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Music and emotion—a case for north indian classical music.

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Emotional responses to Hindustani raga music: the role of musical structure

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• Language Literacy and Music Laboratory, National Brain Research Centre, Manesar, India

The ragas of North Indian Classical Music (NICM) have been historically known to elicit emotions. Recently, Mathur et al. (2015) provided empirical support for these historical assumptions, that distinct ragas elicit distinct emotional responses. In this review, we discuss the findings of Mathur et al. (2015) in the context of the structure of NICM. Using, Mathur et al. (2015) as a demonstrative case-in-point, we argue that ragas of NICM can be viewed as uniquely designed stimulus tools for investigating the tonal and rhythmic influences on musical emotion.

Introduction

Music is the art of sound in time, organized to the principles of pitch, rhythm, and harmony ( Limb and Braun, 2008 ). An important function of music is its capacity to communicate emotions ( Tanner and Budd, 1985 ), a view that has been agreed upon by both music performers ( Laukka, 2004 ) and music listeners ( Juslin and Laukka, 2004 ). Indeed, almost all known forms of music have been recognized for their affective emotional qualities ( Goldstein, 1980 ). However, the exact causal mechanisms by which musical sounds generate emotions are still unclear. Current models posit that specific acoustic factors embedded in a music signal exploit the physical environment, the cognitive and perceptual processing systems, and the structure of the auditory system, to generate emotional responses ( Huron, 2006 ; Thompson and Schellenberg, 2006 ).

Though the link between music and emotion has been empirically established ( Juslin and Sloboda, 2011 ), most findings lack generalizability across multi-cultural representations of music. Consequently, while music and emotion studies have standardized the use of Western Classical music as a staple source of stimuli, only a handful have incorporated genres of music native to other cultures. This not only precludes interpretations of universality in musical emotions from their findings, it also overlooks musical stimuli which might have advantages as tools for studying musical emotion ( Thompson and Balkwill, 2010 ). The goal of this review is to make such a case for the unique experimental utility offered by North Indian Classical Music (NICM).

In particular, this review will highlight and expand upon the findings of Mathur et al. (2015) , to demonstrate that NICM comprises of stimuli that not only permit the study of music and emotional response, but are also uniquely designed stimulus tools to investigate how specific psychophysical features like tonality and rhythm modulate musical emotion as separable factors.

North Indian Classical music (NICM), or Hindustani music , is an ancient musical form of India that emerged from a cultural synthesis of the Vedic chant tradition and traditional Persian music ( Kaufmann, 1965 ). The central notion in this system of music are ragas , which are described as musical compositions capable of inducing specific moods or emotions. Past studies have investigated ragas and have shown that distinct ragas elicit distinct emotions ( Balkwill and Thompson, 1999 ; Chordia et al., 2008 ; Wieczorkowska et al., 2010 ). In a study published recently, Mathur et al. (2015) exploited a novel feature of raga stimuli, namely that of different presentation modes, differing in tempo/rhythm but matched in tonal structure, to study music and emotion. They found that when the same raga was presented in distinct presentation modes participants reported elicited emotions with varying levels of arousal. They also found that specific tonal combinations emerged as reliable predictors of emotions that participants reported feeling. These findings indicated that the ragas of NICM not only served as interesting and useful acoustic stimuli that could be exploited to study emotion, but also that the structure of the ragas permitted a systematic, controlled investigation of the role of specific features, namely tonality and rhythm in modulating emotions felt by listeners.

KEY CONCEPT 1. Raga Modal melodies comprising the canon of North Indian Classical Music. Each raga is constructed from five or more musical notes, organized into one ascending sequence, and one descending sequence of notes, which together comprise a single melodic framework. Performance of a raga is restricted within the note sequences of its ascending and descending halves, but is improvised in all other respects (e.g., timing between notes; sustain, attack of each note).

In this review we expand upon these findings, and make the case that NICM is tailor-made for disentangling tonal and temporal influences on musical emotion, and thus an invaluable stimulus tool worth bringing to the attention of researchers in all cultural contexts. Specifically, we will build evidence to support that NICM provides (1) a catalog of systematically varying emotion valence, best reflected in the Circle of Thaats (described below); and (2) a form of musical stimulus which has embedded in its very structure an experimentally controlled manipulation of rhythm and tempo keeping tonality constant, allowing for the disentanglement of tonal from rhythmic influences on emotion.

KEY CONCEPT 2 . Circle of Thaats The Circle of Thaats organizes the ten canonical thaats into a system of incremental variation in tonal ratio (#minor/#Major), with clockwise movement adding Major intervals, and counterclockwise movement subtracting minor intervals. Our lab has previously demonstrated the correlation between emotional valence and tonal ratio in Mathur et al. (2015) . For researchers, the Circle can be used as a “dial” for be systematically and gradually manipulating valence.

The review is organized as follows: We begin with the concepts of consonance and dissonance, one of the primary means by which subjective impressions and emotional responses to music arise predictably from frequency ratios between different notes. We then provide an overview of the NICM system, in which different combinations of consonances and dissonances, in the form of tonal intervals, comprise a canon of melodic themes, as the aforementioned ragas , with prescribed emotional functions. We then segue to an overview of Mathur et al. (2015) , which showed that distinct emotional experiences are reported by listeners for each raga , and expand upon these findings by demonstrating that these inter- raga emotion differences vary systematically and predictably as a function of minor-to-major tonal interval ratios. Finally, we generalize the findings of Mathur et al. to argue that the structure of NICM is well-positioned for empirical studies of the subtleties and universality of emotions communicated through sound.

On a final introductory note, throughout the discussion that follows we refer to musical emotions as being elicited, induced, etc. in listeners, as opposed to using terms like perceived or identified. This choice of terminology is intentional, as the study by Mathur et al. (2015) which motivated this review was explicitly in the latter camp of the debate between cognitivists and emotivists. The cognitivist view is that listeners do not actually feel emotions when they listen to music, they perceive the emotions being expressed ( Kivy, 1989 ). Emotivists, on the other hand, argue that music truly induces emotions, such that a happy tune elicits the same autonomic nervous system responses as any other happy experience ( Scherer and Zentner, 2001 ; Sloboda and Juslin, 2010 ). For a complete overview of how music elicits emotion, see Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) , who provide an extensive review and model for what they argue are the six mechanisms by which music induces emotion: brain stem reflexes, conditioning, visual imagery, contagion, episodic memory, and expectancies fulfilled or denied.

Consonance, Dissonance, and Tonal Intervals—from Quantitative Sound Qualities, to Qualitative Musical Impressions

Once a musical note leaves an instrument or vocal tract, its timbre, and pitch produce minute fluctuations in air pressure around the listener, triggering electrophysiological impulses in the cochlea which then travel through the brain stem and midbrain en route to specialized subregions of the auditory cortex, where they are imbued with emotional interpretation and memory by higher cognitive processes in the orbitofrontal region of the prefrontal cortex ( Zatorre, 2005 ). It is in this way that objective physical changes in an acoustic signal induce psychological effects as subjective and abstract as feelings, turning acoustic features into psychoacoustic phenomena ( Juslin, 1997 ; Laukka et al., 2013 ). Communication of the intended emotion, then, depends upon the musician/composer encoding the emotion in acoustic cues, and the listener successfully decoding these acoustic features from psychophysiological stimulation to emotional meaning. Of the various acoustic cues embedded in music, consonance is the most frequently cited as central to influencing emotion perception. Subjectively speaking, consonance and dissonance describe a level of sweetness/harshness of the sound ( Zentner and Kagan, 1998 ). In terms of the aforementioned encoding/decoding communication between composer and listener, consonance encodes a sense of resolution into a composition, dissonance a sense of unresolved tension ( Limb, 2006 ). Indeed, Kamien (2008 , p. 41) describes consonance and dissonance qualitatively stating that “A stable tone combination is a consonance; consonances are points of arrival, rest, and resolution. An unstable tone combination is a dissonance; its tension demands an onward motion to a stable chord. Thus dissonant chords are “active;” traditionally they have been considered harsh and have expressed pain, grief, and conflict.”

Studies have confirmed the presence of an innate preference for consonance over dissonance, even in infant populations ( Schellenberg and Trehub, 1996 ; Juslin and Zentner, 2002 ). Early investigations of the human auditory system revealed that the human ear can disentangle the harmonic overtones of a series if they are separated by a critical bandwidth ( Plomp and Mimpen, 1968 ). The ability of the auditory nerve fibers to resolve closely spaced frequencies, then, leads to subjective impressions of pleasant sounds or consonance, whereas the inability to clearly resolve closely spaced frequencies resulted in the impression of dissonance or a “harsher” sound ( Von Helmholtz, 1912 ; Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ).

Musically speaking, the range of consonance and dissonance that result from different bandwidths is determined by tonal intervals ( Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ). The tonal interval is determined by two tones, one of which is conventionally the tonic ( Parncutt and Hair, 2011 ). The tonic is the root note around which a musical piece is organized, providing a reference for each tone that is sounded during the performance. Tonal intervals produce impressions of consonance if the frequency differences exceed the critical bandwidth ( Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ).

