Music has been around since the beginnings of human existence, and it has developed together with our own evolution. We may not be conscious of all the computing is requested from our brains to transform it into something we understand as “music”, but it must do a lot of computing. It’s been used to stimulate our brain, our mood, our behavior, our physical bodies, and even provoke powerful emotions. As the British neurologist Oliver Sacks 2006 said, “our auditory systems, our nervous systems are tuned for music. Perhaps we are a musical species no less than a linguistic one.”

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The connection we as a species have to music has interested many researchers and has not been an easy job, especially because of the broadness of the topic.

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There’s not a specific area that gets stimulated when listening to music. Even though this subject has interested many researchers, it continuous to be imprecise, according to Maddie Neirman in her study Music and the Brian (2018) as she said, “It is unclear, as of the research to date, exactly which parts of the brain are stimulated by music.” The different genres of music have varying impacts as well, and it becomes subjective when it comes to personal likes.

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It may be interesting for the reader to know how to use music for his/her benefit:

  • Music therapists use the ISO principle used for mood management, which suggests starting by listening to music that matches your current mood and gradually change it to something that reaches the mood you want to achieve.
  • The benefits music has in the recovery process of many patients when having a surgery has been breath taking for many. So, it’s fair to say music has many healing effects, it could be interesting to do more research on which kind of music is the ideal for this matter, Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis developed a method called the Tomatis Method, where he played Gregorian chants and Mozart for his therapeutic process.

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Dr. Ronald Minson once said:

«Mozart is pure transcendent consciousness. When you listen to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, you have an experience of what it was like to be Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. When you listen to Mozart, he puts you in touch with who you are…”

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Tahnee Larreategui Kaufmann, trainee Psychologist, IASIS NGO

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