Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert lamb Um Julie Douglas, And as our wonderful
Speaker 1: theme music fades into the background, there, Uh tell me, Julie,
Speaker 1: what how does that music make you feel? What comes
Speaker 1: to mind? I gotta tell you, Like, there's that that
Speaker 1: sort of something that really kind of makes me feel
Speaker 1: a little booty busting. Yeah, yeah, kind of kind of
Speaker 1: makes me in my head not a little. It has
Speaker 1: kind of like a kind of an i d M.
Speaker 1: Intelligent dance music kind of sound to it. To it.
Speaker 1: It makes me sort of think of like a a
Speaker 1: dark Alison Wonderland type forest, and there's like all sorts
Speaker 1: of weird things going on in the darkness, maybe like
Speaker 1: flashing little points of light and there's something there's something
Speaker 1: really amazing going on in the darkness, and uh, and
Speaker 1: you're just kind of wondering, all my goodness, what's what's
Speaker 1: going on out there? Like all I'm talking about is
Speaker 1: classics shaken and you're and you've fallen down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: I like that than another Loose Carroll reference there. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the great thing about music because it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, And this is kind of a an
Speaker 1: overstatement of the obvious here, but it has a profound
Speaker 1: and varying effect on on on the listener, right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you have any earworms or there any
Speaker 1: instances that you feel like with music that really sort
Speaker 1: of grabs you by the shirt tails or oh? I
Speaker 1: mean I I listen to music pretty constantly at work. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'd get any work done or or
Speaker 1: be able to commute properly if I didn't have f
Speaker 1: music going. And I've also found that, like when it
Speaker 1: comes to it to earworms, I will I will definitely
Speaker 1: get some like annoying earworms here and there, but but
Speaker 1: most of the worms I get are more like just
Speaker 1: the music and not the lyrics. Like even I think
Speaker 1: a an earworm that a lot of people may suffer
Speaker 1: from is that that Lady Gaga song the what is it?
Speaker 1: The I don't know, Yeah, I refuse to let it
Speaker 1: into my brain. Okay, well you you you're you're fortunate
Speaker 1: this far. I mean, I I don't know. I kind
Speaker 1: of like a part of the song, but then the
Speaker 1: rest of it just kind of like just slams in
Speaker 1: your head and won't let go, and then you're just
Speaker 1: trying to shake it out. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the
Speaker 1: problem with earworms. Yeah yeah, Yeah. For me, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple like one that's just a benevolent earworm right
Speaker 1: now is a Tarrangela by Robin Hitchcock. So sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning I can hear the harmonic
Speaker 1: and it's nice, and then yeah, that's a good ear warm.
Speaker 1: Most of my worms I feel are good. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're lucky because I've got one that's I've had for
Speaker 1: like a decade and I can't shake. And it usually
Speaker 1: happens like at three o'clock in the morning. I can't
Speaker 1: go to sleep and all of a sudden, I can
Speaker 1: hear the piano going, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. It's
Speaker 1: a hard not And I know there's something about that
Speaker 1: song and the lyrics. So it's interesting that for you
Speaker 1: it's it's not necessarily lyrics that are haunting you. But
Speaker 1: but that's what music is. For me. It's both. It's
Speaker 1: both the destroyer and the creator. Yeah, it's um. It's
Speaker 1: also a huge energizer, Like I think it's interesting how
Speaker 1: uh you know. The scientists pointed out that like the
Speaker 1: like slower music, you're you're sad music, you're you're you're
Speaker 1: you know, more relaxing music tends to be a lot
Speaker 1: you know, you know, slower and slower beat going on
Speaker 1: and then and then the faster music. You know, it
Speaker 1: has some sort of like really you know, raxtous beat
Speaker 1: to it that that's what gets you pumped up. Like
Speaker 1: if you I don't know if you've ever done this,
Speaker 1: if you've ever put on I have the tiger Oh
Speaker 1: yeah this morning? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know sometimes
Speaker 1: that's that's what you need to get out of the
Speaker 1: house or you know, to to really throw yourself at
Speaker 1: a project. Yeah yeah, I do that right before I
Speaker 1: scale the steps eight hundred steps um near my local park.