In Parncutt and Hair's (2011) deconstruction of consonance and dissonance, they argue that the two are not in fact diametrically opposed musical phenomena, as they arise from different relationships between tones in a piece of music, some of which are “vertical,” others “horizontal,” in terms of their placement in staff notation. Simultaneously played tones (e.g., as in a chord) have a vertical relationship, whereas the tonal differences between notes or chords separated temporally (e.g., as in a melody) have a horizontal relationship (p. 139): “In a holistic approach, consonance can be promoted by spectral harmonicity (vertical), harmonic proximity or pitch commonality (horizontal), and familiarity (both vertical and horizontal); dissonance by roughness (vertical) and linear pitch distance (horizontal).” Whilst this less dichotomous definition of consonance and dissonance is somewhat specific to Western music (NICM does not rely on the harmonic progressions of chords, as the tanpura drone serves the purpose of providing the tonic root from which tension/resolution are implied), it does suggest that gauging the consonance/dissonance of NICM ragas is a function of both the relationships between the notes, or swaras , of a raga and the tonic drone, and the relationships between the swaras of a raga in the melodic, horizontal sense.

Tonal intervals form an important organizational principle of musical systems ( Castellano and Krumhansl, 1984 ). When assembled in different combinations, they form diatonic musical modes, the basis of melody construction in any musical system. Due to varying ecological settings, resources, and instrument constructions, some modes used by different musical systems are unique to their native culture ( Perlovsky, 2010 ). Most of our current understanding of the emotions associated with music—emotions presumed to be universal—has come from studies using the modes of Western classical music. Though the literature has consistently shown that listeners associate major and minor modes with positive and plaintive emotions, respectively ( Gagnon and Peretz, 2003 ), increasing work in the field of ethnomusicology suggests that different tonal systems may be able to elicit a subtler gradation of emotions ( Thompson and Balkwill, 2010 ).

North Indian Classical Music

The two dominant genres of Indian music are North Indian Hindustani classical music, and South Indian Carnatic classical music. Whilst the styles of singing, presentation of the notes, emphasis on structure of the musical modes and instruments used in each vary, Hindustani and Carnatic music share many common features, from the raga system, to the use of gamakas (similar to vibrato) and portamento (phrase-leading accents of rapidly increasing pitch; Capwell, 1986 ; Swift, 1990 ). That the arguments made below are made with respect to NICM is due to the fact that the Mathur et al. study from which the data were drawn focused on NICM ragas ; we suspect the same to hold true for Carnatic music as well.

The canon of standard NICM ragas is categorized and organized around a series of heptatonic scales known as thaats (Figure 1 ; Jairazbhoy, 1995 ). In the most widely accepted NICM system, there are 10 thaats consisting of different sequential combinations of 12 notes. Similar to Western Classical Music, the basic set of tones and tonal intervals used in NICM are the 12-tone octave divisions ( Castellano and Krumhansl, 1984 ; Bowling et al., 2012 ). While Western music is based on tones with defined frequencies (e.g., A = 440 Hz) NICM music is constructed from tonal intervals, known as swaras , which are defined in relation to a tonic tone (in practice this tonic takes the form of a drone note, described below). The “major” intervals (i.e., natural notes) are the shuddh swaras while the “minor” intervals are the komal swaras . The tonal intervals are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha , and Ni , either in their shush (major) or komal (minor) form, but never both within the same thaat ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ).

Figure 1 . Circle of Thaats . The circle of thaats illustrating inter- thaat distance. Nine of the ten thaats on the circle are members of Bhatkhande's classification system ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ). No. 7 thaat Bhairav is not currently used in NICM. Thaat Bhairav with the scale of S r G M P d N is not represented within the circle of thaats (Adapted from Jairazbhoy, 1995 , p. 59).

KEY CONCEPT 3 . Thaat The ten heptatonic scale families which are used to classify the canon of North Indian Classical ragas into tonally similar groups. Not all ragas in a given thaat include every note of that parent thaat , but all ragas in a thaat can be derived from its defining scale.

The fourth natural note, Ma shuddh , has a variant known as the tivr or the augmented fourth (raised by a semitone). Table 1 provides a reference to the shuddh (major) and komal (minor) intervals, and their Western equivalences, for readers versed in Western music theory.

Table 1 . Indian/western tonal interval equivalences and frequency ratios.

Across all thaats however, the tonic ( Sa ) and fifth ( Pa ) are considered immutable. Thus theoretically, there can be 32 different thaats , but Bhatkhande's early census and classification of traditional ragas found that the vast majority of ragas can be categorized into 10 families or “ thaats .” The prominent thaats have their names adopted from eminent ragas that are derived of the same mode though the ragas themselves need not necessarily be heptatonic.

It is believed that the most common modes were chosen by Bhatkande such that the structure and practicality were both preserved ( Chordia et al., 2008 ). These 10 canonical thaats , and the relationships between them, are summarized by the Circle of Thaats (Figure 1 , adapted from Jairazbhoy, p. 59). As seen in Figure 1 , since all thaats are heptatonic, as one moves along the circle starting from Bilawal (which has only major notes) in a clockwise manner, the number of minor intervals systematically increases till one reaches a thaat that has no name (but has the highest number of minor intervals). Thus Bilawal and the thaat with no name are diametrically opposite each other. Continuing further, as one move from Todi , the number of minor intervals decreases, and the number of major intervals increases systematically till one reaches Bilawal again.

Thaats provide a useful classification framework, but the core of NICM is the raga ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ; Vatsyayan, 1996 ) The word “ raga ,” which originated in Sanskrit, is defined as “the act of coloring or dyeing;” in this case, the mind and its emotions. The raga was thus conceived as a modal melody capable of eliciting specific emotions, or rasas .

An intrinsic difference between Indian classical and Western classical music is the tonic drone, usually played by a tanpura , provides a reference to the listener (a tonic Sa , often accompanied by a fifth Pa and/or octave Sa ') creating tonal relationships with the “solitary” melody line of the performance. Because the drone is sounded throughout the presentation of the raga , the entire piece can be viewed as a presentation of intervals, not just between notes of the melody line, but between each note and the Sa drone. Table 1 dictates the 12 swaras of Hindustani music displaying their Western classical counterparts, and the frequency ratio of the given note to the tonic.

Tonal Composition

Each raga uses a set of five or more notes from the seven comprising its parent thaat to construct a melody. Multiple ragas are generated from a single thaat , each distinguished by its own signature phrase ( pakar ) and a defined frequency of occurrence of particular notes, vadi being the most prominent note and samvadi being the second most prominent ( Jairazbhoy, 1995 ; Mathur et al., 2015 ). This feature allows two ragas to have the exact same note selection, yet sound different due to varying emphasis on the notes. Bhupali , belonging to thaat Kalyan , and Deskar to thaat Bilawal , are pentatonic ragas and use the notes that are common to both thaats ( Sadhana, 2011 ). Therefore, even while casually interchanged at times, it is important to understand that a raga is not synonymous with a scale; it is a modal melody comprising a defined note selection, differentiated not only on the basis of the notes contained, but also by the frequency of usage of certain notes, the sequencing of ascending ( aarohan ) and descending ( avrohan ) segments, and the pakar ( Kaufmann, 1965 ; Leifer, 1987 ; Jairazbhoy, 1995 ).

The specific combination of tonal intervals in a raga thus create a consonance-dissonance map that then determine which raga will feel pleasant on the ear, and which would fall into areas of dissonance, leading to a harsher sound and the need to be resolved into a consonant interval ( Helmholtz, 1875 ; Zuckerkandl, 1956 ). This subtle combination of tonal intervals permits subtle differences in emotions elicited through music to be investigated using NICM.

Rhythmic Structure

Ragas are usually presented in two consequent sections, the alaap and the gat . The alaap is an elaborate rendition of the various notes of a raga , rendered in free time, introducing and developing the melodic framework, defining characteristics, and mood of a raga . The gat follows the alaap , shifting emphasis to faster sequences of notes, with the accompanying tabla (the main NICM percussion instrument) providing a more explicit rhythmic structure while leaving behind most of the subtleties of pitch articulation. Importantly, the tonal structure of the raga is consistent between alaap and gat , only the tempo is changed. In this way, the raga structure offers an ideal experimental stimulus for disentangling the effects of tempo and tonality: tonality is controlled for between alaap and gat , while rhythm and tempo are manipulated. It is for this reason that NICM was used by Mathur et al. (2015) , enabling the group to isolate the effect of rhythm on emotional elicitationsand, in doing so, demonstrating the unique utility NICM offers as an experimental stimulus.

KEY CONCEPT 4. Alaap and Gat Raga performance has two stages, alaap and gat. The alaap introduces the raga, laying out a tonal framework. The gat introduces the rhythmic accompaniment, increasing in tempo and becoming stricter in rhythmic structure until there is very little room left for improvisation. As both stages use the same scale, changing tempo, ragas are experimental stimuli by nature, with which melodic and temporal effects on emotion can be distinguished.

Cultural Relationship between Raga, Rasa , and Bhava (Modal Melody, Mood, and Emotion Label)

On a more subjective level, emotional intent is a distinguishing feature of the NICM raga system. Whereas emotions and moods are implied characteristics of Western Classical music, Indian ragas have prescribed emotional effects, or rasa s ( Vatsyayan, 1996 ), each rasa intended to alter the mood ( bhava ) of the listener in a particular manner. Erotic love ( sringara ), patheticness ( karuna ), devotion ( bhakti ), comedy ( hasya ), horror ( bhayanaka ), repugnancy ( bibhatsa ), heroism ( vira ), fantastical, furious ( roudra ), and peaceful ( shanta ) were named in Bhatkhande's description of rasa and bhava ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ; Bowling et al., 2012 ).

