The positive influence of music on a person is difficult to overestimate.
Ancient thinkers believed that the first melodies arose simultaneously with the creation of the world. Everything in nature is filled with music: we can hear it in the singing of birds, the sound of waterfalls and sea waves, the rustling of leaves, sunset and sunrise. There is evidence to this day that great people used music as therapy. Evidence of this can be found in the surviving art objects of ancient people. Neurotic diseases and depression were cured in sacred temples by the influence of melodies on the body.
The effect of melody on the body
Even before we are born, we are able to hear music. At the seventeenth week of pregnancy, a harmonious, calm melody has an impact on the baby and relaxes it, relieves tension in difficult times, and changes the worldview. When rock music plays or rhythmic loud sounds are heard, the baby in the mother's belly begins to show increased activity.
Music therapy among ancient peoples
Questions about the influence of music on the human psyche worried people back in ancient times, because even then people noticed that some sounds evoke joyful emotions, relieve pain and are able to heal from diseases. With the help of choir singing, for example, sleep problems were cured in ancient Egypt.
Healers in China prescribed melodic sounds to all patients, believing that with their help any disease could be cured. Avicenna used musical rhythms in practice in the treatment of the mentally ill. Pythagoras was the first to suggest using the power of melodies for the educational process. He was sure that music could be used against all the “passions of the soul” - anger, irritability, malice, melancholy and despondency. He also believed that a pleasant melody could fill a child’s soul with harmony.
Plato proposed including music education in the system of compulsory education at the state level for all citizens without exception. In Ancient Rus' they believed that ringing bells eliminated headaches and joint pains and was able to remove the evil eye. Scientists explain this by saying that when the bell sounds, ultrasonic resonance radiation occurs, instantly destroying viruses and pathogens of serious diseases.
Studying the influence of music on humans
The results of ongoing modern research on the influence of music on human health have shown that listening to recordings of symphony concerts while eating can change the concentration of acid in gastric juice, improve digestion and metabolism.
Soviet scientists in the field of medicine V. Bekhterev and I. Sechenov expressed their opinion about the benefits and harms of the sound of music on our body. First of all, this concerns the nervous structures, respiratory system and blood circulation. Different tempo and frequency of rhythms can lead to changes in blood pressure (raise or decrease), and also increase or slow down the pulse rate.
In European countries, there are psychology training courses at universities that prepare practicing music therapy specialists. And the very fact of the relaxing and even analgesic effect of listening to melodies has long been beyond doubt. The therapeutic effects of music are used not only by specialists in the field of psychiatry, but also by anesthesiologists, obstetricians during childbirth and dentists.
In spa treatment, the beneficial effect of music on the human body is used to treat sleep disorders resulting from stressful situations and depressive conditions. The specific tempo and rhythm of the melody can restore sound sleep in 40% of patients, and after the completed course of treatment their number doubles.
In France, medicine has gone even further - blood is taken from patients accompanied by relaxing music. In Holland, scientists, while studying the activity of the heart muscles, found that people who have cardiac dysfunctions benefit from listening to music in a major key.
It is important to understand that not every genre can have a beneficial effect on the body and intellect.
music. Listen to melodies with proper rhythmic organization (classical pieces). Also, musical rhythms that do not have a bright melody (polyrhythmic) can cause a detrimental effect. Modern music, which is created not for art, but for commercial purposes, is written in low-frequency rhythms. Research has proven the negative impact of low-frequency sounds on the mental state of the human body. Rock music, pop and rap are harmful to the fragile teenage psyche. Such compositions can cause depression and loss of strength in a person.
Music psychology: principles and influences.
Musical psychology studies the universal and differential laws of music reception and production. It pursues principles of creating influence on emotions, motivation, cognitive processes (learning, thinking, creativity), and the interactive relationship between music, society and culture. Today it is seen as part of the system in which we live, although historically its original impulses came from psychology, philosophy and education.
International music-psychological teaching and research is more interdisciplinary, taught in musicology and, less commonly, in psychological university institutes. Numerous results in practice have led to the creation of applied music with analysis and emphasis on:
- Music in life and in the working world;
- In advertising;
- Musical psychology in pedagogy;
- Psychological foundations of music therapy (music therapy).
The result was classifications created from the crossing of several disciplines. Read more about them below.
Acoustics and psychophysics.
- Musical acoustics: acoustics that deals with the mechanisms of sound generation by instruments, the effects of playback, and the influence of playback sound spaces on sound (room acoustics, for example, reverberation, as a sound reflection effect, is usually clearly audible in bathroom spaces with no carpets to interfere with propagation of echo-reverb);
- Musical psychoacoustics: examines the subjective processes of musical perception and processing, whereby an attempt is made to understand the absolute and comparative experience of musical sound events through experimental sound assessment (e.g., decibel measurements, spectral analysis of instrumental sounds);
- Physiological acoustics: concerns the functions and mechanisms of hearing in the perception of individual (single) and combined (mixed) sounds;
- Musical psychophysics: it is based on the mental and physiological reactions of the body when perceiving pitch, frequency and volume of sound.
