How Music Influence Our Minds and Emotions.
Introduction
Music is the combination of instrumental and vocal sound to produce form beauty, emotion expression, and harmony. The study focuses on the influences of music on our minds and emotions as we tend to use it in daily lives. Different emotions are expressed when we listen to music, for instance, laughing, crying, and smiling. While we are not very concern with the influence of music, it has complex interaction which affects our brain that affects our thought, physical movements, and feelings. Recently, researches on how music influences our mind and emotions have dramatically increased. According to Clark & Tamplin (2016), response to music is both unconscious and conscious, which involves entrainment of neurology, perception of pain, and change of emotion. Music affects the brain in that it increases sports performance and moods but hinders memory during the learning phase.
Many researchers have studied the effects of music. However, the emergence of mixed reactions has raised concern about the kind of impact portrayed by the music. Which begs the question: How music influences our mind and emotions? Answering this question will broaden our understanding of how our feelings and thinking are affected by music; hence it will assist us in controlling our emotions for better performance. Task performance is influenced by musical pleasure, and effect shape relies on individual or group factors. This study will explore the influences of music in the context of our mind and emotions. This study is essential for enhancing the performance of students by administrators and teachers in music education.
Literature Review
The study of the influence of music had been ignored, but recently it has become a prominent area of research. Although some research findings outline that people tend to use music in developing their emotional and cognitive conditions, many pieces of research have demonstrated the correlation of music and poor performance in learning (Gurgen, 2016). The literature proves that as much as we enjoy the benefits of music, we should be cautious about its effect on our minds and emotion as it alters cognitive development and prevents long term memory formation. Harmony in music can affect neuroplasticity in the brain responsible for compensating diseases and injuries. When the mind is engaged well, listening to music improves, sustains, and activates our attention. It is associated with rousing both our physiological and emotional responses as it works intensely in our minds as it requires little reflection of consciousness.
According to (Gurgen, 2016), individuals develop their cognitive and social conditions through listening to music. However, contradiction is evident in an explanation that music is used by people primarily for good feelings, and it is not used as a cognitive development tool (Musliu et al., 2017). Music stimulates a neuropsychological response, which eventually influences emotional experiences and mood. Due to musical experience, the endocrine system release serotonin and dopamine, which exhibits an intense feeling of pleasure and reward, enhancing our positive feelings (Clark & Tamplin, 2016). A similar explanation is evident that music that is considered pleasurable increases dopamine release, also called ‘feel-good’ hormone, in the brain, which impacts positively in our emotions (Musliu et al., 2017). It shows that music has much power in affecting and changing how our mind works as it stimulates most parts of the brain. Music stimulates most of the brain parts, which are involved in emotions, memory, motivation, and learning. There is a struggle in understanding listeners’ reactions to music, but it is exciting because it triggers a feeling.
While much literature exists about the effects of music, unfortunately, few scholars focus on how it influences our mind and emotions. Reviewing the literature directs us to the question: How music affects our thoughts and feelings? Analyzing the issue is essential in furthering the research of scholars to understand well how our psychology and emotion are influenced by music.
Methodology
I used a qualitative method in my analysis as it was theoretical research on how music influences our minds and emotions. Conceptualization of data is included in content analysis, and it involves detecting categories of information which explains the data regulation and concept (Gurgen, 2016). The approach provides in-depth analysis by elaborating on feelings, behaviors, attitudes, and it is a standard technique. It encourages the expansion of our responses on how music affects us psychologically, which was initially not considered. Internet was primarily used in analyzing and searching for evidence due to immense data available there. The study involved critical analysis of researches ideas on the influences of music on our emotions and mind.
The analysis was done using online articles in researching how our emotions and mind are affected by music. Materials were included depending on the exploration of the variable and how it has elaborated on the issue. I used keywords in the abstract of articles to identify relevant ones related to my area of research and material which were cited many time were influential in the field. All the items found online explaining the effects of music were 36, but 25 were irrelevant and did not address the issue thoroughly, with some of them published in the past. Articles that met the requirements were 11 because they provided an in-depth explanation of the problem and were published between the years of 2016 to 2020. I used content analysis, which involved discussing and categorizing the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences to come up with a critical understanding of the knowledge. It was done to examine writers’ perceptions and research on how we are influenced by music.
The systematic comparison was challenging to make because of the differing response of the scholars. Still, I managed to analyze the articles critically to come up with good contrast and an in-depth explanation.
References
Clark, I., & Tamplin, J. (2016). How music can influence the body: perspectives from current research. Voices: A World Forum For Music Therapy, 16(2), 1-15. Retrieved 14 April 2020, from http://file:///C:/Users/bb/Downloads/ClarkTamplin2016-MusictheBody.pdf.
Gurgen, E. (2016). Social and emotional function of music listening: reasons for listening to music. Eurasian Journal Of Educational Research, 1(66), 229-242. Retrieved 14 April 2020, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1149015.pdf.
Musliu, A., Berisha, B., & Peci, D. (2017). The impact of music in memory. European Journal Of Social Sciences Education And Research, 10(2), 222-227. Retrieved 14 April 2020, from http://file:///C:/Users/bb/Downloads/Theimpactofmusicinmemory.pdf.