Knowing the bhava that the rasa of a particular raga is meant to induce ( Mathur et al., 2015 ), such stimuli are invaluable to musical emotion studies, cross-cultural or otherwise, as the Circle of Thaats , and the canon of standard ragas it encompasses, can be utilized as a catalog for eliciting subtle gradations in emotional effect, some of which are culturally universal, others less so. Whilst Western listeners perceive the same basic emotions—happy, sad, angry, disgusted, surprised, fearful—as native listeners in Hindustani music, more subtle emotional gradations of basic emotions (e.g., “peacefulness” rather than happiness) are more easily identified by native listeners ( Balkwill and Thompson, 1999 ; William Forde Balkwill et al., 2004 ; Fritz et al., 2009 ; Laukka et al., 2013 ).

Mathur et al. (2015)

Recently, Mathur et al. (2015) tested the hypothesis that ragas elicit distinct emotional feelings. Using 3-min compositions of 12 ragas , presented in the form of an online survey, participants rated these ragas on the degree to which they elicited different emotions. All ragas were composed by a professional musician and rendered on sarod , an Indian stringed instrument.

As indicated earlier, Mathur et al. exploited the structure of a raga composition and presented each of the 12 ragas in both alaap and gat . Participants were instructed to rate each excerpt on eight distinct emotions on a 0–4 Likert scale (with 0 being “not at all felt” to 4 being “felt the most”) for each of the following emotion labels: happy, romantic, devotional, calm/soothed, angry, longing/yearning, tensed/restless, and sad. The study did not use a forced choice task but instead sought each raga to be rated for each of the eight emotions, sensitive to the fact that a single musical composition can elicit multiple moods. Specifically the study sought to determine if participant responses (1) differed between the emotions experienced by alaap and gat for various ragas (2) whether the psychophysical variables of rhythm and tonality influenced the emotions experienced.

The first finding of Mathur et al.'s study was that distinct ragas are associated with distinct emotional elicitations. This was similar to the findings reported by Balkwill and Thompson (1999) which showed that even western listeners who were unfamiliar with the tonal system of NICM perceived the intended emotion in ragas . However Balkwill and Thompson used ragas only in the alaap mode and implemented forced choice task. Participants in that study were required to indicate which of the four target emotions was dominant for the raga. Mathur et al. on the other hand asked each participant to rate the extent to which each of the emotions were experienced during the listening of the raga . Mathur et al. also found that that when the raga was presented in “ alaap ,” participants ratings were either calm (positive) or sad (negative) emotion. However, when presented in the gat condition, a finer discrimination of emotions were elicited (happy, romantic, calm) and (sad, longing, tension). This was the first experimental verification of the hypothesis that distinct emotions are associated with alaap and gat of a raga . Further, since Mathur et al. also used acoustic analysis to extract estimates of rhythmic regularity and tempo, they correlated acoustic features with behavioral ratings of emotional elicitation and were able to demonstrate that high arousal emotions like happy/tensed were associated with gat . As elaborated earlier the gat follows faster sequences of notes and provides an explicit rhythmic structure. A comparison of these results with those from the study conducted by Balkwill and Thompson showed that tempo and melodic complexity had some predictive power. However this was found only for some differences. Balkwill and Thompson (1999) used psychophysical ratings of tempo and melodic complexity and found that a combination of the two, predicted emotions primarily joy and sadness. Similar results were also reported by Gabrielsson and Juslin (1996) who showed that faster tempo were associated with positive emotions while slower tempo with negative emotions.

What was novel in Mathur et al.'s study was the finding that there is a change in the level of arousal between alaap and gat for the same raga. Since the tonal structure of the raga is preserved between alaap and gat , only the tempo is changed and the finding that high arousal emotions are associated with gat points to the fact that the raga structure is an optimal stimulus to dissociate the effects of tempo and tonality: tonality is controlled for between alaap and gat , while rhythm and tempo are manipulated. This result from Mathur et al. (2015) , illustrated that this unique structure of NICM that enables the isolation of the effect of rhythm on emotion elicitationrenders it as a useful experimental stimulus.

Of greater interest was the second primary finding of Mathur et al. (2015) study which showed that specific tonic intervals were robust predictors of elicited emotions. Major intervals were found to be associated with positive emotions and minor intervals to be associated with negative emotions. An analysis of tonal intervals of ragas , revealed that ragas rated as positive (such as “calm” and “happy”) had a greater mean frequency of occurrence of major intervals ( shuddh swaras ) whereas ragas with negative emotion (e.g., sad or tensed) were characterized by an increased frequency of minor intervals ( Komal swaras ). Figure 2 shows a distribution of mean frequency of occurrence of tonic intervals for the 12 ragas used in the study. Red bars represent the mean frequency of occurrence of shuddh swaras whereas that of komal swaras is represented with blue bars for each raga . To the best of our knowledge this finding for ragas is novel and has not been reported earlier.

Figure 2 . Tonality for ragas . The above figure represents the tonic interval distribution for the 12 ragas used in the study ( Mathur et al., 2015 ). The tonal distribution of ragas rated as “calm” is represented with red background color panel whereas the tonal distribution of ragas rated as “sad” is represented with blue background color panel. Within each panel the mean frequency of occurrence of shuddh swaras [S ( Sa ), R ( Re ), G ( Ga ), M ( Ma ), P ( Pa ), D ( Dha ), N ( Ni )] is depicted with red bars whereas the mean frequency of occurrence of komal swaras [r( re ), g( ga ), m( ma ), d( dha ), n( ni )] is depicted with blue bars.

To further explore the findings from Mathur et al. and assess the degree to which emotion ratings agree with rasa variation around the Circle of Thaats , we first associated a valence score with each raga , which is a difference in the ratings of the two highest experienced emotions, calm and sad. As a consequence, a value >0 is associated with positive valence whereas, a difference < 0 is associated with negative valence. Next, we define a tonal ratio, which is the ratio of the number of minor intervals (m) to major intervals (M) for each raga . The valence score and tonal ratios estimated are listed in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Ratios of minor (m) to major (M) intervals along with mean ratings for ragas belonging to each thaat as estimated in Mathur et al. (2015) .

In Figure 3 , we compare the tonal ratios with the valence score of the ragas used by Mathur et al. The tonal ratios and valence score as estimated for various ragas are represented along the Circle of Thaats (refer to Table 2 and Figure 3 ). The thaats for which emotional elicitations for more than one raga were available, an average valence score has been estimated (Table 2 ). The tonal ratios are expressed on a color scale (red to blue) while the average valence score associated with each thaat is indicated along with the name of the respective thaat . Figure 3 reveals that ragas belonging to thaat Bilawal (tonal ratio 0.00), elicits emotions with positive valence (e.g., valence score of raga Hansadhwani and Tilak Kamod are 1.22 and 1.28, respectively) where ragas belonging to thaat Todi (tonal ratio 0.57) and thaat Marwa (tonal ratio 0.29) evokes emotions of negative valence (e.g., valence score of Basant Mukhari or Mivan ki Todi is −0.35 and −0.33, respectively). Thus as the tonal ratio systematically increases moving clockwise from 0 and subsequently decreases, valence follows suit. In effect, the qualitative rasa variation adumbrated by the Circle of Thaats aligns with quantitative variations in both emotion rating valence and tonal ratio for the ragas tested.

KEY CONCEPT 5. TONAL RATIO The ratio of #minor/#Major intervals in a raga. As minor intervals are dissonant and Major intervals are consonant, this ratio gauges consonance/dissonance across an entire raga scale. Raga tonal ratios align with valences of participants' subjective ratings, suggesting the canon of North Indian ragas is a source for experimental stimuli with for those seeking a range and gradation of valences.

Figure 3 . Similarities between the tonal ratio (m/M) and valence of ragas when arranged along Circle of Thaats . The tonal ratio is color coded in increasing order on a scale of red to blue. Valence values associated with each thaat are indicated next to the names of the thaat , with negative valence preceded by the minus sign. For thaats where multiple ragas were included in Mathur et al. a mean valence was estimated based on the ratings in Table 2 .

Finally, a third finding of Mathur et al. (2015) was that out of the 12 tonic intervals, the minor second interval ( komal re ) was the best predictor of negative valence. As seen in Figure 3 , there are two locations along the circle of thaats , which we refer to as transition thaats where a change in tonal ratio is accompanied by a change in valence category (refer to Figure 3 and Table 2 ). These are Kafi to Asavari (positive to negative valence) and Purvi to Khamaaj (negative to positive). While symmetrically located on the circle of thaats , and similar tonal ratios the subsequent valence associated with the transition thaats is quite different. We attribute this to the specific minor intervals involved.

While the minor intervals present in transition thaats Kafi to Asavari are minor third ( komal ga ) and minor seventh ( komal ni ) those present in transition thaats Purvi to Marwa are minor second ( komal re ) and tritone ( tivra ma ) respectively. We suggest that the presence of the minor second in the transition thaats Purvi and Marwa leads to their association with higher negative valence score (−0.26 and −0.42, respectively) as compared to thaat Kafi (0.50). While the study by Mathur et al. did not include a raga from thaat Asvari the results encourage us to hypothesize that the minor second serves a crucial role in conveying negative valence. Further studies should attempt to investigate its role in detail by sampling a larger representation of ragas from each thaat .

The purpose of this review was to demonstrate NICM ragas as robust stimuli capable of eliciting distinct, predictable emotions, with tonal relationships and rhythmic tempo influencing the valence and strength of emotional effects in the listener. The ragas used in Mathur et al. (2015) were only 12 in number, but since they had been sampled across almost all thaats we attempted to speculate how the structure of the tonic intervals might predict the emotional valence associated with a raga .