Speaker 1: Oh excellent, yes, yeah, well cool. Then in the fighting
Speaker 1: spirit right and then I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: The adrenaline is pumping. Yeah. I also have this theory
Speaker 1: that nobody can listen to Staying Alive without altering the
Speaker 1: way they walk, you know. But that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: That's I I think it's a good it's a great song,
Speaker 1: and I think we should always walk Like we're listening
Speaker 1: to that. I think about how that would change the world.
Speaker 1: Like imagine of like like like soldiers and people in
Speaker 1: our OTC, Like if they had to march to staying alive, Like,
Speaker 1: it would be an entirely different scene. That's right. There
Speaker 1: would be no wars, right, it would just be people
Speaker 1: styling and looking good. See that's an't that's a good
Speaker 1: example of how music can change your brain. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: when we say it change the brain, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's really it's really amazing what it can do and
Speaker 1: what it what it does do on like to all
Speaker 1: of us like every day. But like first, like what
Speaker 1: what do you think music is like? And what is
Speaker 1: it to you? Bare bones? Yeah, well, I I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it, and I kept coming up with with
Speaker 1: kind of elaborate answers. But I actually have to just
Speaker 1: sort of refer to Websters on this one because the
Speaker 1: Westers is a very it's not very creative. It's you know,
Speaker 1: the Webster's definition. It's pretty succinct, and it just says
Speaker 1: the quote the science or art of ordering tones or
Speaker 1: sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to
Speaker 1: produce a composition. Having unity and continuity. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's a series of sounds that makes some sort of
Speaker 1: sense that have like a almost almost a kind of
Speaker 1: like a narrative flow to them, even though there are
Speaker 1: no characters in a song unless you're going with some
Speaker 1: sort of Peter and the Wolf type of motif. You know. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you have to have rhythm, tone meter, what else? Um,
Speaker 1: Sometimes instruments a melody a melody, right, A little air
Speaker 1: horn drops in here and there just for sure becauzoo zoo. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just sneeze. Um. So I think that's the really
Speaker 1: cool thing about music is that it can really be anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it cross culture is too. Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: a deep part of our cognitive architecture too. Is as
Speaker 1: we discussed previously when we're talking about what alien how
Speaker 1: aliens would interpret human culture and what really stands out
Speaker 1: about who we are, like, music is a huge part
Speaker 1: of who we are and uh, you know it changed.
Speaker 1: It has the power to change our mood, to heighten
Speaker 1: our our emotions. Um. Well, and the the thing though
Speaker 1: that should be noted is that, um, we're not entirely
Speaker 1: sure how music affects our brains were just now getting
Speaker 1: some data from what the last ten years, Yeah, five
Speaker 1: to ten. It's it's it's pretty much and continues to
Speaker 1: be an emerging area of study. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: pretty explosive area to to look into our explicit field
Speaker 1: right now. And you've got cognitive psychologists and linguists. Stephen Pinker,
Speaker 1: who uh, he's just he's sort of the oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess you would say that he's the
Speaker 1: party pooper on this. He thinks that music is just
Speaker 1: auditory cheesecake and it's space like an accident of evolution, like, hey,
Speaker 1: guess what it gets talk and sing? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he he at least he's not a complete villain about it.
Speaker 1: And he's kind of like, like, I understand wanting to
Speaker 1: make more out of music than it is, but I
Speaker 1: don't you know, that's that's his his whole argument, right,
Speaker 1: And then you have other people on the other side
Speaker 1: of the coin. They're like, they're saying, we've got to
Speaker 1: make more out of this because of the findings. So
Speaker 1: um so I think it's interesting to to dive into
Speaker 1: that and look at the findings and find out how
Speaker 1: our brains work on music and specifically, like when we're
Speaker 1: listening to music, what's what's happening inside of our brains?
