The influence of music

Think about the extraordinary power of music to comfort, inspire, and uplift.

Old Time Rock & Roll

The oldest musical instrument we’ve found, a flute, dates back to Neanderthal times, 35,000 years ago, around the time that modern humans started moving into Europe (A bit the reverse of the British Invasion!)   It’s believed that music was a widespread part of society as far back as 40,000 years ago, according to Professor Nicholas Conard of Tubingen University – and that they used it pretty much as we do today. We have an innate understanding of how music shapes our moods and soothes the soul, which is increasingly backed up research.

“Old Time Rock & Roll”

Still like that old time rock'n' roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock 'n' roll
Bob Seger

Ever wondered why a thumping great tune makes you feel like you’re flying with happiness?  The saccule is a batch of cells in the inner ear which normally responds to how your head moves – especially moving up and down, as in an elevator (although the saccule is usually not partial to Elevator music). It’s not normally used for hearing, but it does responds to loud music. And the saccule has a hot line to the hypothalamus, your brain’s pleasure center.  That feeling of leaping euphoria, also sometimes called the “rock ‘n roll effect”, is basically what happens if you tickle your hypothalamus’s tummy. So to speak.  And so the “Head Banger Bands” can thank fish for this one, because we inherited it from our fish ancestors.  (New Scientist, 19 February 2000)

Glee & celebration

It’s widely acknowledged that singing makes us happy, even more so than listening to other people sing. As well as boosting your mood, it increases your levels of immunoglobulin A (S-IgA), which strengthens your immune system.  Other medical benefits of music include helping people recover from strokes and enhancing memory for patients with Alzheimer's. With the recent popularity of shows like American Idol and America Got Talent, the joy the singers bring to the studio audience and television audience is tremendous.  But the happiest people involved our the people standing behind the microphones.

Music doesn’t just benefit individuals, though. For one thing, it’s used to express social bonding.  (It doesn’t cause social bonding, though, so much as show it.)  Anywhere there is a celebration, from weddings to night clubs, from dinner parties to religious services, music is present.  And this social bonding we see at these celebrations is created through something called social contagion – basically, one person being happy is good for everyone.  One of the major neurological processes for human beings are our mirror neurons – the old “monkey see, monkey do” effect so feared and loved by parents around the world.  These mirror neurons fire when we watch other people do something, to the point where we can even think we did it ourselves.

Look at the happiness on these faces – and see what a smile it brings to your own.

Uniting the World

And while musical preferences and styles may be cultural, their emotional content is not: emotions in music are universally recognized.  We connect across cultures with music far more effectively than we do with the meanings given to colors, numbers, or physical gestures.   We witness this time and time again at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer and Winter Olympics.   Athletes, literally from all over the world, coming from every culture imaginable, come together to celebrate the games through music and dance.   Positive emotions like joy, bliss and euphoria are created by the music and dance and magnified by social contagion.  And for those few hours the differences that divide us are gone and the power of music literally unites the world.

Peace in Our Time

Throughout history music has also created cultural change for the better through the message in its lyrics

“The Times They Are A-changing”

Come mother and fathers
Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin’

Please get out of the new one

If you can’t lend your hand

For the time they are a-changin’.

Bob Dylan

So why does a blog that concentrates on the evolution of the human race and the creation of Heaven on Earth by December 21^st care about the scientific, spiritual and historical impact of music?   The reason is we believe music can play an important role in creating the environmental structure necessary for the human race to evolve and create its Stairway to Heaven.   In our Sept. 20^th post, Emotional Decisions, we discuss how love-based emotions like joy, compassion, and even glee must make the decisions of the day if the human race is to evolve and we believe music can help create these love-based emotions both through its melody (tickling your hypothalamus’s tummy) and through its lyrics, creating a positive message to the collective intelligence.    And through social contagion, with the help of social media, music can magnify these love-based emotions and messages and help lift the human race above the ideological walls of culture, politics, and religion that currently divide us.  If the world we live in today is on the main floor, Heaven on Earth will be in the Penthouse – so let’s start building our Stairway to Heaven and create “Peace in Our Time”.

“Peace in Our Time”

Cause you and I know
What love is worth
We’re gonna build
A Heaven on Earth
Running in theWheels of fortune
Turning Water into Wine

Gonna make love the bottom line
Gonna make peace in our Time

Eddie Money

Imagine

We can start building our Stairway to Heaven now by imagining a world that lives as one and in doing so manifesting “Heaven on Earth” and “Peace in Our Time” on December 21^st, 2012 and beyond.

And remember
the truth that once was spoken:
to love another person is to see the face of God…
Do you hear the people sing…?