Valeriia Zaozerska
“The mind of man has three keys, which open everything: the number, the letter, the
note. Know, think, dream.”
Victor Hugo
Without a doubt, music strongly influences our brain. When I listen to music, I often think: what is so magical, so indescribable, and weird about music that makes our brains work completely differently? To what extent does music affect our mood? What different emotions can it evoke in our brain? Where are these invisible levers, buttons and strings that music pulls in our brain convolutions, causing us to experience completely different states? And why do almost all people like some kind of music?
Science says that the brain perceives music in a very intricate and complex way. In one study, participants were examined in an fMRI to see what processes occur in their brains when various music is played to them. They were asked to listen to 60 music tracks in total, and each of these tracks lasted 30 seconds. During these 30 seconds, each participant had rate each song on how much they liked it. Of course, scientists were not interested in the most perfect, chart-topping compositions. They were interested in what is happening in a person’s brain while they were listening to a melody that they liked. Interestingly, it turned out, that the most active area was the so-called nucleus accumbens, or the pleasure centre of the brain. No less interesting is the fact that this zone is usually activated when a person's expectations are met. In fact, the process of listening to enjoyable music is almost as pleasant for our brains the experience of satisfying one’s needs. Additionally, the nucleus accumbens is actively excited in two more states: during intoxication and sexual arousal. From a neurophysiological perspective, all three of those states and practically the same.
Now try to remember your favorite composition or song. Maybe you’ll even want to hum or sing it. Why do you think you chose this particular composition as your favorite? It is the effect of crystallization of taste. From the very first days and years of our lives, we are going through a lot of events, and we also listen to a lot of music. All our emotional upheavals, joys and sorrows, and any dramatic turns in our lives occur in parallel with the fact that we listen to some kind of music. As children, we listen to some music and experience some emotions. In adolescence, we listen to different music and experience different teenage emotions. Then, in adult life, we listen to yet another kind of music that we like at that moment and experience some emotions in connection with our adult life. The same crystallization of taste is responsible for us associating music with our self-identity. Thus, if we have a favorite song, it is usually not because we really like the melody in this song. This melody is our favorite because we listened to it at the moment when we felt the greatest joy. For example, in our youth we experienced our first love, which was very stormy and exceeded all our expectations. If we listened to some song at that time, and then again in ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years, this song will remain our favorite. Not because of the music, but because of the context, and because of the situation in which we listened to this song the first time. That is why, every time we reproduce this song in our mind humming it, our brain wants to return to those states, to those times and places when we felt the best in our lives and when we listened to this music. This is not accidental at all, and it can also be observed in a fMRI scan. In adulthood, and even in old age, when we begin to hum our favorite songs, those areas of the brain that are responsible for nostalgia and pleasant childhood and adolescence memories begin to activate.
Which brain hemisphere do we listen to music with? It is known that we actually have two brains in our head. The left and right hemispheres are not exactly duplicates of each other: they have different functions and they perceive and process information differently. This division of roles greatly improves the productivity of our brain. The part of the brain that is usually more active while we are listening to music is our right hemisphere. It is the hemisphere that is responsible for determining the facts, as opposed to our left hemisphere, which is more concerned with interpreting facts and evaluating them. That is why our speech function is more localized in the left hemisphere. If we listen to instrumental music, our right hemisphere starts to activate. Whenever if we listen to music with lyrics, where a person sings about love, about life, about anything, our left hemisphere begins to become activated as well.
The most interesting thing is that neuroscientists have found that professional musicians perceive music with their brains in a completely different way than ordinary people perceive it. This can be seen even with the help of an electroencephalogram. This is when a large number of sensors are put on the head and brain activity is analyzed by frequency. Moreover, the brain activity of professional musicians is completely different from that of ordinary people. It is more complex and on whole a different level in terms of brain activity. Even the frequencies show differences. For me it was a real discovery because when I listen to music, I don’t divide it into bars, I don’t count the number of chords and don’t track their order. Yet, some people hear and listen to it in this way.
Coming to the most important question of this article. Why do we experience pleasure from listening to music? Where is the “start point” that triggers this feeling? The famous American psychologist of Hungarian origin Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied this issue for a long time and came to the following conclusion: the thing is that when we listen to music, our brains are in a state of constant anticipation of literally the next millisecond. We are not aware of this, we are not even capable of realizing it. Our consciousness is not able to keep up with such powerful unconscious processes. Every time we listen to music, we seem to expect what will happen next. Our brain doesn’t consciously ask this question and we don’t record it, but unconsciously it stays in our head. We are waiting for what will happen next, what will happen in the next second. And this is where dopamine comes into play. The same famous neurotransmitter of positive reinforcement. Thus, when we listen to music that we like, we experience dopamine-induced pleasure because every split second our expectations are met, we get pleasure from the fact that they are justified. Have you ever noticed such an effect on yourself that you listened to a song for the first time and didn’t like it? Then you think that it sounds better the second time. The third time you listen to it and you realize that it’s not bad at all. From the fourth time, it is almost your favorite. And on the fifth time, you have a lot of fun and feeling over the moon. I think this is a familiar pattern to many of us. It’s true that at first you don’t like the music, but then you listen to it several times or the group, listen to a few songs and you are already a devoted fan of this group. The explanation is that we teach our brain to recognize this pattern, this melody and this style. Therefore, when we listen to the song for the third, fourth, and fifth time, our brain already knows what to expect the next second in the same song because it has already heard it before. It is for the same reason that we experience wild frustration and anger if the rhythm of the music breaks. If, for example, a drummer comes out of a hangover and isn’t able to maintain the right rhythm, we experience this as annoying because we cannot benefit from the positive reinforcement of satisfied expectations.
In conclusion, music's magical ability to affect our emotions and brain function is a rich area of scientific search. From the nucleus accumbens responding to the pleasure of anticipation and fulfilled expectations, to the profound associations formed by the crystallization of our musical tastes during significant life events. music is connected with our neural fabric. The way we experience music varies from person to person, with musicians showing distinct patterns of brain activity compared to non-musicians. Ultimately, our enjoyment of music comes down to a dance of dopamine release and the anticipation of the next note, rhythm, or melody. It's these invisible strings that music pulls in our minds that create a tapestry of emotional and cognitive responses, making music a universal yet deeply personal experience. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, every song we hear takes us on a journey of fulfilled expectations and triggered memories, and, sometimes, it becomes a cherished part of who we are.
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