I have a particular fascination with the fact that certain music can evoke such a powerful emotional response- part of what makes it such a powerful healing modality... that it can assist us in accessing deep places within ourselves of joy, angst or ecstasy- sometimes taking us on a white water raft trip and sometimes a gentle sail on a balmy sea and ultimately deposit us back on the shore feeling soothed, peaceful and whole once again.
Daniel Levitin, author of Your Brain on Music, psychologist and researcher has been exploring this curious power that music has over us for many years. As more and more study is being done in the field of psychoacoustics- the effect of music on the mind- scientists are beginning to get clues about this phenomenon. Yesterday there was a fascinating article in the New York Times Science Section which actually followed up one written several years ago specifically about Mr. Levitin's works and his book. This latest article has some very interesting input from a number of musicians as well, including Paul Simon and Bobby McFerrin.
Enjoy the read. This may actually open up to an interactive page where you can listen to different pieces of music and then enter your response. If the link doesn't work (I couldn't find hte "embed" code) then just cut and paste the url. It's worth it if this topic is even mildy interesting to you.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/18/science/20110419-music-expression.html?src=me&ref=science
No comments:
Post a Comment