Speaker 1: Like just to put things in perspective, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of times, you know, people wonder is music, um, is
Speaker 1: it this thing under itself or is it just like
Speaker 1: the flip side of language? But you know, there are
Speaker 1: parts of the brain that respond to music that don't
Speaker 1: respond to language. And there are separate parts of the
Speaker 1: of the brain that respond to the melody of language,
Speaker 1: um that are different from the parts of the brain
Speaker 1: that respond to music. So it's it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: it's clearly doing unique things to our mind. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: if you look at a brain scan that you can
Speaker 1: see that it's letting up like a pinball machine or
Speaker 1: you know, as as someone had said um before in
Speaker 1: some of the literal I was reading that it's it's
Speaker 1: almost looks like a symphony. There are different parts of
Speaker 1: the symphony that are queuing up and working in concert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what they're looking at tends to be um um,
Speaker 1: blood flow, oxygen flow in the brain. That those are
Speaker 1: the indicators to show that there's something that there's there's
Speaker 1: definite neural activity going on. And I think we've all
Speaker 1: seen these brains, you know, if you haven't seen it
Speaker 1: in a movie, you've seen it on you know, at
Speaker 1: least channel flipping through your you know, your different documentary channels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and uh, it's it's pretty fascinating when you do
Speaker 1: see the brain lighting up like that because you get
Speaker 1: to see where the music is entering the ear, and
Speaker 1: it's going into the front well and temporal lobes and
Speaker 1: then into the language processing areas, and then the visual
Speaker 1: cortex lights up, and that's, um, that's actually really interesting
Speaker 1: because that's your brain kind of trying to get a
Speaker 1: visual beat on the changes in pitch and tone. So
Speaker 1: it's looking at it in a visual way. It's perceiving
Speaker 1: that as movement. Okay, So kind of like when I
Speaker 1: see the dark forest with the lights in it exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're already sort of imagining yourself in movement, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting when when you're thinking about music and then
Speaker 1: you've got your metal front cortex, and that's where if
Speaker 1: you've heard that song before, you get all weaky or
Speaker 1: you get sad. Okay. So this is like, for an example,
Speaker 1: if I listened to a particularly sad song during a
Speaker 1: like really depressing episode in my life and I and
Speaker 1: I tear up listening to it again or or get
Speaker 1: kind of weird about it if I listened to it again,
Speaker 1: that's what's going on, right, right. Or if you're like
Speaker 1: sitting there listening to Nick Drake and you know it's
Speaker 1: raining outside or something along those lines. Um, but if
Speaker 1: you're listening to something that makes you happy, then your
Speaker 1: brain starts releasing dopamine. Okay, Yeah, so you've got the
Speaker 1: reward center occupied as well. Just pretty cool. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I think is most interesting is that
Speaker 1: sometimes your neural firing synchronizes to the fundamental frequency of
Speaker 1: that sound that you're picking up. Wow, So you would
Speaker 1: be able to to look at it like a live
Speaker 1: scan of the brain, and it would it would essentially
Speaker 1: be like the visualizer on Windows Media Player, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd have these uh neural finds that are like or
Speaker 1: something along these lines. Maybe maybe you wouldn't, but in
Speaker 1: a centric millionaire could could like hire a dude to
Speaker 1: like remain hooked up to a brain scanner and you
Speaker 1: could just set the and that could be his his
Speaker 1: visualizer visualizer, that's right. If he was going to take
Speaker 1: it to that other level of entertainment. Yeah. Absolutely, m
Speaker 1: I see what you're going to be doing with your
Speaker 1: first million. Um. But all of this was pointing to
Speaker 1: the fact that, like you said, there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on the brain. There's parts that are lighting up. You've
Speaker 1: got blood flow, you've got oxygen. And what we're beginning
Speaker 1: to see is that music is tripping all sorts of
Speaker 1: switches in our brain and possibly even making a smarter
Speaker 1: if we engage in certain ways with it. And I
Speaker 1: think you see that actually with musicians. Yeah, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: been some some really cool studies, UM into just you know,
Speaker 1: how how musicians brains appear to work versus non musician brains.
