You Are the Music: How Music Reveals What it Means to be Human
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Authors: Victoria Williamson
You Are The Music
You Are The Music
How Music Reveals What
It Means To Be Human
Victoria Williamson
Published in the UK in 2014 by
Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP
email:
[email protected]
www.iconbooks.net
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by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,
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ISBN: 978-1-84831-653-9
Text copyright © 2014 Victoria Williamson
The author has asserted her moral rights.
The quotation from T.S. Eliot’s
Four Quartets
on page 1
is by kind permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Typeset in Dante by Marie Doherty
Printed and bound in the UK by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Contents
Chapter 3 Music for adolescent years
Part III: Music across the lifespan
Acknowledgements
It all started about five years ago. I did not know quite what to think when my partner Oscar gave me
musicpsychology.co.uk
as a birthday present. He explained himself quickly: I loved talking about the psychology of music and this was a chance to discuss my passion with the whole world. He was right (yes, I said it). The blog soon became my baby and this book is the culmination of over a decade’s exploration into the wonderful world of music psychology. So thank you Oscar, for everything.
I am hugely grateful to all the magnificent people at Icon Books, especially to Duncan Heath, who supported me throughout the writing process, to Andrew Furlow and Henry Lord for their enthusiasm and creativity, and to Robert Sharman for his keen and careful eye. I am grateful, too, to the talented Richard Green for his striking cover design. I consider myself very lucky to have had such a great team behind my book.
Many students, colleagues and friends have been generous with their time in discussing both this book and the psychological impact of writing it upon the author. I could not possibly name all these kind souls but I want to make special mention to Joydeep Bhattacharya, Rhiannon Jones, Pamela Heaton, Daniel Müllensiefen, Georgina Floridou, Maurice Douglas, Danielle Richardson and Team Barcelona.
Dad, thank you for the baby taming, the music lessons, the instruments, the lifts to music centres, the speakers, the vinyl, the music-filled holidays, and for reading every chapter
of this book with the same vigour and humour that you once reserved for my maths homework. You are my hero.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my amazing, supportive, enthusiastic, loving, one-of-a-kind family.
Introduction
You are the music / While the music lasts
T.S. ELIOT,
FOUR QUARTETS
Since you have been so kind as to consider reading this book I am going to assume that you have an interest in music; why we love it so much and how it affects us. Me too!
I promise to assume nothing else about you. To read this book requires no expert knowledge of or training in music, psychology, brain science, or any other kind of academic discipline. All you need with you on this journey is your curiosity about music.
The reason for this book, and for my career, is a passion for music. I am, at best, an amateur musician. I love my classical guitar (‘The Professor’) but we see each other rarely these days what with work demands, so my musical interests don’t come from the viewpoint of a skilled performer. Nor would I consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable about music. I am not a sophisticated listener; more a musical chameleon. I rarely come across music that I don’t enjoy on some level.
I put the blame for my music addiction squarely on my dad. When I was born he acquired a lovely book called
Baby Taming
1
(seriously), which stated that playing loud music at bedtime helps a child to sleep deeply and with less disruption. I have no idea whether this pop psychology contains any truth – as far as I know the claim has never been tested – but my dad needed little encouragement to fire up his Celestion Ditton 66 speakers and crank out the vinyl every night.
As a result of this baby book and my dad’s love of vinyl I have been surrounded by music from day one. Not music practice or performance so much, as neither of my parents could play an instrument. Rather, in my family music was in the air.
I was fortunate to go to a primary school that offered free instrument lessons for a time and I chose to play the guitar, though I also dabbled in mandolin, recorder and flute. I had formal music lessons on classical guitar, with a charming teacher named Andrew Forrest who instilled in me a love of Spanish music, especially Fernando Sor, Francisco Tárrega and Isaac Albéniz. I enjoyed my formal lessons until the age of eighteen but took few music exams as I found them too stressful.
Alongside my formal music education I had increasing access to my favourite music as I grew up thanks to the explosion in the availability of compressed music and portable devices. And the music listening revolution has continued in my adult life with developments like cloud-based systems for musical storage. Today this means that people need never be far away from their top tunes. And I never am. I am listening to the wonderful Three Tenors as I write this introduction. I had BBC music radio playing in my car on the way to work this morning. My dad’s beloved Celestion Ditton 66 speakers now take pride of place in my living room.
Not only am I addicted to music, I am also addicted to working out why I am addicted to music. (I believe that is what is known as an over-analytical mind.) I blame my passion for studying my musical addiction on a handful of inspirational academics that I have been lucky enough to meet on my journey as I studied psychology, the psychology of music, and finally as I began my research career. There are too many people to name individually, though deserving of special mention are my ‘academic fathers’ and inspirations, Professors Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch.
I have devoted my research career to understanding how and why music is so much a part of our everyday lives. There are already many technical books out there that explore aspects of music psychology – a young and vibrant science that examines the relationship between music and our mind, brain, and body. There are also excellent compilations, essay collections and student guides, for which I am hugely grateful as a lecturer. But I wanted a book that I could recommend to a friend who was keen to learn about the impact of music on everyday life: the person who listens to their iPod on their way to work and who refuses to contemplate a long car journey without music; the parent who takes their child to musical activity classes or pays for formal music lessons; the person who owns a shower radio, looks forward to concerts and gigs, shops to a soundtrack, and who carefully selects music for a romantic night to ensure maximum seduction; the person who can’t help but be transported back to that one perfect evening when they hear ‘that song’. I wanted an easy-to-access guide book that explained everyday music psychology for everyone – so I decided to write it.
