enough to listen to the notes of any song that we associate with this stage of our life.
Benefits that music offers at psychological and emotional levels
An individual understands a biological dimension, a psychological-emotional one too and its insertion in a social environment. Therefore, we must contemplate the influence that music represents in its totality on our body, mind, emotion, and spirit, and how this individual relates to nature and the social environment.
Let us check out the various benefits of music!
Music helps us in our psychic and emotional development, providing the necessary balance to reach an adequate level of well-being and happiness.
Music is considered as an art, science and universal language. It is a means of expression without limits that reach the most intimate parts of a person.
It can transmit different moods and emotions that provoke the emotional and intellectual functions.
Listening to music helps in developing sensitivity, creativity and the capacity for abstraction or analysis.
It encourages to discover the inner personality and appreciate the world around.
Music harmonizes the mood and feelings, forming a feedback mechanism in which not only the state of mind produces an emotional expression, but this expression also tends to awaken or maintain the state of spirit.
By developing musical listening behaviour, we discipline the mind and emotions; we build habits of attention and respect while sharpening our capacity for concentration.
Therefore, let your wings fly, enjoy and take advantage of the powerful effect of music. Well, as Nietzsche said, “without music, life would be a mistake“.