Speaker 1: They've done some uh they have evenen some studies where
Speaker 1: they take they take a non musician, give them like
Speaker 1: a year of like you know, musical lessons, seeing lessons,
Speaker 1: what have you, and and they can see the changes
Speaker 1: in the neural activity, right and this they could be
Speaker 1: a terrible singer, right right. Yeah, but the fact that
Speaker 1: they're exercising this part of the brain means that what
Speaker 1: they've built up some some more muscle there, so to speak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really made me rethink. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I really don't know how musically inclined you are, um,
Speaker 1: I in terms of instruments, because I took piano lessons,
Speaker 1: I took like a recorder lesson. I was in like
Speaker 1: band for like trumpet and french horn. Played none of
Speaker 1: these things well at all. I was. I was you know,
Speaker 1: pretty uh, pretty pretty inept at times, especially with the piano.
Speaker 1: I feel. But but I've had to rethink it because
Speaker 1: I'm because I'm thinking, like, even though I didn't excel
Speaker 1: at those things, it got my brain thinking in a
Speaker 1: musical way, and maybe that benefited me in the long run,
Speaker 1: right and in other ways that you might have not
Speaker 1: even known. Yeah, um no, well I'd not really musically incline,
Speaker 1: you know. In um college, I took my grandfather's saxophone.
Speaker 1: It's saxophone, it's awesome, and had it restored, and I
Speaker 1: took lessons and I was terrible, and I would try
Speaker 1: to bend the notes, and my music teacher would get
Speaker 1: really angry and just say please, just like learn the
Speaker 1: notes and do it well. And I thought, well, surely
Speaker 1: after six months, I can I can sound um like Coltrane, right, um.
Speaker 1: But that didn't work out so I got discouraged. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like you, I'm rethinking it. I'm thinking, okay, if if I,
Speaker 1: even if I'm terrible at it, um, maybe this can
Speaker 1: help me to have a thicker cortex like other musicians. Uh,
Speaker 1: And which just basically means that you've got a lot
Speaker 1: more activity going on your frontal cortex and the areas
Speaker 1: of your brain that are responsible for language and planning.
Speaker 1: And this is another cool thing about musicians. They're better
Speaker 1: at picking out selective patterns in a room where there's
Speaker 1: that might be a cacophony of sound, So they kind
Speaker 1: of have better selective hearing, if you will. So if
Speaker 1: you needed someone to like spy on somebody in a
Speaker 1: busy room, hire the spy that has a musical background.
Speaker 1: See that's why I was thinking I should continue with
Speaker 1: saxophone lessons, because you never know when you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to switch over a full time to that spying career,
Speaker 1: right right, It's it's just a good thing to have
Speaker 1: in your back pocket. Yeah, nobody wants to hear I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to go with the bassoon player. No, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's true. But but the other thing that all of
Speaker 1: this is pointing to is of course music and children, right,
Speaker 1: and the fact that children who study and learn music
Speaker 1: aren't just increasing their motor skills, but they're scoring higher
Speaker 1: on language tests than they show an overall improved processing
Speaker 1: and linguistic centers of the brain. So you have to
Speaker 1: be engaging in the music, of course, can't just be
Speaker 1: a passive listener. But that also makes me think of
Speaker 1: the mosartiffect. Okay, this is where you play Mozart for
Speaker 1: an unborn child. Well, this is what Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: the result of a study. That's that's actually that's the
Speaker 1: interpretation um from the results. But the result is that
Speaker 1: basically college students who went underwent the study that when
Speaker 1: they listen to Mozart that for some temporal spatial testing
Speaker 1: that they actually increased their scores. But it was temporary,
Speaker 1: and they were bored, and they were bored, and they
Speaker 1: were they were constructing things out of paper. Um, so
Speaker 1: that was essentially the test. But people took that and
Speaker 1: they ran with it. And like Governor Zell Miller, if
Speaker 1: Georgia had mandated that every child born would get a
