Category: Music

What strategies do you use to make yourself feel better, increase your energy levels and reduce your tension? That’s the question Robert Thayer and colleagues at California State University were motivated by in looking for the strategies people use and find effective (Thayer, Newman & McClain, 1994). There’s no revelations in the results but the fact that the same three main strategies were useful in changing mood and reducing tension and raising energy speaks volumes:

Continue reading “How to Improve Mood, Raise Energy and Reduce Tension”

Seeing a band live is a much more engaging experience than listening to a recording at home. But it’s not just the atmosphere of a live event, it’s also the singer’s facial expressions and gestures which enhances our emotional experience.

It’s a rare singer whose face remains impassive as they sing. Think of jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald, blues artists like B. B. King or pop acts like Michael Jackson. As they sing, their faces are conveying the emotion in the music, sometimes it seems, even struggling with the emotions. Part of the beauty of a live performance is seeing singers’ faces as they interact with both the music, the other musicians and the audience. Their facial expressions often seem part of the music itself.

Continue reading “Music + Body Language = More Excitement”

Back in March I asked for your help with some research on music and personality I was carrying out with my colleagues. Although it was restricted to people living in the UK, there was a healthy response to the online questionnaire. Joy of joys, there were also some interesting results, so I thought I would update you with how it turned out.

Continue reading “Older and Musically Wiser?”

Good music has direct access to the emotions. As such it’s a fantastic tool for tweaking our moods. Saarikallio and Erkkila (2007) investigated the ways people use music to control and improve their mood by interviewing eight adolescents from Finland. The participants may be a small, very specific group, but they actually present a really useful list:

Continue reading “Seven Ways Music Influences Mood”

As the oboe’s ‘tuning A’ fades, the lights go down, a hush spreads across the audience, the conductor raises his baton, bringing it down with a flourish. So the orchestra starts, you settle back in your seat to listen, letting your mind drift away with the music.

Casting your eye across the faces of the musicians you begin to wonder if this is just another performance for them, just one more run-through of a well-rehearsed piece. Or is tonight special? Are they ready to invest the performance with something new, something magical that will send shivers down your spine?

Continue reading “Discover the Perfect Musical Performance”

Last night at the Barbican I was privileged to hear the world premiere of a new piece by Jonathan Dove called Hojoki. The work is based on an autobiographical story by Kamo no Chomei, a Buddhist monk who lived in the 13th century. Written in 1212, Hojoki tells of his move from Kyoto to escape the constant threat of natural and man-made disasters in the city. In this composition, the story was narrated by a countertenor soloist with the orchestra providing dramatic colour. For me it was extremely moving and the rest of audience seemed to think so as well. But, why does music have the power to access deeper parts of ourselves, to strike at the heart of what it means to be human?

Continue reading “Powerful Music”

Many people claim to be tone-deaf (technically called amusia) although it has been estimated that only about 4% of the population actually have the condition. This disparity between actual and claimed amusia is probably because it’s an excellent way of avoiding singing in public – I’ve used it on many occasions. However, researchers have found the condition to be incredibly specific.

Continue reading “Tone Deaf”

Imagine you had a cross-wiring in your brain that caused information to leak from your sense of sounds into your sense of taste. This could mean that each time you hear C sharp you taste a sprout. A similar effect might happen across other senses. Words or numbers could have colours, shapes might have tastes or sounds might have associated smells.

There is a small chance you do not have to imagine this strange experience as synaesthetes number one in 2,000 people, with women outnumbering men six to one. On a psychology course when this phenomenon is described, it is often a revelatory experience for one or two people. Suddenly a person discovers they are not alone in their unusual experience of the world.

Synaesthetes are usually normal in every way and in fact their unusual brain wiring can have some added benefits. Some find that their mathematical or musical abilities are enhanced – check out this story from Wired.
→ From Wired