Music and the Mind

There can be no doubt that seeing the movements which musicians make during live performance is, for many people, an important reason for going to concerts as opposed to listening to music at home on radio or disc. Some of the greatest conductors, like Richard Strauss and Pierre Monteux, kept their physical movements to a minimum; others are more flamboyant. But some listeners confess that their appreciation of a particular work is increased by observing the gestures of a conductor.

There is pleasure to be gained from seeing the co-ordinated bowing of the various string sections, just as there is from seeing other examples of group co-ordination, like gymnastic displays. Virtuoso instrumentalists not only play music which is technically inaccessible to the amateur, but also give people the same sort of pleasure which they gain from seeing a great athlete or juggler in action. This may not be directly connected with the appreciation of music itself; but it does underline the physicality of musical performance.

Debussy wrote:

The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always a hope that something dangerous may happen.12

This view was shared by the violinist Jascha Heifetz who claimed that every critic was eagerly awaiting an occasion on which his impeccable technique would let him down.

Because music affects people physically and also structures time, it is sometimes used when a group of people are performing repetitive physical actions. Some songs are working songs which alleviate boredom and co-ordinate the actions of threshing, pounding, reaping, and the like. It has been suggested that music originated because rhythmically organized work was discovered to be more efficient; but this sounds like a notion derived from a Protestant, capitalist ethic transposed backward in time. Even if Vico was wrong in supposing that dancing preceded walking, dancing probably antedated organized work; and the rhythmic movements of the dance are usually linked with music.

Our modern equivalent to the use of music in co-ordinating agricultural labour is the provision of music in factories. Opinion is divided as to its effects. Judging from its use in agriculture, one might expect that music would improve performance of the routine operations which are common in factory work. Repetitive movements are less tedious when synchronized with musical rhythms. The provision of music is certainly popular amongst factory workers. However, the heightening of morale is not necessarily accompanied by increase in output. Whilst music probably enhances the performance of routine tasks, especially those in which repetitive physical actions prevail, it tends to interfere with the performance of non-repetitive actions which need thinking about. For example, there is evidence suggesting that music increases the number of errors in typing.13

The order which music brings to our experience is rhythmic, melodic and also harmonic. As the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin puts it:

Music creates order out of chaos; for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent; melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.14

The effect which music has upon repetitive physical actions is predominantly rhythmic. Rhythm is rooted in the body in a way which does not apply so strikingly to melody and harmony. Breathing, walking, the heartbeat, and sexual intercourse are all rhythmical aspects of our physical being. In some pre-literate cultures rhythm is so highly developed that Western musicians cannot reproduce its complexities. Grosvenor Cooper and Leonard Meyer, who were both professors of Music at the University of Chicago, begin their book The Rhythmic Structure of Music by writing:

To study rhythm is to study all of music. Rhythm both organizes, and is itself organized by, all the elements which create and shape musical processes.15

We take for granted the fact that rhythm imposed from outside has an effect upon our own capacity for organizing our own movements. For instance, a military band playing a march orders our strides and also reduces fatigue.

David, a six-year-old autistic boy, suffered from chronic anxiety and poor visual-motor co-ordination. For nine months, efforts had been made to teach him to tie his shoe-laces without avail. However, it was discovered that his audio-motor co-ordination was excellent. He could beat quite complex rhythms on a drum, and was clearly musically gifted. When a student therapist put the process of tying his shoe-laces into a song, David succeeded at the second attempt.

A song is a form in time. David had a special relationship to this element and could comprehend the shoe-tying process when it was organized in time through a song.16

The effects of music upon patients with neurological diseases causing movement disorders are sometimes astonishing. Some patients can make voluntary movements to the sound of music which they cannot accomplish without it. The disease known as paralysis agitans, or Parkinsonism, causes an inability to co-ordinate and control voluntary movement. In his famous book on sufferers from post-encephalitic Parkinsonism, Awakenings, the neurologist Oliver Sacks describes a patient who suffered from recurrent ‘crises’ characterized by intense excitement, uncontrollable movements, forced repetition of words and phrases, and other symptoms. Dr Sacks writes:

By far the best treatment of her crises was music, the effects of which were almost uncanny. One minute would see Miss D. compressed, clenched and blocked, or jerking, ticcing and jabbering – like a sort of human bomb; the next, with the sound of music from a wireless or a gramophone, the complete disappearance of all these obstructive-explosive phenomena and their replacement by a blissful ease and flow of movement as Miss D., suddenly freed of her automatisms, smilingly ‘conducted’ the music, or rose and danced to it.17

Dr Sacks later writes of these terrible cases: ‘The therapeutic power of music is very remarkable, and may allow an ease of movement otherwise impossible.’18 One of Dr Sacks’s patients who had taught music described herself as ‘unmusicked’. When frozen into immobility by the disease, she would remain helplessly unable to move until she was able to recall tunes she had known in her youth. These would suddenly release her ability to move again.