Speaker 1: Mozart c D and so the you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite that. And I think that's the interesting to point
Speaker 1: out that it's not just listening to music, it's engaging
Speaker 1: in it that really helps benefit the brain and builds
Speaker 1: it up quite a bit more musically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the most extreme case of this is
Speaker 1: probably in some ailments that occur in the brain um
Speaker 1: story victims Parkinson's disease along those lines, right, they're they're
Speaker 1: able to actually use the music to repair damn it,
Speaker 1: to to to rebuild the brain. And in a certain sense, yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way, I mean Parkinson's um You know, of
Speaker 1: course you're your motor system is going to be tripped
Speaker 1: up with that, and so music kind of helps the
Speaker 1: auditory system and the motor system, uh, be in concert
Speaker 1: with each other. So if you've got a partisan patient
Speaker 1: and you put on a rhythm track, that actually helps
Speaker 1: that person to better coordinate their movements. So again, think
Speaker 1: about the neurons, you know, firing to a certain beat
Speaker 1: or like playing staying alive, and everybody ends up kind
Speaker 1: of threatened instead of just walking right right. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: during physical therapy, you know, you just have to imagine
Speaker 1: that you're you're in the movie walking down the street,
Speaker 1: You're staying a lot. This presentation is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. I have to admit, like
Speaker 1: when I whenever I go to like a like a
Speaker 1: concert or like a big like DJ event, and uh
Speaker 1: and in the crowd is really into it. I can't
Speaker 1: help but think of like old Viking movies where there's
Speaker 1: like the guy on the back of the king ship
Speaker 1: of Viking longboat like beating on the drum and everyone's
Speaker 1: moving in tandem with the drummer. Because that's how it feels.
Speaker 1: It's like one guy, you know, be it or you know,
Speaker 1: one band or the DJ or whoever. It's like they're
Speaker 1: controlling everyone and everyone is just synchronized with this beat,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. And actually, um, people who who talk
Speaker 1: about the auditory cheesecake, they actually point to that experience
Speaker 1: that you're talking about and say that, uh, music is
Speaker 1: actually a way to bring people together. It does have
Speaker 1: an evolutionary purpose and that if you can get everybody's
Speaker 1: neurons synchronized in a group, then you can form some
Speaker 1: sort of basis of cooperation for community. Well that's instantly.
Speaker 1: And part of this is because I'm reading rereading Name
Speaker 1: of the Roads. I can't help but think of a
Speaker 1: monastic community and the importance of music. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: imagine any like church groups, uh, etcetera, or even even
Speaker 1: the military, I guess come to think of it, like
Speaker 1: with the sort of thing those little songs they chant
Speaker 1: while they're marching. My mom said, yeah, yeah, that one,
Speaker 1: that that classic ballad. Um. Yeah, it's like a community
Speaker 1: building thing. They're all sort of syncing up and becoming
Speaker 1: one body under the music. Yeah. Yeah, So I mean
Speaker 1: they are, Like I said, there are people who point
Speaker 1: to that and say, there is a purpose, there's a
Speaker 1: reason why all of us have this what they think
Speaker 1: innate ability to understand music, um and to incorporate it
Speaker 1: in our lives. And if you look at the importance
Speaker 1: of music, especially with memory we're talking about a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier, with the medial front cortex, that that's where
Speaker 1: all your memories are stored. They're finding that Alzheimer's patients
Speaker 1: and dementia patients are responding really well to musical therapy
Speaker 1: because when they hear pieces of music, it actually helps
Speaker 1: sense to sort of unlock the box, you know, crack it,
Speaker 1: open access their memories again and actually helping them to
Speaker 1: increase their short term and long term memory, which is
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, and then you've got stroke victims who
Speaker 1: they may be able to understand what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: they can't. They the use of language is gone. They