This book contains a selection of the findings and theories through which researchers have sought to tell the story of our lives with music. My aim in this book is to consider why we live this way. In terms of music’s power over us I want to have a go at revealing ‘the wizard behind the curtain’.
As we shall see in more detail in the pages to come, music can trigger growth in the brain at any age, a fact which has been linked to enhancement of hearing acuity, language learning and motor control. In children, music lessons have been associated with the advanced development of many physiological, social and cognitive skills and in adults music can boost sports performance by up to 15 per cent. Music provides a source of communication for those who struggle with language and it can provide significant comfort from both
physical and mental pain. It can help improve recovery from illness and injury, and support and guide transitions through life stages. Finally, it provides a personal soundtrack and an instant memory passport.
Just about everyone is exposed to music every day, whether voluntarily or not. People dedicate their time to its production, performance and consumption. There are national music days, where countries celebrate their musical heritage, talents and passions. So the issue is not whether we are engaging with music; in fact, we are gorging on it. The secrets of music psychology can help solve the question of why music has such an effect upon us. Why do we love it so much? Why is it everywhere? And how does it have so many effects on our brains, bodies and behaviours?
The underlying concept for the book is ‘the music of our lives’: from the time we are born to later adulthood. The mapping of music through life in this way allows a journey to unfold and means that there will, I hope, be something in the book for everyone.
But before we begin, there are some fundamental questions we need to consider.
What is music?
I was once asked this intriguing question as part of a radio programme hosted by Professor Lord Robert Winston. I froze completely. What could I say? Over a decade of focused study behind me and I could not think of a single decent response. I kicked myself the whole way home from the recording studio, and for several days afterwards.
I have since forgiven Professor Winston for his excellent question and have considered what my answer might be, given what I have learned so far. I have come up with the following definition:
Music is a universal, human, dynamic, multi-purpose, sound signalling system
. That description is not set in stone; it
is a work in progress. For now it gives us something to work with for the purpose of this book.
Where did music come from?
There are many theories about how music became part of our world. Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection posits that music evolved as a form of fitness display to attract potential mates. Or maybe we developed music as a way to soothe and educate our infants. It might have provided a valuable medium for tribes and families to identify themselves and communicate their social cooperation. Or maybe music evolved from a proto-language that allowed our ancestors to communicate crucial signals before they developed words and sentences.
I have been a firm believer in all these theories of music’s origin, and more, at various points in my career. That is the best way to be as a scientist. There is nothing more boring than someone who sticks to the same tired old ideas for years, refusing to budge or admit they may need a rethink.
My preferred explanation at the time of writing comes from Mark Changizi, who muses about the origins of music and language in his fantastic book
Harnessed
.
2
He suggests that our obsession with music arose because it ‘harnessed’ so much of nature around us and because it used existing and ancient brain mechanisms for new and exciting purposes.
Music in this sense is not a fundamental part of human life because it’s a part of our souls or the ‘language of love’, tempting as it is to fall back on such romantic notions. Changizi’s argument stresses that music is a part of us because we designed it based on who we were and what we needed as humans. The human animal, our evolving brains and bodies, were the blueprint for music.
I like the idea that music is part of what turned us into the modern human that we recognise today. Changizi suggests
that music, along with language and reading, is what turned apes into humans. We, by this definition, are the musical animal.
Are we the only musical animal?
We are not the only animal to make musical sounds, although you could argue that we have a tendency to anthropomorphise such behaviours. Birds, mice and whales sing, gorillas duet, seals and elephants move to the beat, and so on (see Chapter 6).
Despite these examples, to my knowledge there is no other animal on earth that is as driven by, obsessed with, and vulnerable to the strains of music as humans. No other animal invests as much in the creation or acquisition of musical sound; we devote precious energy to making instruments, constructing and maintaining music ensembles, producing music for easy consumption, and aspiring to solo musical performance perfection.
I do not mean to say that other animals can’t share in aspects of musical perception, production or enjoyment. It would be a pretty strange world if we humans had developed a skill that did not exist in any form in any other animal – that would make us a musical alien. My premise for this book is instead that we are far and away the most musical animal this planet has ever seen. In this sense our musical lives provide a unique glimpse into what it means to be human.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first section
deals with music as we grow up.
Chapter 1
begins at the start, with the music we hear before we are even born. We see that babies come into the world with an impressive catalogue of musical skills that lay the foundation for their musical adulthood. Through
Chapters 2 and 3
we explore the effects of music in
childhood through to adolescence, including the link between music and IQ, the ingredients for a successful musical education, and the role that music plays in our personal, emotional and social development.
The
second section
takes a look at music in the adult world: the true hidden musical talents within us and the transformations that occur in the brain when an individual trains as a musician (
Chapter 4
). We will also take a look at individuals who struggle with music their whole lives and find out what it is to be ‘tone deaf’. We then take a tour through the music in our modern adult world, at work (
Chapter 5
) and at play (
Chapter 6
).
The
third and final section
takes a reflective journey through the importance of music across the whole of the human lifespan.
Chapter 7
is devoted to musical memory, my personal academic passion. We look at feats of musical memory and explore cases of musical memory surviving extensive brain damage. Then there is the intriguing question of why musical memories get stuck in our heads. Finally, we build on these and other studies in
Chapter 8
to explore how music can help support health and well-being at all life stages.
I can appreciate that this looks like quite a journey – after all, it’s a whole human life – but you are free to dip in and out of the book as you like. The chapters are designed to be largely self-contained so you can jump right to your personal interest, whether it’s musical babies, music lessons, music for romance, music for work, music for exercise, or music for stress relief.
So, my fellow musical animal, let’s begin our exploration of what the world of science and psychology can tell us about our day-to-day, lifelong, love of music.