Music Maestro!

Listening to your favourite song, humming the refrain that evokes a song from your childhood, whistling to relax, to find a good mood or the right energy, or more simply to escape with your mind. Everyone knows that music stimulates our emotions and memories, but in recent years science has also confirmed the important beneficial effects on the mind and body.

Let’s discover the secrets of music together!

According to experts, the well-being we feel when we listen to a piece of music is due to music’s ability to activate the “neuronal networks” related to pleasure in the brain. Listening to your favourite music triggers the production of endorphins in the brain and lowers the level of cortisol (a substance linked to stress), improving the mood and well-being of our minds. This process also helps children learn and improves memory.

The researchers of the Bicocca University of Milan and the CNR (National Research Council) scholars have discovered that music not only improves control over emotions but increases the ability to concentrate, learn and read, especially in children. The result emerged from two separate tests in which brain activity patterns could be observed in a first group of child musicians and a second group of non-musicians. Both groups were involved in reading and memory tests through texts and images or concepts projected on video.

By applying an electromagnetic neuro-imaging technique, it has been observed that children without musical knowledge activated only the brain regions dedicated to language and speech in the left hemisphere during the analysis of alphabetic or numerical symbols. In contrast, in musicians, these regions were activated in both hemispheres.

Observing this process has allowed us to highlight how music promotes greater mental flexibility in children and, therefore, better reading, language and memory skills. But the positive effects of music also affect adults of all ages. Another research conducted by the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan in collaboration with La Sapienza of Rome on adult professional musicians revealed that when playing in an orchestra, the instruments and the brains synchronize. Scholars have discovered a link between the ability to play in concert and the activity of the brain’s frontal regions, known for their role in immediately understanding the behaviours, emotions and intentions of others. Singing and playing in a group and, more generally, listening to music, therefore, keeps our mind in shape: it facilitates the ability to express emotions, promotes learning and understanding of other people’s moods, stimulates memories and sensations of pleasure in us, all very important aspects for our daily life.

In addition to the undisputed recreational effectiveness we have enjoyed for about 60 thousand years, music has the therapeutic potential that Plato and Aristotle already spoke of. In ancient Greece, the god Apollo was the divinity of music and medicine. Listened to, played, improvised and danced, it is useful in treating numerous pathologies, from neurology to oncology. Music can heal; it is a complex activity, particularly representative of man’s higher cognitive functions and could be at the origin of verbal language development. So let’s discover the benefits of music to your health and well-being.

The benefits of music

Now, countless studies attest to the notes’ therapeutic power. Music is a panacea for health and has enormous therapeutic power that ranges from the most disparate diseases: it helps against mood disorders, psychic discomforts, depression and various clinical syndromes such as reading deficits and learning disabilities, autism, dementia and neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, muscle exercise linked to the use of a tool constitutes an excellent and, at the same time, pleasant rehabilitation therapy, even in patients who have suffered motor injuries. Furthermore, practising music as a hobby or in the form of music therapy is an important method for reinforcing the so-called ‘cognitive reserve’, i.e. that baggage of brain function, which in old age acts as a contrast to the development of dementia.

Music stimulates inner awareness, increases our well-being and improves our mood; it affects heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, some hormones, especially stress, and endorphins. For example, listening to Mozart’s music benefits memory and learning, as it promotes concentration and improves productivity. Music allows the listener to express and perceive their emotions and to show or communicate their feelings or moods through non-verbal language. For example, in the case of people with autism, music allows the outside world to enter into communication with them, favouring the beginning of an opening process.

It has also been shown that children who attend music lessons have a higher increase in IQ than other extracurricular activities. Of music it is no surprise that music itself has been used in rituals and ceremonies since the beginning of time. Nowadays, mothers-to-be share playlists for the delivery room to welcome a new life, and conversely, those in need can resort to a harpist who helps terminally ill patients to “pass on”.

Features

But what is it that makes one song more relaxing than another? Music has a strong impact on our brain, and music with a more harmonious or relaxing frequency generates high well-being in us. In this regard, although not empirically validated, a well-known theory speaks of the benefits of relaxing music, with a frequency of 528 Hz, for our body. Below are some features you must look for to find your healing music.

• Pitch: a high-pitched sound generates greater tension in the listener. Conversely, a less acute sound causes less tension.
• Intensity: a louder sound has an energizing effect, a weaker relaxing one.
• Rhythm: regular has a stabilizing effect; irregular, on the contrary, destabilizing.
• Execution tempo: if it is fast, it has an exciting effect, while if the tempo is moderate, it will give a serene atmosphere.
• Effects related to collective memory: the sound of the organ mostly generates a sense of spiritual elevation because, for centuries, in Western music, this instrument has been used in the ecclesiastical sphere during religious services.
• Effects related to individual memory: every moment of our life is characterized by images, sounds, and smells, so the recurrence of an image, a sound sequence or perfume can bring back a certain memory. That’s why we don’t all react similarly to a certain melody or music.

Music medicine vs music therapy

In music medicine, a doctor plays pre-recorded music to his patient independently. On the other hand, music therapy is based on the relationship between music therapist and patient and the active intervention of both, even using simple musical instruments.
In both cases, however, starting with single individuals and personal preferences is essential.

The World Federation of Music Therapy (World Federation of Music Therapy) gave the following definition of music therapy in 1996: “(…) is the use of music and/or musical elements (sound, rhythm, melody and harmony) by a qualified music therapist, with a user or a group, in a process aimed at facilitating and promoting communication, relationships, learning, motor skills, expression, organization and other relevant therapeutic objectives to satisfy physical, emotional, mental, social and cognitive. Music therapy aims to develop the individual’s potential and/or residual functions in such a way that he can better achieve intra- and interpersonal integration and consequently improve the quality of life thanks to a preventive process, rehabilitative or therapeutic”.