Speaker 1: can't express themselves. And they've been singing in some studies, Uh,
Speaker 1: what they're trying to say phrases and in some cases
Speaker 1: they can sing two hundred three hundred phrases. Um, they
Speaker 1: may on a sort of road to recovery and being
Speaker 1: able to eventually speak again. Yeah, so music is definitely
Speaker 1: Are they singing what they want to say? Are they
Speaker 1: singing things? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Actually there's a documentary called
Speaker 1: The Music Intuition, and they show a woman who is
Speaker 1: going through therapy and, uh, the woman that's working with
Speaker 1: her says, Okay, now suppose that your two year old
Speaker 1: daughter is about to run down the street, what do
Speaker 1: you say? And she sings wait for me? But she
Speaker 1: couldn't never say wait for me, you know, So she's
Speaker 1: regaining that ability through music. It's interesting because we were
Speaker 1: actually talking the other day about how it might be
Speaker 1: a little difficult if we were to do a musical
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. But for someone who's having to
Speaker 1: reclaim their speech, like music is the the in road
Speaker 1: to speaking again. That's interesting. Yeah, and so that's that's
Speaker 1: again where the mystery is sort of coming in, because
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is a fairly new field of study.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago, people didn't necessarily know that music could
Speaker 1: access your brain in these ways. And I'm also thinking
Speaker 1: about another therapy session. This was done by neuroscientists David Soto.
Speaker 1: He had sixty stroke victims who sustained damage to her
Speaker 1: parietal cortex, which is related to visual and spatial processing.
Speaker 1: And it was very unusual and that the victims lost
Speaker 1: half of their spatial weren't awareness and some of them
Speaker 1: would eat food on only one side of her mouth,
Speaker 1: or they would shave only one side of their face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so their perceptions way off. So what happened is when
Speaker 1: Soto played music that made them happy they during their therapy,
Speaker 1: they were actually able to increase their abilities and be
Speaker 1: able to perceive more. And the interesting thing about this
Speaker 1: is that they played a couple of different pieces of music,
Speaker 1: but the ones that were most popular for Frank Sinatra
Speaker 1: and Kenny Rogers. I guess of the two of the
Speaker 1: two who had the better results with the victims. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking Frank probably took more of a firm hand
Speaker 1: with him. Okay, I would think so too. Fly Me
Speaker 1: to the Moon very uplifting. Kenny Rogers, Please tell me
Speaker 1: it was early Kenny Rodgers at least I don't know.
Speaker 1: The fifth edition was the fifth edition that's in the
Speaker 1: Land of Lady Gaga for me. I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 1: just stepped in to see what condition my condition was in.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, okay, I didn't have that one. Oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's as track. I bet that probably is someone
Speaker 1: that I would hope, so yeah, well we hope. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but they thought about actually renaming it the Kenny Rogers Effect,
Speaker 1: no joke, I'm not kidding, but um, that kind of
Speaker 1: points to the fact that when you are happy, when
Speaker 1: you're listening to music, you've got the release of dopamines,
Speaker 1: and that when you have the release of dopamins, that
Speaker 1: you've actually got more neural resources. So that's what they're
Speaker 1: seeing there with the stroke victims is that it was
Speaker 1: actually allowing them to perform a skill set that they
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily happy for. What's interesting, they've they've also been
Speaker 1: some some studies into how music can be used for
Speaker 1: people suffering from chronic heart disease and the the results
Speaker 1: are not set in stone on this one, um, but
Speaker 1: they've but scientists have found that that like in a
Speaker 1: study that had like, you know, about participants, they found
Speaker 1: that it had a modern effect on anxiety, uh in
Speaker 1: patients with the c h D chronic card disease. UM.
Speaker 1: But the results were kind of inconsistent across the studies.