Fortunately, the epidemic disease of encephalitis lethargica which caused this type of Parkinsonism has disappeared; and only sporadic cases are now recorded. But Parkinsonism is common in the elderly, and is said to occur in 1 in 200 people over the age of fifty. It is due to loss of cells in the substantia nigra; the part of the brain which produces dopamine. This is a chemical neurotransmitter which is involved in the passage of impulses from the brain to the voluntary muscles.

Happily, most of us who listen to music do not do so because we need it as treatment for neurological disease; but the physical effects of music are undoubted, and, as we have seen, can be measured in people who are perfectly normal.

Occasionally, music’s effect upon the brain can be the opposite of therapeutic. In rare cases, music can provoke an epileptic fit. The neurologist Macdonald Critchley described one patient whose epileptic attacks were exclusively brought on by music. Playing a record of Tchaikovsky’s Valse des Fleurs caused emotional distress followed by a typical grand mal; that is, a major epileptic seizure with convulsive movements, frothing at the lips, and cyanosis.19 Such attacks are without doubt ‘organic’; that is, the result of music as a physical stimulus acting directly on the brain, not secondary to the emotional effects of music. This can be shown by provoking a fit whilst the electro-encephalogram records the electrical activity of the patient’s brain.

In most cases of musicogenic epilepsy, the seizures are induced by music played by an orchestra. Less commonly, a single instrument, piano, organ, or the ringing of bells may cause an attack. In very rare instances, even the recall of music can be sufficient provocation. Musicogenic epilepsy raises many unsolved neurological problems which it would be inappropriate to discuss in this context. But this rare phenomenon convincingly demonstrates that music has a direct effect upon the brain.

Music and speech are separately represented in the two hemispheres of the brain. Although there is considerable overlap, as happens with many cerebral functions, language is predominantly processed in the left hemisphere, whilst music is chiefly scanned and appreciated in the right hemisphere. The division of function is not so much between words and music as between logic and emotion. When words are directly linked with emotions, as they are in poetry and song, the right hemisphere is operative. But it is the left hemisphere which deals with the language of conceptual thought. This difference between the hemispheres can be demonstrated in a variety of ways.

It is possible to sedate one hemisphere of the brain whilst leaving the other in a normal state of alertness. If a barbiturate is injected into the left carotid artery, so that the left hemisphere of the brain is sedated, the subject is unable to speak, but can still sing. If the injection is made into the right carotid artery, the person cannot sing, but can speak normally. Stammerers can sometimes sing sentences which they cannot speak; presumably because the stammering pattern is encoded in the left hemisphere, whilst singing is predominantly a right hemispheric activity.

The electrical activity of different parts of the brain can be recorded by means of the electro-encephalogram. It can be demonstrated that, if recordings of speech are played to six-month-old babies, the left hemisphere of the brain will show more electrical activity than the right. But if recordings of music are played, the right hemisphere shows the greater electrical response.

If different melodies are played simultaneously through right and left earphones (so-called ‘dichotic listening’), the melody heard through the left earphone will be better recalled than that heard through the right. This is because the left ear has greater representation in the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere processes the perception of melody more efficiently than the left. If words are similarly presented, the reverse is true since the left hemisphere specializes in processing language.

Patients who have suffered brain damage or disease may lose the ability to understand or make use of language without losing musical competence. The great Soviet neuro-psychologist A. R. Luria studied a composer named Vissarion Shebalin who, following a stroke, suffered from severe sensory aphasia; that is, he was unable to understand the meaning of words. Yet he continued to teach music and composed his fifth symphony which Shostakovich said was brilliant.20 Luria’s famous patient, Zasetsky, whom he studied for many years, received a terrible bullet wound during the Second World War which extensively damaged the left side of his brain. His capacity to use and understand language was at first badly impaired. Amongst many other losses of cerebral function, his spatial perception was grossly distorted and his memory fragmented. Yet he liked music just as much as he had done before he was wounded, and could easily remember the melodies of songs, though not their words.21

Howard Gardner reports the case of an American composer who suffered from a form of aphasia which left him with a persistent reading difficulty. But, although he could not understand the meaning of printed words, he had little difficulty with musical notation, and was able to compose music just as well as he could before his aphasia.22

The musician portrayed in Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat suffered from a brain lesion which, although he could see, made it impossible for him to recognize the essential nature of objects, as the title of the book indicates. Yet his musical abilities were unimpaired: indeed, he could only dress himself, eat a meal, or have a bath, if he did so whilst singing. Music became the only way by which he could structure the external world or find meaning in it.23 This case might be illuminatingly compared with that of the autistic boy, David, described earlier.