Moving around the Circle of Thaats , emotional valence systematically varied along with the tonal ratios of each thaat . In this way, music emotion researchers may find experimental utility in the Circle of Thaats, as a catalog of stimuli varying in degrees of valence not only systematically, but incrementally , in the sense of finer gradations of valence than the more binary notions of “positive”/”negative” “happy”/”sad” typically ascribed to consonance and dissonance effects on emotion. In addition, built into the very structure of Indian compositions is an experimental manipulation of rhythmic tempo between alaap and gat , keeping tonal intervals constant, which in Mathur et al. (2015) revealed that the musical differences between sadness and tension, calmness and happiness may be more a function of rhythm than melody.

In sum, the catalog of systematically and incrementally varying emotional valence comprising the Circle of Thaats ; and a varying rhythmic structure which controls for tonality across a single raga , together make NICM music an invaluable auditory stimulus, tailor made and uniquely useful for experimentally controlled studies of musical emotion. We acknowledge that at present the preliminary results discussed here are speculative and require more detailed investigation. Since the tonic ratio is directly related to emotional response, further studies should also probe the nature of this relationship in influencing the strength of arousal of positive or negative valence of a raga , a feature that is often adopted by various performing artistes that has not been experimentally investigated. Future research would also do well to test the degree to which the constant tonic drone amplifies the strength of the emotional valences induced via the consonances and dissonances of these tonic ratios.

Finally, whilst a main aim of this review was to describe why ragas are a uniquely useful experimental stimuli for studies of music and emotion, this methodological prescription comes with an important caveat. Ragas are musical stimuli with deep, specific cultural origins and associations ( Wieczorkowska et al., 2010 ). But although they have been shown to elicit culturally-specific emotions which appear to be lost on non-native listeners, they also convey emotions that are shared between native and non-native listeners ( Laukka et al., 2013 ). Consequently, for experiments using raga stimuli for cross-cultural research this is crucial to note, as beyond universal emotions there are enculturated emotions elicited by culture-specific cues in music. For studies using only Western or only Indian samples, however, such cultural effects should not be a concern, as all participants would be equally advantaged or disadvantaged in identifying culturally dependent musical cues.

On a final, related point, it is important to note that the usage of ragas in the Western music cognition literature is nearly always in the context of cross-cultural differences. We hope Western readers come away from this review with an understanding that ragas can be thought of as more than “world music,” and useful for more than only cross-cultural studies of music cognition and emotion.

Ultimately, we hope this review brings the unique experimental value of NICM to the attention of music emotion researchers, useful for investigating emotional elicitations to music, within, between, and across different cultures.

Author Contributions

NS: designed the study and wrote the paper; JV and JA: contributed to paper writing; AM: collected data, conducted analysis, and contributed in writing the paper.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Funding for this work was provided by National Brain Research Centre, India. We thank Pt. Mukesh Sharma for composing the stimuli for the study. We thank our volunteers for their participation in the survey. We thank Hymavathy Balasubramanian for feedback during manuscript editing. We thank Hymavathy Balasubramanian for feedback during manuscript editing.

Author Biography

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Keywords: raga , emotion, tonic ratio, thaat , music

Citation: Valla JM, Alappatt JA, Mathur A and Singh NC (2017) Music and Emotion—A Case for North Indian Classical Music. Front. Psychol . 8:2115. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02115

Received: 07 January 2017; Accepted: 20 November 2017; Published: 19 December 2017.

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Copyright © 2017 Valla, Alappatt, Mathur and Singh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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The influence of classical music on learning and memory in rats: a systematic review and meta-analysis

• Published: 02 November 2023
• Volume 25 , pages 1–7, ( 2024 )

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• Clarissa Trzesniak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-9959 1 ,
• Ana C. L. Biscaro   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0526-7006 1 ,
• Amanda V. Sardeli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0575-7996 2 ,
• Iara S. L. Faria 1 ,
• Cesar R. Sartori   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2713-3914 3 ,
• Luciano Magalhães Vitorino   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1023-8488 4 &
• Rodolfo S. Faria   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5521-8950 1  

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During the learning process, music can activate important neural areas in the brain, promoting the retention of information and memory formation. However, studies testing music effects on memory had found different improvements, which could be due to the methodological differences across studies. Thus, the purpose of this article was to systematically review the literature and meta-analyze the effects of music on Rattus norvegicus ’ explicit memory (Maze tests) only in controlled investigations. The seven studies included led to a very homogeneous analysis ( I 2  = 0%), confirming the consistency of the significant standardized mean difference (SMD) between the memory of animals exposed and not exposed to music (SMD 0.60 (95% CI 0.38; 0.83, p  < 0.001)). Exploratory analysis suggests music benefits on memory can be acquired when begun at any age, when tested with the three types of mazes evaluated, with exposure lasting from 8 to 83 days and when the age on test day was either under 30 days or over 30 days. To expand the actual understanding of music effects on memory, future studies should investigate different types of music and animal species, with different sex and health conditions, at different time points.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon request.

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Authors C.T. and R.S.F. coordinated the study. C.T., R.S.F. and A.C.L.B. conceived and designed the study. C.T., A.C.L.B. and A.V.S. participated in data collection and data management. A.V.S. and C.T. analyzed the data. C.T., R.S.F., I.S.L.F., L.M.V. and C.R.S. contributed with critical analysis and critical review. All the authors interpreted the data, drafted the manuscript and criticized it for relevant intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Trzesniak, C., Biscaro, A.C.L., Sardeli, A.V. et al. The influence of classical music on learning and memory in rats: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Cogn Process 25 , 1–7 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-023-01167-9

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Towards building an automated indian classical music tutor for the masses, impact of music intervention (listening to indian classical music) on mental wellbeing during covid-19 pandemic.

Background: Reports show that mental wellbeing may be negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ragas of Indian classical music are believed to have therapeutic effects. This study was done to investigate the impact of an Indian raga on mental wellbeing during the COVID-19  pandemic. Materials and Methods: It was a one-group before-after design study. A total of 45 adult subjects of Kolkata, recruited online, using convenience sampling during the lockdown, underwent a pre-test via Google forms using Warwick-Edinburg Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) to evaluate mental wellbeing before the administration of music intervention. After two weeks of music intervention, that consisted of passively listening to raga Hamsadhwani, a post-test using the same scale and the same medium was done. Results: The results showed that the post-test mean of the total score 51.1 (SD = 3.9) of WEMWBS was significantly (p< 0.001) higher than the pre-test mean of the total score 30.9 (SD = 4.6). The same trend was reflected by the mean difference pertaining to all of the components of WEMWBS. Conclusion: It was concluded that raga Hamsadhwani may be effective in improving mental wellbeing in a pandemic situation. There is a need to do more work by improvising the research design employed in the present study. This will help to interpret more accurately and more meaningfully the effects of Indian raga music on mental wellbeing.

Indian Culture and Music as a Source of Inspiration for French Opera Composers

"The current paper strives to discover and reveal the influences of Indian culture and classical Indian music in French operas. At first, the evocation of India was obtained through the subjects of the operas and stunning scenic designs, fulfilling the requirements of exoticism. Gradually, the composers attempted to include in their musical discourses exotic rhythmic and melodic elements, in some instances inspired by Indian classical music, thus aiming to evoke a genuine image of India. At the same time, the use of elements pertaining to Indian music (rāgas, rhythmic patterns, timbres) offered the musicians the possibility to create novel sound discourses. The analysis focuses on several operas, composed between the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, following the evolution of Indian representations in several dimensions: dramatic (libretto), visual (scenic representations, dance), and musical (melody, rhythm, timbre). The present paper investigates the way Indian themes influenced the conception of the libretto, and at the same time the visual dimension of the works (setting, costumes), observing how these visual elements were gradually absorbed into the musical discourse (analysis of the melodic structures), through the incorporation of Indian rāgas in works conceived according to the rules of Western music composition. Keywords: exoticism, orientalism, India, French opera, rāga "

Contribution of Kramik Pustak Malika of Chatur Pandit in the field of Indian Music and its Relevance

Indian Classical Music is the best gift of Indian culture to the world. Indian Classical Music is of two types – उत्तर हिन्दुस्तानी संगीत पद्धति एवं दक्षिण हिन्दुस्तानी संगीत पद्धति. The roots of Indian Music are found in Vedas. Sanskrit is the ancient language and we found it in the Vedas. Many treatises related to music systems are also found in Sanskrit Language. To learn music properly, every learner has to go through two paths – 1. Theoretical music (Ancient treatises) 2. Practical Music (which follows Guru Shishya tradition). Pandit Bhatkhande has given wonderful and helpful notation system to Indian Classical Music. With the help of it he has collected many Bandish from different people and made a large collection. This collection is known as Kramik Pustak Malika. (Parts 1 -6). All these six parts are having theory of 150 ragas divided Thata-wise, with introductory chapter on the general theory of music, besides a short description of every Raga, followed by Svar-vistar. They contain about 1000 traditional compositions including Pandit Bhatkhande’s own compositions which are about 300 in notation. To know the Raga deeply, one can refer the same book and can get many Bandish, Svar-vistar, information about Ragas, their descriptions given in Sanskrit treatises, Thata (थाट), Tala, etc. Therefore, Kramik Pustak Malika of Chatur Pandit is the treasure of Indian Music.

Deep learning based Tonic identification in Indian Classical Music

Temporalities of north indian classical listening: how listeners use music to construct time.