Speaker 1: But that but that listening to music reduces heart rate,
Speaker 1: respiratory rate, and blood pressure in other words, you know,
Speaker 1: a calming effect on the body, which can have you know,
Speaker 1: can be very medicinal given certain conditions such as chronic
Speaker 1: card disease UM. And then I've also also saw a
Speaker 1: few studies talking about it to use in treating depression
Speaker 1: or or anxiety. And again it a part of it
Speaker 1: comes down to, you know, like if anybody who's ever
Speaker 1: like meditated to music or or used relax that used
Speaker 1: music as a relaxation tool, you know obviously knows the
Speaker 1: relaxing effects of music. But but but but you know
Speaker 1: that very effect has a can have a clinical use
Speaker 1: as well. They've also found that in some therapies it's
Speaker 1: kind of like music is you know, music is a
Speaker 1: universal language to sort of use a you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a cliche term there. But but if you have
Speaker 1: a person who's not very receptive to therapy um and
Speaker 1: and and maybe not that receptive to just one on one,
Speaker 1: you know, verbal communication, music can kind of break down doors.
Speaker 1: It's it's something they can instantly get and it's less
Speaker 1: threatening to them. So that's one of the benefits they
Speaker 1: thought that the experts have found with music therapy, you know,
Speaker 1: on the opposite side of the coin, I just have
Speaker 1: to mention that I ran across the Study of Mice
Speaker 1: and Meth. I wish that were the title of it,
Speaker 1: but that's actually wasn't um of Mice and Meth. That
Speaker 1: they took these mice and they put them on math
Speaker 1: and then they gave some of them a quiet space,
Speaker 1: and some of them they just blasted really loud music,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to see if the toxicity levels would
Speaker 1: rise with a really loud music. Very particular study. Well,
Speaker 1: what they were trying to do is say, um that
Speaker 1: if you're on meth and in you're on nightclub, that
Speaker 1: it can actually be um, I'm much more dangerous to you.
Speaker 1: This is the you know, what they pose it because
Speaker 1: it enhances the toxic effects of meth the load music,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wow, that's that's so disturbing and poor mice.
Speaker 1: And I've got to say that we need to start
Speaker 1: cataloging all of the little indignities that they have to
Speaker 1: suffer in the name of science as we can figure
Speaker 1: out our drug effits. Yeah. Yeah, so that you know,
Speaker 1: like I said on the flip side there, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: like you said, it can be um can be very healing.
Speaker 1: But I mean music is powerful in the sense that
Speaker 1: it could illuminate um other other areas of your brain.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say illuminate, I should say and enhance those
Speaker 1: parts of your brain. If you happen to be on
Speaker 1: meth and you are a mouse out there, quick little
Speaker 1: diversion there. So I think what all of this is
Speaker 1: pointing to is that we have something called neural plasticity. Okay,
Speaker 1: and this just means that the brain is not set
Speaker 1: in stone, that it's there are our neural architecture can change, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is like the really incredible message of
Speaker 1: all of this is that if if you can help
Speaker 1: uh someone who has Parkinson's, you know, get back on
Speaker 1: the road. To therapy with music because it's stimulating parts
Speaker 1: of their brain that they didn't know it could stimulate before.
Speaker 1: What can it do to our own brains? You know,
Speaker 1: what can we going forward to learn from us? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just also the message to that, like when you're
Speaker 1: listening to music, it's like we tend to sort of
Speaker 1: think our music something I listened to it in the background,
Speaker 1: you know, or you know, it's it's playing in the car,
Speaker 1: or you know, I I turned it on to just
Speaker 1: chill out or rock out in the afternoon or what
Speaker 1: you know, whatever however you do it. But but something
Speaker 1: really deeper is going on. You know, You're it's kind
Speaker 1: of like it's you, You're, you're you're sort of recharging
Speaker 1: your your mind, rewriting your mind, even depending on what
Speaker 1: you're listening to and how you listen to it, right,
Speaker 1: your emotions are being provoked and you may not even
Speaker 1: know it. Just I mean, you might be in the
Speaker 1: elevator listening to elevator music. So you know, music, music
Speaker 1: is manipulation too in that sense. And we're in the
Speaker 1: day and age where we're surrounded by and you know,
Speaker 1: I actually, you know, thankfully for me, I feel like
Speaker 1: we're in the day and age where we have access
Speaker 1: to so much music at the same time it is
Speaker 1: it's ubiquitous. Yeah, it is everywhere, and it's just there.