Cognitive musicology.
Examines reception (musical perception, recognition) and production (creation, reproduction) from the perspective of brain information processing. Refers to models of recognition language, memory and knowledge and attempts to create formalized decoding models through adaptation to musical content that make theoretical understanding of the functioning and generation of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structures theoretically understandable.
Recently, connectivity models (neural networks) and artificial intelligence methods have found their way into the knowledge of music modeling. They are exposed to the ability, through computer simulation, to apply formalized learning models to system-autonomous or instructional music education.
Physiology.
Research on autonomic reactions to music dates back to ancient times: Herophilus (an ancient Greek physician) discovered a connection between musical perception and pulse rhythm in 296 BC.
Autonomic changes (pulse and heart rate, respiration, degree of perfusion, psycho-galvanic skin response, etc.) have been studied in connection with the emotional perception of music. An in-depth analysis of the relationship with the electroencephalogram (EEG) - presented by Harrer in 1975.
Peches tried, using specially calculated correlation relationships, to analyze the correlation of two oscillations in six EEG frequency bands from 1.5 to 31.5 Hz of synchronization of brain regions when listening and imagining music.
Research shows that by turning it on and listening to it, you can stimulate many parts of the brain at the same time, during almost any activity. Instrumental creativity of different intensity affects the same areas, but in different ways; this is where models of music therapy were derived; we’ll talk about them a little later. As for brain development, musicians who create and play music have more mathematical and humanistic abilities.
Social psychology of music and education.
Social psychology of music: this mainly concerns social and group phenomena in musical cultures, the ability to create groups of people divided into so-called subcultural societies. Music related to developmental psychology focuses on:
- Education and individual development of human musicality;
- Talent research and promotion;
- Psychological aspects of music education;
- Musical influences on personality development.
Treatment with amazing sounds
Music therapy is used by psychotherapists as a treatment method based on managing a person’s psychological state by listening to music. This method uses a whole range of effects on a person through sounds: auditory, through amplitude fluctuations and sound vibrations.
The principles of such treatment are as follows:
- The nervous system in the human body and even the muscles perceive rhythm.
- Musical tempo is an irritant that stimulates the vital processes of the whole organism.
The sound of music can be distinguished not only with the help of hearing receptors (ears), but also with the whole body. Rhythm, tempo, structure of a musical composition, vibrations of musical instruments - all this has an impact on the human psyche. The nervous system is rightfully considered one of the main areas of such influence. This is what psychiatrists use in their work. To excite, pacify, soften, excite, motivate - this is not all that the world of musical echoes can do with us.
Sounds of nature
Psychologists advise listening to natural sounds - the sound of waves, the splashing of the surf, the sounds of rain, the chiming of forest birds, the roar of streams, the noise of a mysterious forest. This therapy has a beneficial effect on human health:
- copes with insomnia;
- relieves excessive irritability;
- relieves headaches of various etiologies;
- treats neurotic conditions and reduces the negative reaction of the nervous system as a result of the influence of unfavorable factors that cause stress.
What effect does music have on the baby in the womb?
Of course, gentle music soothes the mother and the unborn child. But observations state that the child’s main concern is what to hear next to the heart. He knows this, he associates it with the safety of the mother's abdomen and prefers this rhythm.
Already in the womb, a baby can become accustomed to soothing lullabies, which have the same effect after birth. The study showed that the child immediately recognizes the music he hears in the stomach and remembers until he hears it again, the first year after birth he does not fall in love and does not remember a single piece of music except the one he heard in the womb.
That's psychology, guys!
How classical music affects children
Modern parents make a huge mistake by coddling their children before they reach a conscious age. There is a share of genetics in the development of intelligence, but it is not decisive. The development of a child in the first years of life plays a decisive role: how quickly he learns to walk, talk, and read. Music, especially classical music, plays a special role in this. Listening to the classics, the child tunes in to its tone and imitates the sounds. This promotes rapid speech development and has a beneficial effect on intelligence.
Interesting fact: Mozart was not a genius from birth. His father is a famous musician, and he actively studied music with his son from the age of 4. The environment in which he grew up also had an influence: music played constantly in the little composer’s house. This contributed to his quick familiarization with her.
The influence of classical music on the aesthetic education of a child
When forming a new personality, not only algebra and geometry are important. The perception of art has a broad impact on a person’s worldview. By teaching your child the classics from an early age, you will instill in him good taste. It's important not to stop at the music. Teach your child etiquette and good manners.
The influence of classical music on children with autism spectrum disorders
Children with ASD have increased empathy. The problem is that children with such diseases cannot express their feelings and emotions. Many of them have delayed speech development. They may refuse to speak at all or have difficulty remembering words.
At the same time, they perceive music no worse than ordinary people. The experiments described above have shown that classics allow people to open up. Classical music serves as a bridge into everyday life for children with ASD.