This chapter explores how ethnography with musical listeners can illuminate relationships between music and time. While much existing scholarship equates musical temporalities with qualities of the ‘music itself’, this chapter addresses the need for research that considers the diverse ways listeners use music to engender experiences of time. Alaghband-Zadeh focuses here on rasikas, connoisseurs of North Indian classical music. She shows how rasikas construct and experience North Indian classical performances as sites of leisurely temporality: this is both an ethical practice, aligned with ideas of virtue, and also a means for rasikas to position themselves as set apart from a world they view as increasingly characterized by speed. Alaghband-Zadeh argues that music is a powerful temporal resource: a means through which people cultivate ways of inhabiting time. Moreover, the immediate temporalities of live performances contribute to the production of broader, public temporalities of modernity, changing social formations and imagined histories.

A STUDY OF MUTHUSWAMI DIKSHITAR’S EXPERTISE ON VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF MUSICOLOGY REFLECTED THROUGH HIS COMPOSITIONS

Musicology is the study of scientific and intellectually handling of music. This is a colossal subject of music and inquest into the History and phenomenon of music including; life and works of Composers and performers, music theory like melody, rhythm, harmony, modes, aesthetics, form etc. The Historical evidences of Indian Classical music have been discussed in several ancient texts like Veda’s, Upanishads, epics way back 2000 years ago. The Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda contains ritual hymns and incantations (vedic chants) , praising the specific dieties during the Sacrificial rituals. The South Indian music has a phlegmatic and pedagogic nature when compared with the music of other unconsecrated Hindustani traditions. This paper highlights the proficiency of Dikshitar’s knowledge of Musicology bequeathed from his father Ramaswami Dikshitar, a scholar, musician, learned musicologist, and recipient of many honours and emoluments in the knowledge of music gained sufficient knowledge in musicology who had settled down at Tiruvarur where Dikshitar was born. Tiruvarur then was a seat of learning of Sanskrit and Vedanta. Dikshitar’s compositions reflect his deep and thorough knowledge widely through the interpretation of their literature as seen in famous compositions like ‘Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje’, ‘Amrutavarshini’ and others will be discussed with the various rasas created through the ragas as enunciated in the Natyashastra of Bharat Muni.

The language of South Indian classical music

Theology of music and hindu religion: from divine origins to classical songs.

As a subfield in the study of religion and music, the theology of music is generally understood in Western terms. Yet to fully encompass the rich heritage of music in world religions, the theology of music must welcome non-Western traditions. After introducing ancient Greek and Biblical narratives regarding the origins of music, including metaphysical concepts, narratives of music as Divine Gift, musical angels, and the sacred origin of the notes and scales, this article explores music in Hindu religion through the lens of theology. We find that Indian music is also ‘given by the gods’ (i.e., Brahmā, Vishnu, and Śiva), associated with ‘musical angels,’ and originally formed from metaphysical principles (i.e., OM and the concept of Nāda-Brahman). What is demonstrated here, representing a long continuity, is how these same ideas are viable in the performance of Indian classical music today. Citing examples of compositions of Dhrupad and Khayal from the standard repertoire, this article reveals how modern-day classical songs contain references to sacred sound principles and the divine origins of music, both in their lyrics and in the unfoldment of musical notes (Svaras) and melodic patterns (Rāgas).

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How Music Resonates in the Brain

Scientists tune in to the brain’s emotional response to music

• by Allison Eck
• 7 minute read

Rehearsal of the Pasdeloup Orchestra at the Cirque d'Hiver by John Singer Sargent The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund

Watching a movie can be a mesmerizing experience, not just for our eyes — but also for our ears. From The Lord of the Rings series and Schindler’s List to Interstellar and animated films like Mulan , movies can give rise to deep, complex emotions, thanks in large part to a key ingredient: music.

Take the Oscar-nominated film Maestro , about the life of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, AB ’39. The most powerful scene in Maestro is arguably one in which there is no dialogue — only music.

Ensconced in a Gothic cathedral with an audience of extras, Bernstein, played by Bradley Cooper, directs a chorus of voices — the viewer’s entrée into the finale of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Two women’s voices emerge in a duet, lilting above a tapestry of strings. Trumpets pierce the air. A timpani rumbles as the chorus bursts into rapture. Finally, with church bells ringing, Bernstein brings the symphony to its epic conclusion. 

Patrick Whelan, a Harvard Medical School lecturer in pediatrics, part-time, at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor of the Harvard Extension School course Music and the Mind, observes that sitting in the audience for this type of piece can be a profound, prosocial experience. 

“When you go into a church, the music takes over the mental faculties of all the people who are attending,” he says. “It puts everyone in the same emotional space.” 

Our chordal roots 

Why does music leave such an emotional impression on us in the first place? What is it about tones and timbres that, when organized in a precise manner, can make us swoon or sway? 

Whelan believes the answer lies partly in evolutionary biology. The earliest mammals, most of them likely nocturnal, had to rely on their hearing and sense of smell as defensive mechanisms — they were hyperfocused, hyperattentive. According to Whelan, the modern experience of listening to live music can be viewed as a vestige of that primeval adaptation. 

In a performance venue, “there's an incredible complex sound signature all around you,” Whelan says. “The brain has to sift through all the ambient noise in a concert hall. It’s a much more primitive form of listening compared to a focused conversation.” 

These acoustic cues — just like the crescendo of an approaching predator — travel through the ear and into the temporal lobe, which parses the soundscape, identifies sounds, and tags their components as familiar or unfamiliar. 

The salience of these sounds — whether a person responds to them emotionally and motivationally — influences the autonomic nervous system (ANS), a network that controls certain involuntary processes like breathing and heart rate. The valence of the music, which signals whether the music feels positive, negative, or somewhere in between, influences the ANS, too. These factors are among the reasons why our heart rate goes up when we hear the infamous music from Jaws , or why experimental music or heavy metal might make us feel uncomfortable if we’re not used to it. 

Music also lights up nearly all of the brain — including the hippocampus and amygdala , which activate emotional responses to music through memory; the limbic system, which governs pleasure, motivation, and reward; and the body’s motor system. This is why “it’s easy to tap your feet or clap your hands to musical rhythms,” says Andrew Budson, MD ’93, chief of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System. 

The brain’s elaborate receptivity to music means that “lots of different things are going on simultaneously,” Budson adds, so music “ends up being encoded as a rich experience.” 

The intensity of musical tension 

Brain activity in patients with certain disorders reveals unexpected connections with brain activity in people as they listen to music. Although models of obsessive-compulsive disorder pathophysiology are varied, evidence suggests that the condition is caused by faulty neural circuits in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, and anterior thalamus. This dysfunctional neuronal “loop” has the OFC at its center. Sitting just above the eye sockets, the orbitofrontal cortex, involved in decision-making, is hyperactive both in people with OCD, and, intriguingly, in people as they listen to music. 

Why would that be? One key way that music — particularly Western tonal music — generates emotions in the listener is through patterns of tension and resolution. The way such patterns play out, together with the way the music fulfills or violates our expectations, manipulates and reveals how the brain handles complex cognitive processes like prediction and anticipation.

According to Whelan, OCD can be described as a maladaptive stress assessment problem. In addition to lecturing at Mass General, Whelan has directed the multidisciplinary care for patients with PANDAS syndrome as an associate clinical professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Rheumatology at the University of California Los Angeles. PANDAS may be diagnosed when there is a strong association between Streptococcus infection, such as strep throat or scarlet fever, in children and the subsequent onset of OCD, tics, or other behavioral issues. 

Individuals who are diagnosed with OCD are “incapable of stratifying the risks of the cues that are coming from their environment,” Whelan says. They excessively anticipate bad things happening and engage in obsessive thoughts or behaviors as an attempt to resolve — or prevent — those fears from becoming reality. 

In other words, their orbitofrontal cortex runs on overdrive, just as it does when a person — with or without OCD — listens to music. But in the case of a person with OCD, hyperactivity in the OFC has a systemic, negative effect on the rest of the brain. Although the hyperactivity itself may not necessarily be the root cause of OCD symptoms, it’s certainly part of the OCD story, and the way music leverages buildup and release is a variation on that theme. 

Music and healing 

The effect of music on our brains has clinical implications as well. Growing evidence suggests, for example, that listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major can reduce the frequency of seizures in some people with epilepsy.

Other conditions and diseases, ranging from Parkinson’s to depression to Alzheimer’s, could someday have therapeutic solutions derived from an understanding of music. For instance, by identifying the exact type of music able to provoke a particular cognitive, motor, or emotional response, there could be progress toward healing, improving, or compensating for disrupted brain function in various diseases. An increased understanding of brain mechanisms can facilitate this. 

David Silbersweig, the Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry at HMS and chair emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is interested in uncovering answers to these questions. A leader in functional neuroimaging research in psychiatry, he investigates how brain regions and networks function when we perceive, think, feel, and act. 

We seem to be very much tuned for music.”

“It’s at the systems level with brain imaging that you can directly correlate mental states and brain states — and measure them.” Silbersweig says. “Neuroimaging provides a noninvasive way of correlating brain structural and functional abnormalities with specific aspects of music processing.”

For example, Silbersweig has seen people who survive stroke or tumors develop sensory amusia, a condition resulting from a lesion in the brain’s right superior temporal gyrus. Because this region is integral to recognizing disparate sounds as part of a cohesive work, patients with sensory amusia lose the ability to perceive or respond to music. While patients with this condition may not be able to revive damaged tissue, exposure to music itself can indirectly make up for the setback. 

