Parental Advisory: Music and Its Impact on the Brain

Yesterday I had someone blame me for getting a song stuck in her head.  I apologized and proceeded to ask what song it was.  They replied by reminding me of the catchy tune which is stuck in my head now as I am trying to honor my mom the English teacher with proper grammar and sentence structure as I write.

But there really is something powerful about music and how we interact with it.  I can personally relate songs to specific memories and emotions in my life.  I have moods that help me choose particular songs in my iTunes library.  I usually shuffle songs throughout the day, but as I just did seconds ago, I often skip through certain songs I’m just not in the mood for…

(skip, skip, change genre, found something to help me concentrate)

If you don’t think music is an important part of life, try driving a car that doesn’t have a CD player and the radio is broken.  If you don’t think music is important, then why is music probably one of the most stolen things in the world?  People seek after music. 

Teenagers are especially wrapped up in a world of music.  Music has a language of its own for teens that communicates all kinds of things.  And what’s more, science is now proving music has a profound impact on the brain. 

A recent article on this topic from CNN sparked my interest on the subject (you can read the full article @ http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/26/health/mental-health/music-brain-science/index.html?hpt=hp_c1). 

"I think there's enough evidence to say that musical experience, musical exposure, musical training, all of those things change your brain," says Dr. Charles Limb, associate professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at Johns Hopkins University. "It allows you to think in a way that you used to not think, and it also trains a lot of other cognitive facilities that have nothing to do with music."

“The songs that get stuck in people's heads tend to be melodically and rhythmically simple.”

"What we think is going on is that the neural circuits get stuck in a repeating loop and they play this thing over and over again."

Music has always been an important part of learning and teaching.  Judaism used music to help children remember the Torah before it was written down.  Sesame Street uses songs to help children learn.  I constantly hear youth trying to make up songs to help them study for exams. 

“Music is strongly associated with the brain's reward system. It's the part of the brain that tells us if things are valuable, or important or relevant to survival.”

If this is the case, then it is extremely important for us to pay attention to the kind of music we listen to and the kinds of music our students are listening to.  It’s not just about explicit lyrics or trying to eliminate cussing from the musical selections of our youth, but shouldn’t we be making an effort to help them connect their faith to their music, something they are all extremely interested in???

“One brain structure in particular, called the striatum, releases a chemical called dopamine in response to pleasure-related stimuli. Imaging of the brain can reveal this process is similar to what happens in your brain in response to food or sex.”

Our response to music can be so powerful.  It can even influence the motor skills of our body or how we function in groups.

“Armies train by marching to a beat, for instance. Group dancing is a social activity. There also are studies showing that when people move together to a beat, they're more likely to cooperate with each other in nonmusical tasks than if they're not in synch.”

“Another exciting arena of research: Music with a beat seems to help people with motor disorders such as Parkinson's disease walk better than in the absence of music -- patients actually synchronize their movements to a beat, Patel said.”

The complexity of our minds and bodies amazes me.  God certainly made us in a beautiful way and gave us the ability to respond to him.  If music has such a profound impact on how we function and relate with others, then we ought to be paying better attention to the kinds of music we are listening to and the place of influence we give to lyricists in our own lives. 

We should be working to create environments where teens can connect their faith in a musical manner.  Sure, we may not all agree on what the music should sound like or how loud it should be, but if music is a way of helping students remember scripture of biblical principles, then we should be flooding their ears with music that not only impacts the brain, but music that influences and impacts faith. 

(It’s a small world after all)

(Somewhere over the rainbow)

Enjoy those tunes.