There are very few instances of brain lateralization in other animals, although, interestingly enough, bird-song is one exception. In birds, a functioning left hypoglossal nerve is essential for the production of song.

The development of hemispheric specialization is certainly connected with the development of language as an uniquely human phenomenon. Moreover, language is not only a superior means of communication between human beings, but also an essential tool for understanding and thinking about the world. We do not necessarily think in words. The scanning and sorting of information goes on unconsciously as part of the creative process, and can certainly take place during sleep. There is no reason to confine the use of the term ‘thinking’ to conscious deliberation. But, if we are to formulate our thoughts, express them, and convey them to our fellows, we must put them into words. Although language appears to be understood by both hemispheres to some extent, formulating thoughts in words, and creating new sentences, are functions of the left hemisphere.

It is worth noting that children with lesions in the right hemisphere may be competent at reading, but poor at communicating their feelings. Their speech is often monotonous and inexpressive, lacking just those emotional/intonational aspects of speech recognized earlier as being important in communication between mothers and infants.

It is probably the case that as a listener to music becomes more sophisticated and therefore more critical, musical perception becomes partly transferred to the left hemisphere. However, when words and music are closely associated, as in the words of songs, it seems that both are lodged together in the right hemisphere as part of a single Gestalt. Since the word order of a song is fixed, the innovative verbal skills which belong in the left hemisphere are not required.

Musical gifts are multiple and not always found together in the same person. There is often a wide discrepancy between musical interest and musical talent. Many of those to whom music is immensely important struggle for years to express themselves as composers or executants without avail. Others who are auditorily gifted, as shown by musical aptitude tests, are not necessarily very interested in music. Teachers of music agree that enthusiasm for music becomes increasingly important for success as a child grows older. Musically gifted children may fail to realize their full potential because their interest in music declines.24

It is my impression, and no more than an impression, that this discrepancy between interest and talent is more often encountered in music than in other subjects. For example, those who are not mathematically gifted seldom long to be mathematicians; but musical enthusiasts often confess that their lack of musical talent is their greatest disappointment.

The discrepancy between interest in, and talent for, music may be explicable in terms of hemispheric specialization. We have already observed that critical appreciation of music is partly a function of the left hemisphere. People who score highly on a test of musical aptitude tend to show left hemisphere advantage, regardless of training.25 Perhaps emotional response to music is chiefly centred in the right hemisphere, whilst executive skills and critical analysis are functions of the left hemisphere. Sloboda quotes the case of a violinist with damage to the left hemisphere who retained some musical abilities whilst suffering impairment of others. A great deal of further research is required to establish the neurological correlates of the varied skills which music requires, but what seems certain is that there is no one centre in the brain which houses them all.

As we pointed out earlier, the language used both by philosophers and scientists is neutral and objective. It eschews the personal, the particular, the emotional, the subjective. No wonder it is principally housed in a separate part of the brain from that concerned with the expressive aspects of music. Whilst it is perfectly possible to study music from a purely objective, intellectual point of view, this approach alone is insufficient.

Any attempt to understand the nature of music must take into account its expressive aspects and the fact that the parts of the brain concerned with the emotional effects of music are distinct from those which have to do with appreciation of its structure. Recordings of blood-pressure, respiration, pulse-rate and other functions controlled by the involuntary, autonomic nervous system taken from the same subject demonstrated that, when he was completely involved with the music there were marked changes in the tracings recording evidence of physiological arousal; when, however, he adopted an analytical, critical attitude, these changes were not apparent.26

This is objective confirmation of the art historian Wilhelm Worringer’s well-known dichotomy, empathy and abstraction; categories which are just as applicable to music as to the visual arts with which he was primarily concerned.27 Worringer claimed that modern aesthetics was based upon the behaviour of the contemplating subject. If the subject is to enjoy a work of art, he must absorb himself into it, make himself one with it. But this empathic identification with the work is only one way of approaching it. The other is by way of abstraction. Aesthetic appreciation is also a matter of discovering form and order, which requires detachment from the work. These two attitudes are linked with extraversion and introversion. In individuals, one or other attitude is usually predominant and, when exaggerated, leads to mutual misunderstanding. Empathic identification with a musical work may so emotionally involve the listener that critical judgement becomes impossible. In contrast, an exclusively intellectual, detached approach may make it difficult to appreciate the music’s emotional significance. Many disputes both in psychology and in aesthetics arise because each participant claims that whichever attitude he personally adopts is the only valid one.