That’s because music’s immediacy — it unfolds in real time and captures our attention in a way that cannot be negotiated — makes it an ideal vehicle for creating specific experiences in the brain. With both immediate and long-term exposure to music, a person’s neurons will fire in new ways, helping to shape communication pathways over time. 

Indeed, music is a potent tool for the future of precision medicine. As the scientific community continues to elucidate the emotional landscape of music, as well as how it differs from listener to listener, new methods for alleviating disease severity and improving overall well-being await both patients and otherwise healthy members of the general public. 

As for Silbersweig, he and other colleagues in the field hope to continue weaving together what is known about the neural underpinnings of music into a more unified model, which Silbersweig thinks is an important — and meaningful — step. 

“We seem to be very much tuned for music,” he says. “It resonates with us in some important way.”  

Allison Eck is the executive communications manager in the HMS Office of Communications and External Relations.

Images: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Sargent painting); Erica Hou (Whelan); BWH/Mainframe Photographics (Silbersweig)

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Classical Music Benefits (Research paper)

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The purpose of this study IS to determine effectiveness of hangdrip relaxation and classical music in lowering blood pressure and headache in people with hypertension. The present Non-randomized design uses quasi experimental control group (nonrandomized control group prestest-posttest design). This research was conducted in Dr. M. Haulussy Hospital, Ambon with research population is people with hypertension recorded in Dr. M. Haulussy Hospital, Ambon, with 4 groups respectively, 7 respondents were experimental group of relaxation handgrip,7 respondents were classical music group, 7 respondents were handgrip relaxation group and classical music, and 7 respondents were control group. Sampling method was carried out by using consecutive sampling. Blood pressure measurement instruments are calibrated mercury spigmamoteri and pain levels using numerical rating scale (NRS). The analysis used is t test. The result indicate that 3 rd day systolic rate decreaseis the highest in relaxation handgrip group with significance value of 0.003 (<0.05), and 3 rd day diastolic day with significance value of 0.014 (<0.05), pain level decreased on the 1st day with significance of 0.001 (<0.05).

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61 Classical Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best classical music topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 interesting topics to write about classical music, 📃 good research topics about classical music.

• Classical Music: Attending a Concert 2 is one of the most remarkable stories in the world of classical music. Le Grand Tango for violin and piano is one of the most beautiful masterpieces in classical music.
• Benjamin Britten: A Renowned Classic Musician However, his mother was a part time singer and she aided his growth in approach and musical content.”The Royal Falily” is one of his well known compositions in his early childhood, which was about the […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• The Classical Music and Their Effects Classical Music can be defined as a form of Art music that is produced in traditions concerned with secular and western liturgical music.
• Washington Cathedral Classical Music Christmas Concert The pieces were performed beautifully; actually, I got a sense of satisfaction and deep rumination of the Christmas season because of the expressive execution of the pieces by the band and the choir.
• Classical Music: Composer Philip Glass Classic music emerged in the beginning of the 11th century in the West. Conclusion Philip Glass is a great composer who has helped conserve the unique nature of classical music.
• Classical Music Concert “Toyota Symphonies for Youths” The lady was mainly doing the vocals while one of the gentlemen was playing the piano, the other was playing an oboe and the last one was playing a bassoon.
• Pieces From Classical and Romantic Music E-Concert The material of the first part is repeated, and at the end of the Overture the harmonic balance of the orchestra is assaulted by sudden sounds of trombones, as if questioning the achieved harmony.
• Verismo in Classical Music Verismo refers to the composition of classical music based on natural elements and it was introduced to Italy in the late 19th Century.
• Classical and Modern Music To understand the connection between music performance and the epoch, it is possible to consider a concert in the late eighteenth century and a concert of hip-hop music in the early twenty-first century.
• Classical Music: Influence on Brain and Mood Considering the potential positive effects of classical music on the mood and the brain, the music can be adapted to influence people to behave in certain ways.
• Classical and Contemporary Music Comparison Lyrical content is of great import to hip-hop and has spawned a new style of singing that has riveted the audiences’ attention to this music.
• Pomona College Choir Classical Music Concert While in the previous performances, I perceived this song as a repenting of a sinner, when listening to the Pomona College Choir, I realized that there was a touch of childlike innocence to it.
• Classical Music Concerts: Video Report The lighting in the contemporary venue is clear and sharp for this segment of the performance. The energy and complete commitment to the music on the part of the violinist, as well as the rest […]
• Classical Music: Cultural Consumption and Cultural Diversity The author states that the value of classical music is great, and it is recognized widely. It seems important to emphasize that the author of the given article aligns classical music with equality and dignity.
• Classical Symphony and Classical Chamber Music 140″ is still one of the greatest works of the Baroque era. The composer is famous for many works, and some of them have left riddles.
• Music Appreciation: Reggae Music and Classical Music At the end of the paper, the relationships between reggae and classical music will be considered with the emphasis made on the similarities between the genres.
• Classical Music: Merriam’s Tripartite Model of Music Classical music is characterized by the harmony that is full of chromaticism. Music is meant to provide a meaningful interaction of the body and soul.
• Listening to Classical Music This whole thing repeats, but with more complication, and then moves into a slower part like a waltz added in, and then the notes repeat the up and down pattern that sounded like shallow waterfall […]
• Classical and Rock Music Genres As for the differences between rock and classical, the first thing that comes to mind is the length of the songs.
• Modernist Movement in Music: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The modernist movement in music seems appropriate for this paper because of the unique and exciting styles of composing modern-era music, such as jazz, pop, and rock.
• Classical Symphonies: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The formative period of classical music was between the 18th and 19th centuries. Beethoven wrote music slowly and purposely with the romantics’ guidance.
• Overview of Baroque and Classical Music Differences
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• Can Culturally-Specific Perspectives to Teaching Western Classical Music Benefit International Students?
• The Relationships Between Classical Music and Cognitive Development
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• Classical Music and Its Influence on Education
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• Classical Music and Its Influence on Western Culture
• Does Classical Music Help You Study Better?
• Comparative Analysis of Rap and Classical Music
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• Creating Variation Within Traditional Classical Music Forms
• Classical Music Influences Our Body’s Vital Movements
• Does Classical Music Have an Effect on Infants’ Brain Development?
• Classical Music: Theme and Variations
• Comparison Between Pop Music and Classical Music
• Does Classical Music Help the Growth of Plants?
• How Franz Liszt’s Transcriptions Shaped the Path of Classical Music
• Ludwig Van Beethoven and His Influence on Classical Music
• Overview of Malaysian Malaysian Classical Music and Malaysian Folk
• Memory and Brain Effects of Classical Music
• Music and Emotion: A Case for North Indian Classical Music
• Rock vs. Classical Music: Pros and Cons of Each Type of Music
• Romanticism and Classical Music Styles Overview
• How Classical Music Has Changed the World
• Similarities Between Classical Music and Ellington’s Jazz
• The Eastern Classical Music Cultural Studies
• The Most Influential Composers of the Classical Music Era
• “The Mozart Effect”: Can Classical Music Improve Your Academic Ability?
• The Pros and Cons of Classical Music
• War and Creativity: Solving the War-Art Puzzle for Classical Music Composition
• Western Classical Music Development: Statistical Analysis of Composers’ Similarity, Differentiation, and Evolution
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Impact on Classical Music
• Innovation of Bach in Comparison to Other Composers of the Era
• Discovering the Effect Classical Music Has on a Person’s Perception
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Music Director Gustavo Gimeno conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. 

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Fever's candlelight classical music concert series has exploded in popularity around the world, particularly among young adult audiences. 

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Mark Williams, chief executive officer of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. 

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Peter Simon (left) and Alex Brose, the outgoing and incoming presidents of the Royal Conservatory of Music. 

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The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Royal Conservatory of Music are finding new ways to engage audiences amid the rise of immersive experiences like the candlelight concerts by Fever. 

How Toronto's classical music institutions are getting fresh and appealing to new audiences

When Peter Simon took charge of the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) in 1991 as its president, Toronto's classical music sector was far different than it is today. 

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra's (TSO) home of Roy Thomson Hall was less than a decade old. Koerner Hall , meanwhile, was still years from becoming a reality. Even the RCM, now one of the most important institutions on the continent for music education, was re-establishing itself as a fully independent entity after separating from the University of Toronto. 

In many ways, the music industry of three decades ago was in a state of flux. The same could be said about where it stands today. 

Key organizations in the sector are striking out on new paths in a bid to energize audiences and solidify their cultural relevancy. Arts leaders who've shepherded their organizations into the 21st century, like Simon, are now ceding control to fresh faces. And young upstarts are shaking up the scene by challenging and redefining preconceived notions of what classical music is and how it can be presented.

Simon himself is set to retire and step down from the RCM at the end of August after a tenure spanning 33 years, during which time he helped conceive and open Koerner Hall in 2009, and established the Glenn Gould School for professional music training. 

But looking ahead, he believes there's still much room for growth for the organization. 

"The potential of this institution is extraordinary because we've created so many programs that have global applications," he said, speaking to the Star in his office overlooking Bloor Street. "Our objective is to make music in everybody's life, a society where every person feels empowered to make music and to participate in music."

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Simon will be succeeded by Alexander Brose, the former executive director and CEO of the Tianjin Juilliard School who began his one-year transition at the RCM late last summer as president and CEO designate. 

He steps into the organization as the music school is looking to expand after a period of instability due to COVID-19. Despite audience attendance down between 10 to 15 per cent in the months following the pandemic shutdown, ticket sales from the RCM's concert programming have returned to pre-pandemic levels. 