Speaker 1: There's so much great music out there. And like one
Speaker 1: of the I think the good things about the Internet
Speaker 1: is that you had It's like you can explore so much,
Speaker 1: whereas like when I was in high school, had like
Speaker 1: the worst musical taste because I had so little to
Speaker 1: pull from, you know, right, Yeah, and this is interesting
Speaker 1: to found this out that perfect pitch in Western cultures, uh,
Speaker 1: fourteen percent of the population is represented, which is miniscule, right,
Speaker 1: people who have perfect pitch, But in Asian cultures that
Speaker 1: it's actually yeah, and there's warm theorist who comes at
Speaker 1: it by saying that those languages are microtonal and um.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think about it this way. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard Chinese opera? Yes, okay, probably the first time
Speaker 1: you heard it, did it seem sort of jarring and
Speaker 1: maybe even off key and no offense to people who
Speaker 1: love it. But every time I've heard it it's starring okay, So,
Speaker 1: and I think that's because we're all, you know, creating
Speaker 1: these these neural pathways right in neural systems of understanding
Speaker 1: of music, and so what you're exposed to is a
Speaker 1: Westerner is probably what your preference is going to be.
Speaker 1: And so if you, as an Asian have a microtonal language,
Speaker 1: then what that's basically doing for you is giving you
Speaker 1: a more nuanced understanding of pitch, tone, melody, rhythm. And
Speaker 1: so the idea is that put you in a lot
Speaker 1: better position to be able to have perfect pitch and
Speaker 1: detect it, which is another very cool crossroads I think
Speaker 1: of language and music and something that we have to
Speaker 1: reconsider how music works with language, um in its own right. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So it's that's sort of exciting to me. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: I will I do have to stress. I do like
Speaker 1: a lot of Asian music, just not not Chinese like
Speaker 1: court orchestra type stuff. Well sure, yeah, but I get it.
Speaker 1: It's not first on my playlist. Yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a little jarring. So if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about these topics, go to the House to Works dot
Speaker 1: com website and check out is There a Link Between
Speaker 1: Music and Happiness by Molly Edmonds And if you happen to,
Speaker 1: you know, hit the video store. If you're turning into
Speaker 1: PBS or you you just use Netflix, especially Netflix streaming.
Speaker 1: You can watch the documentary The Music Instincts Aience and Song.
Speaker 1: It is a fascinating what two hours, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: just it really hits. Uh. It's like some of the
Speaker 1: stuff we've talked about, but then the whole the whole
Speaker 1: other area too. Yeah. Bobby mcfarren is uh, I guess
Speaker 1: you would say, uh, sort of the host of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeahs at least a co host in it. They get
Speaker 1: pretty heavy into the neurological implications of of music and
Speaker 1: and what it what it says, what it might say
Speaker 1: in the future. Really really good, really good show. Check
Speaker 1: it out. And music and space, music in space. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you've got an earworm that you would like
Speaker 1: to let us know about, we want to hear about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm interested to know of anybody else out there
Speaker 1: has the situation where most of the earworms are are
Speaker 1: non lyrical because I haven't really I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've meant anybody that else it has that. Not that
Speaker 1: I'm patting myself on the back back for being strange
Speaker 1: or anything, but I just feel like other himself on
Speaker 1: the back, but some other people have to have that too,
Speaker 1: so yeah, absolutely let us now. You can email us
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter,
Speaker 1: where you can also find us as blow the Mind.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in
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