Although appreciation of a musical work necessarily involves perception of both form and expressive content, it is interesting that the two can be artificially separated. Many years ago, I acted as a ‘guinea-pig’ for one of my colleagues who was investigating the effects of the drug mescaline. Whilst still under its influence, I listened to music on the radio. The effect was to enhance my emotional responses whilst concurrently abolishing my perception of form. Mescaline made a Mozart string quartet sound as romantic as Tchaikovsky. I was conscious of the throbbing, vibrant quality of the sounds which reached me; of the bite of bow upon string; of a direct appeal to my emotions. In contrast, appreciation of form was greatly impaired. Each time a theme was repeated, it came as a surprise. The themes might be individually entrancing, but their relation with one another had disappeared. All that was left was a series of tunes with no connecting links: a pleasurable experience, but one which also proved disappointing.

My reaction to mescaline convinced me that, in my own case, the part of the brain concerned with emotional responses is different from the part which perceives structure. The evidence suggests that this is true of everyone. The appreciation of music requires both parts, although either may predominate on a particular occasion.

In connection with the perception of form and structure it is worth recalling that the auditory apparatus is itself primarily concerned with symmetry and closely linked with balance. The labyrinth or inner ear contains the complex vestibular organ which orients us to gravity, and provides essential information about the position of our own bodies, by registering acceleration, deceleration, angles of turn et cetera. Such internal feedback is needed if we are to be able to control our own movements and relate them to changes in the environment.

It also makes possible our upright posture. Equilibrium or balance can only be maintained if we are constantly informed about tilts of the body, backward, forward, right or left. A tilt in one direction immediately elicits a compensatory muscular reaction in order to prevent our falling and restore our balance.

From an evolutionary perspective, the vestibular apparatus antedates the auditory system which developed from it. Although the two systems remain functionally separate, the vestibular nerve and the cochlear nerve, which respectively convey information from the vestibular apparatus and the auditory apparatus, run in close parallel.

The auditory system is designed to record the nature and location of vibrations in the air, which we perceive as sounds. Experience tells us which sounds are dangerous or threatening, and which are likely to be harmless. By turning our heads so that the sound in each ear is of equal volume we accurately locate the direction of its origin. Hearing and orientation are closely allied.

We are so accustomed to thinking of sight as the primary sense by which we learn how to find our way around that we are apt to forget that hearing can also be used in this way, as it certainly is by the blind. Repeated visual encounters with a particular area become internalized as a picture which can be recalled at any time and in any place. The tapping sticks of the blind provide an auditory map of the immediate environment based on variations in sound alone which also becomes internalized as a schema.

Anyone who has experienced sea-sickness or who has been drunk knows that impairment of one’s sense of balance and equilibrium is extremely unpleasant. In contrast, anything which increases our feeling of being securely balanced and in control of our movements enhances our sense of well-being. Marching soldiers swing their arms symmetrically as they march; and also march better to music. Music can order our muscular system. I believe that it is also able to order our mental contents. A perceptual system originally designed to inform us of spatial relationships by means of imposing symmetry can be incorporated and transformed into a means of structuring our inner world. For example, writers who ‘hear’ their sentences as if read aloud tend to write better prose than those who merely see them. A writer considering how best to express a particular point may finally exclaim ‘I see how to put it.’ It is often equally appropriate to say ‘I hear how to put it.’

The Greeks of Plato’s day considered that the right type of music was a powerful instrument of education which could alter the characters of those who studied it, inclining them toward inner order and harmony. Equally, the wrong type of music could have seriously bad effects. Both Plato and Aristotle shared this view of music, although they did not always agree as to which type of music was beneficial and which harmful. Plato, in The Republic, reports Socrates as saying:

And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.28

Plato, who was not averse to strict censorship, wanted to banish from the ideal State styles of music which were sorrowful, plaintive or associated with indolence and drinking. There were only two styles which should be tolerated: one for use in battle or in times of misfortune, when a man’s resolve might need boosting; the other to be used in times of peace, when he is either seeking to persuade God or man in moderate fashion, or else himself is yielding to persuasion in an equally balanced way. Such music might be used to represent his prudence and moderation.