As well, one of Brose's first major projects will be rolling out the RCM's SmartStart program across North America. The early childhood music education program, developed at the RCM and geared toward infants and young children, looks at the connections between music learning and cognitive development. It's been running at the RCM in Toronto for nearly a decade, but the hope now, said Brose, "is to bring this to the greater population outside of the walls of Bloor West."

Brose, a trained vocalist, added that a key part of his new role is to ensure that the RCM's programming, both in terms of education and performance, remains relevant to the community. And that means reflecting the diversity of the city and the country. 

"I take the TTC to work every day and that's just incredible how diverse the city is. And I think we, especially Mervon Mehta (executive director of the performing arts at the RCM), are trying to reflect that," said Brose. 

It's not merely the RCM that's in the midst of a renewal. At the TSO, its CEO Mark Williams acknowledged that the orchestra has yet to find its footing since the pandemic shutdown as it heads into its 102nd season. 

"One of the things that excites me about living and working here is that I think both this city and this orchestra have not yet become what they're going to be — that they're still very much in transition," he told the Star. 

The TSO, in some ways, is starting with a blank slate, having recently erased an accumulated deficit which it had carried for more than four decades . In its 2022-23 season, the organization recorded a 3.5 per cent increase in total ticket sales compared to the 2018-19 season. 

But Williams said that, despite the TSO no longer holding onto a deficit, the organization isn't out of the woods yet. "It's incredibly fragile," he noted, reflecting on the current state of the classical music sector. 

Across North America, many orchestras and classical music institutions have struggled to recover from the pandemic and falling attendance. Perhaps the most glaring example is the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, which filed for bankruptcy last year and abruptly cancelled its upcoming season, sending shock waves across the sector. 

Still, Williams, who joined the TSO in 2022, maintains that he's not a "classical music fatalist" even amid the headwinds: "This music has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years, through wars and way more social upheaval than we've seen. There's something eternal about this music."

However, he stressed that for the TSO to be successful, it must be willing to adapt and especially focus on attracting younger audiences. 

"Any classical music organization which is not thinking about how it's engaging with younger audiences and building the audience for the future, really does not have its eye on the ball," he said. "The TSO needs to go in a direction of, frankly, being ever more focused on serving the community."

There's certainly an appetite for classical music among young audiences. Research by the UK's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , which surveyed some 2,000 British adults in 2022, found that classical music is experiencing a widespread surge in popularity, especially among those under 35, who were more likely to report listening to orchestral music on a regular basis compared to those over 55. 

While no comparable study has been conducted recently in Canada, the trend is certainly evident. 

Orchestra Toronto welcomes newcomers to Toronto through classical music

Digging up music history: the grammy-nominated group that revives long-lost music from composers silenced by oppressive regimes, 'our moment in the sun': toronto symphony orchestra's 2024-25 season features wide range of masterworks and pop concerts.

Emerging entertainment companies such as Fever have shaken up the sector, producing classical music events targeted to young audiences. 

Their candlelight concert series, which features small ensembles or soloists performing in intimate venues basking in the glow of candlelight, premiered in Madrid in 2019 before debuting in Canada three years later. It's now running in more than 100 cities worldwide. 

Combining the auditory with the visual, the offering may not be entirely novel, but it's vastly different from much of the traditional classical music fare on offer. It's also willing to break the norms: concerts are only around 60 minutes, programs include a mix of classic works and adaptations of pop hits, like those by Taylor Swift and Coldplay, and attendees are encouraged to film or photograph the final piece of the concert. 

"The main objective is to democratize access to classical music and bring it closer to new audiences," said Amanda Boucault, a spokesperson from Fever, in an interview with the Star. 

But do Toronto's established institutions feel threatened by upstarts like Fever, which promise to continue shaking up the classical music landscape?

Neither Williams nor Brose are concerned. In fact, they said they believe the emergence of new companies, challenging established norms, could benefit the art form, creating a pipeline that brings in new audiences who may not otherwise attend an orchestral concert. 

Ultimately, for an organization like the TSO, which is more than a century old, it's important they don't "hold on too tightly" to tradition, said Williams. 

Despite working with an art form that has existed for centuries, he said, "what we think of as classical music is always shifting."

Joshua Chong is a Toronto-based culture reporter for the Star. Follow him on X: @joshualdwchong .

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A noninvasive treatment for “chemo brain”

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Patients undergoing chemotherapy often experience cognitive effects such as memory impairment and difficulty concentrating — a condition commonly known as “chemo brain.”

MIT researchers have now shown that a noninvasive treatment that stimulates gamma frequency brain waves may hold promise for treating chemo brain. In a study of mice, they found that daily exposure to light and sound with a frequency of 40 hertz protected brain cells from chemotherapy-induced damage. The treatment also helped to prevent memory loss and impairment of other cognitive functions.

This treatment, which was originally developed as a way to treat Alzheimer’s disease, appears to have widespread effects that could help with a variety of neurological disorders, the researchers say.

“The treatment can reduce DNA damage, reduce inflammation, and increase the number of oligodendrocytes, which are the cells that produce myelin surrounding the axons,” says Li-Huei Tsai, director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Picower Professor in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “We also found that this treatment improved learning and memory, and enhanced executive function in the animals.”

Tsai is the senior author of the new study, which appears today in Science Translational Medicine . The paper’s lead author is TaeHyun Kim, an MIT postdoc.

Protective brain waves

Several years ago, Tsai and her colleagues began exploring the use of light flickering at 40 hertz (cycles per second) as a way to improve the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Previous work had suggested that Alzheimer’s patients have impaired gamma oscillations — brain waves that range from 25 to 80 hertz (cycles per second) and are believed to contribute to brain functions such as attention, perception, and memory.

Tsai’s studies in mice have found that exposure to light flickering at 40 hertz or sounds with a pitch of 40 hertz can stimulate gamma waves in the brain, which has many protective effects, including preventing the formation of amyloid beta plaques. Using light and sound together provides even more significant protection. The treatment also appears promising in humans: Phase 1 clinical trials in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease have found the treatment is safe and does offer some neurological and behavioral benefits.

In the new study, the researchers set out to see whether this treatment could also counteract the cognitive effects of chemotherapy treatment. Research has shown that these drugs can induce inflammation in the brain, as well as other detrimental effects such as loss of white matter — the networks of nerve fibers that help different parts of the brain communicate with each other. Chemotherapy drugs also promote loss of myelin, the protective fatty coating that allows neurons to propagate electrical signals. Many of these effects are also seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

“Chemo brain caught our attention because it is extremely common, and there is quite a lot of research on what the brain is like following chemotherapy treatment,” Tsai says. “From our previous work, we know that this gamma sensory stimulation has anti-inflammatory effects, so we decided to use the chemo brain model to test whether sensory gamma stimulation can be beneficial.”

As an experimental model, the researchers used mice that were given cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug often used to treat testicular, ovarian, and other cancers. The mice were given cisplatin for five days, then taken off of it for five days, then on again for five days. One group received chemotherapy only, while another group was also given 40-hertz light and sound therapy every day.

After three weeks, mice that received cisplatin but not gamma therapy showed many of the expected effects of chemotherapy: brain volume shrinkage, DNA damage, demyelination, and inflammation. These mice also had reduced populations of oligodendrocytes, the brain cells responsible for producing myelin.

However, mice that received gamma therapy along with cisplatin treatment showed significant reductions in all of those symptoms. The gamma therapy also had beneficial effects on behavior: Mice that received the therapy performed much better on tests designed to measure memory and executive function.

“A fundamental mechanism”

Using single-cell RNA sequencing, the researchers analyzed the gene expression changes that occurred in mice that received the gamma treatment. They found that in those mice, inflammation-linked genes and genes that trigger cell death were suppressed, especially in oligodendrocytes, the cells responsible for producing myelin.

In mice that received gamma treatment along with cisplatin, some of the beneficial effects could still be seen up to four months later. However, the gamma treatment was much less effective if it was started three months after the chemotherapy ended.

The researchers also showed that the gamma treatment improved the signs of chemo brain in mice that received a different chemotherapy drug, methotrexate, which is used to treat breast, lung, and other types of cancer.

“I think this is a very fundamental mechanism to improve myelination and to promote the integrity of oligodendrocytes. It seems that it’s not specific to the agent that induces demyelination, be it chemotherapy or another source of demyelination,” Tsai says.

Because of its widespread effects, Tsai’s lab is also testing gamma treatment in mouse models of other neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Cognito Therapeutics, a company founded by Tsai and MIT Professor Edward Boyden, has finished a phase 2 trial of gamma therapy in Alzheimer’s patients, and plans to begin a phase 3 trial this year.

“My lab’s major focus now, in terms of clinical application, is Alzheimer’s; but hopefully we can test this approach for a few other indications, too,” Tsai says.

The research was funded by the JPB Foundation, the Ko Hahn Seed Fund, and the National Institutes of Health.

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MIT scientists have found that a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease involving flickering lights and low-pitched sound could also help prevent cognitive problems after cancer treatment, reports Clare Wilson for  New Scientist . The treatment is aimed at stimulating 40 Hz brainwaves, which are linked to memory processing. The results suggest targeting such “brainwaves may result in broader benefits for the brain, including increasing the activity of immune cells and, most recently, boosting its drainage system, which could help clear a toxic protein called beta-amyloid.”  

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• v.14(2); 2017 May

Music and the brain: the neuroscience of music and musical appreciation

Michael trimble.

