The Psychology of Music 

The Psychology of Music serves as an introduction to the disciplinary field in psychology, which concentrates on the representation of music through intellectual use. This explanation contributes to the characterization of music through comprehending, remembering, making, executing and reacting to music. The examination of “music and emotion” attempts to see the psychological relation between human affect and music. It is a division of music psychology with many fields of learning, including the world of emotional responses to music, how features of the listener may decide which emotions are felt, and which arrangement or process may provoke specific responses. This environment draws upon and has important implications for such fields as arts, musicology, music therapy, music theory and philosophies, also the acts of musical composition and performance.

Music is a product of idea. The wave components contain rate, shape, amplitude, and time are all unfamiliar to a person until they are neurologically transformed to, and interpreted by the brain as pitch, timbre, loudness, and tonal frame. The change in music and a person’s resulting reaction is specific to those perceived because of this human’s greatly developed cerebrum on the basis of that human’s past musical experiences. Psychology, the study of thought and behavior, is the way of realizing the requirement of, and how the appropriate sensory situation results in enhanced development of the brain. Music psychology, or the science of music, may be considered as a division of both science and musicology. It aims to inform and understand musical behavior and experience content, including the procedures through which music is perceived, produced, reacted to, and integrated into daily life. Contemporary music psychology is mainly experimental, knowledge tends progress on the basis of interpretations of information gathered by systematic measurement of and interaction with human participants. Music psychology is the field of investigation with functional relevance for some fields investigate human attitude, skill, performance, intelligence, creativity, and social behavior.

Music has the ability to entertain and motivate, but it also has the strong psychological consequences that will improve the health and well-being of a person. There are many ways that music can help the human body. It can help with depression, insomnia, therapeutic effect against pain, lowers blood pressure, and many other problems one may have. Julius Portnoy, a musicologist, says “not only can music change the metabolism, affect muscular energy, increase or decrease blood pressure, and influence digestion, but it can also make all of this work in a more efficient way, exceeding the effectiveness of any other stimulant that can produce the same result in our body”.

A study conducted by students at the UCLA School of Nursing and the Baptist Medical Center of Georgia that uncovered the affect that occurs when premature babies are exposed to music. They monitored and examined, and found that premature babies increased in weight when listening to music. The music being played were soothing melodies and were able to breathe more effectively. The reason premature babies gain weight is because music such as Mozart calms the down and lowers the need to consume an excessive amount of calories.

Music has many positive effects on pain management and on chronic pain treatment. Music therapy is used in many hospitals as it has been shown to reduce the need for medication during delivery and is also used as an anesthesia complement. There are many theories which explain how music positively affects the person in pain. Many claim it serves as a distraction, it gives the patient a feeling of being in complete control, music lets the body release endorphins that counteract act. While working with dental patients Dr. Kucharski studied the effects of music in controlling anxiety. He found the children after and during dental procedures who listened to music had fewer negative feelings than those who did not.

Along with these health benefits, music also helps to strengthen the immune system as it increases endorphin and immunoglobulin production which increases wound healing and reduces the risk of infections.

Cite this page