1 Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK, email ku.ca.lcu.noi@elbmirtm

Dale Hesdorffer

2 Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and Department of Epidemilogy, Columbia University, New York City, USA

Through music we can learn much about our human origins and the human brain. Music is a potential method of therapy and a means of accessing and stimulating specific cerebral circuits. There is also an association between musical creativity and psychopathology. This paper provides a brief review.

Art history is the unfolding of subjectivity…. (T. Adorno)

An evolutionary perspective

There have been many attempts to identify behaviours which reliably distinguish our species, Homo sapiens , from our closest living cousins. Ascribed activities, from tool-making to having a theory of mind and empathy, have been rejected, as observations of anthropologists and ethnologists continue to emphasise similarities rather than differences placing us within the great chain of beings. There can be no doubt about the greater development of our cognitive attributes, linked closely with the evolutionary developments of our brain, in terms of both size and structure. Bipedalism, the use of fire, the development of effective working memory and our vocal language efficient communication have all emerged from these genetic–environmental adaptations over several million years (Pasternak, 2007 ).

Two features of our world which are universal and arguably have been a feature of an earlier evolutionary development are our ability to create and respond to music, and to dance to the beat of time.

Somewhere along the evolutionary way, our ancestors, with very limited language but with considerable emotional expression, began to articulate and gesticulate feelings: denotation before connotation. But, as the philosopher Susanne Langer noted, ‘The most highly developed type of such purely connotational semantic is music’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 93). In other words, meaning in music came to us before meaning given by words.

The mammalian middle ear developed from the jaw bones of earlier reptiles and carries sound at only specific frequencies. It is naturally attuned to the sound of the human voice, although has a range greater than that required for speech. Further, the frequency band which mothers use to sing to their babies, and so-called motherese or child-directed speech, with exaggerated intonation and rhythm, corresponds to that which composers have traditionally used in their melodies. In the same way that there is a limited sensitive period in which the infant can learn language and learn to respond to spoken language, there must be a similar phase of brain development for the incorporation of music.

One of the differences between the developed brains of Homo sapiens and those of the great apes is the increase in area allocated to processing auditory information. Thus, in other primates the size of the visual cortex correlates well with brain size, but in Homo sapiens it is smaller. In contrast, increases in size elsewhere in the human brain have occurred, notably in the temporal lobes, especially the dorsal area that relates to the auditory reception of speech. The expansion of primary and association auditory cortices and their connections, associated with the increased size of the cerebellum and areas of prefrontal and premotor cortex linked through basal ganglia structures, heralded a shift to an aesthetics based on sound, and to abilities to entrain to external rhythmic inputs. The first musical instrument used by our ancestors was the voice. The ear is always open and, unlike vision and the eyes or the gaze, sound cannot readily be averted. From the rhythmic beating within and with the mother’s body for the fetus and young infant, to the primitive drum-like beating of sticks on wood and hand clapping of our adolescent and adult proto-speaking ancestors, the growing infant is surrounded by and responds to rhythm. But, as Langer ( 1951 , p. 93) put it, ‘being more variable than the drum, voices soon made patterns and the long endearing melodies of primitive song became a part of communal celebration’. Some support for these ideas comes from the work of Mithen, who has argued that spoken language and music evolved from a proto-language, a musi-language which stemmed from primate calls and was used by the Neanderthals; it was emotional but without words as we know them (Mithen, 2005 ).

The suggestion is that our language of today emerged via a proto-language, driven by gesture, framed by musicality and performed by the flexibility which accrued with expanded anatomical developments, not only of the brain, but also of the coordination of our facial, pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles. Around the same time (with a precision of many thousands of years), the bicameral brain, although remaining bipartite, with the two cooperating cerebral hemispheres coordinating life for the individual in cohesion with the surrounding environment, became differently balanced with regard to the functions of the two sides: pointing and proposition (left) as opposed to urging and yearning (right) (Trimble, 2012 ).

The experience of music

A highly significant finding to emerge from the studies of the effects in the brain of listening to music is the emphasis on the importance of the right (non-dominant) hemisphere. Thus, lesions following cerebral damage lead to impairments of appreciation of pitch, timbre and rhythm (Stewart et al , 2006 ) and studies using brain imaging have shown that the right hemisphere is preferentially activated when listening to music in relation to the emotional experience, and that even imagining music activates areas on this side of the brain (Blood et al , 1999 ). This should not be taken to imply that there is a simple left–right dichotomy of functions in the human brain. However, it is the case that traditional neurology has to a large extent ignored the talents of the non-dominant hemisphere, much in favour of the dominant (normally left) hemisphere. In part this stems from an overemphasis on the role of the latter in propositional language and a lack of interest in the emotional intonations of speech (prosody) that give so much meaning to expression.

The link between music and emotion seems to have been accepted for all time. Plato considered that music played in different modes would arouse different emotions, and as a generality most of us would agree on the emotional significance of any particular piece of music, whether it be happy or sad; for example, major chords are perceived to be cheerful, minor ones sad. The tempo or movement in time is another component of this, slower music seeming less joyful than faster rhythms. This reminds us that even the word motion is a significant part of e motion , and that in the dance we are moving – as we are moved emotionally by music.

Until recently, musical theorists had largely concerned themselves with the grammar and syntax of music rather than with the affective experiences that arise in response to music. Music, if it does anything, arouses feelings and associated physiological responses, and these can now be measured. For the ordinary listener, however, there may be no necessary relationship of the emotion to the form and content of the musical work, since ‘the real stimulus is not the progressive unfolding of the musical structure but the subjective content of the listener’s mind’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 258). Such a phenomenological approach directly contradicts the empirical techniques of so much current neuroscience in this area, yet is of direct concern to psychiatry, and topics such as compositional creativity.

If it is a language, music is a language of feeling. Musical rhythms are life rhythms, and music with tensions, resolutions, crescendos and diminuendos, major and minor keys, delays and silent interludes, with a temporal unfolding of events, does not present us with a logical language, but, to quote Langer again, it ‘ reveals the nature of feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot approach’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 199, original emphasis).

This idea seems difficult for a philosophical mind to follow, namely that there can be knowledge without words. Indeed, the problem of describing a ‘language’ of feeling permeates the whole area of philosophy and neuroscience research, and highlights the relative futility of trying to classify our emotions – ‘Music is revealing, where words are obscuring’ (Langer, 1951 , p. 206).

Musical ability and psychiatric disorder

There is an extensive literature attesting to some associations between creativity and psychopathology (Trimble, 2007 ). The links seem to vary with different kinds of high achievement, and mood disorders are over-represented. Although samples of creative people have a significant excess of cyclothymia and bipolarity, florid manic–depressive illness is relatively uncommon. Biographies of famous musicians are of considerable interest in exploring brain–behaviour associations. Attempts to transform descriptions of people from biographies into specific DSM diagnoses cannot achieve high levels of validity and reliability, since lack of autobiographical materials and reliable contemporary medical accounts makes any diagnostic formulation necessarily tentative. However, with regard to classical composers within the Western canon, it must be of considerable significance that there are so many who seem to have suffered from affective disorders, the incidence of mood disorders ranging between 35% and 40% (Mula & Trimble, 2009 ). It is possible that similar associations occur in non-Western composers, although studies have not been published. In contrast, none seems to have had schizophrenia. These results have importance in understanding the structure and function of the human brain, and suggest avenues for therapeutic investigation which will vary with diagnosis.

Music therapy

Music provides and provokes a response, which is universal, ingrained into our evolutionary development, and leads to marked changes in emotions and movement. The anatomical associations noted above suggest that music must be viewed as one way to stimulate the brain. Music provides a non-invasive technique, which has attracted much interest but little empirical exploration to date. The therapeutic value of music can be in part explained by its cultural role in facilitating social learning and emotional well-being. However, a number of studies have shown that rhythmic entrainment of motor function can actively facilitate the recovery of movement in patients with stroke, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury (Thaut, 2005 ). Studies of people with memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, suggest that neuronal memory traces built through music are deeply ingrained and more resilient to neurodegenerative influences. Findings from individual randomised trials suggest that music therapy is accepted by people with depression and is associated with improvements in mood disorders (Maratos et al , 2008 ). Further, the potential applications of music therapy in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, albeit intuitive, have led to psychotherapeutic uses aimed at directly evoking emotions.

Evidence suggests that music can decrease seizure frequency, stop refractory status epilepticus and decrease electroencephalographic spike frequency in children with epilepsy in awake and sleep states. We know that many people with epilepsy have electroencephalographic abnormalities and, in some people, these can be ‘normalised’ by music. In addition to the need for trials of musical interventions in epilepsy, we should also consider whether the results of sonification of an electroencephalogram, which directly reflects the time course of cerebral rhythms, may be used to entrain ‘normal’ brain rhythms in people with seizure disorders. Alteration of the electroencephalogram via biofeedback of different components of sonified electroencephalography, or modulation of the musical input to a stimulus that affects the emotional state of the patient and hence cerebral and limbic activity and cerebral rhythms, are therapeutic possibilities which are currently being investigated (Bodner et al , 2012 ).

These data suggest that the effects and cost-effectiveness of music therapy in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders should be further explored. To date, most work has been done with Western-style compositions, and the well structured music of Mozart and Bach has been a popular basis for interventions. The following paper by Shantala Hegde notes the potential of other musical styles as therapy. Through music we learn much about our human origins and the human brain, and have a potential method of therapy by accessing and stimulating specific cerebral circuits.

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