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Aaron Thomas
Professor Jizi
UWRIT 1103
12/1/15

How Music Affects The Brain

Music has existed since the dawn of man. Throughout history

music has developed, being influenced by the different ages. One
could say that music is history. For example during the medieval ages,
bards would create music using harps, tambourines, and fiddles. As
time moved on, rock stars became the new bards of the eighties,
creating music with guitars and drums. In the current age, DJs and
producers have become the new hype for creating music, using
synthesizers and focusing on the bass. Like history music is constantly
developing and impacting humans everywhere. But how exactly is it
impacting humans? As an amateur producer myself, I can easily tell
that different genres of music cause various types of emotions from
people. I found that the music I listened to that day had a major
influence on my mood. I was curious to know why exactly this stimuli
caused so many different reactions from people and how does it
actually affect human beings.

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Currently there are 7.125 billion inhabitants living on planet
Earth. Of that number 99.99% of people listen to music every single
day, whether it be on iTunes, or the elevator, or even their mother
singing out loud. The .01% affected is diagnosed as deaf but even
some of those people are able to visualize music. Music provides a
variety of influences in our every day lives. It affects our mood,
creativity, emotions, and personality. No other stimuli impact such a
broad scale of people on an every day basis.

Like all types of stimuli, music affects the brain. However, with
the advancements of technology the different parts of the brain being
stimulated can be pictured. When a person looks at a flower his
occipital lobe lights up. When he hears a bee buzzing around him, his
temporal lobe lights up. Scientists use magnetic resonance imaging, or
MRI, to observe which parts are affected. With each new stimuli a
certain part of the brain reacts, however when music is heard the
entire brain lights up like a Christmas tree (Ball). Unlike visual or
certain auditory stimuli, no specific part of the brain understands
music. Instead different neurons within the brain will break down and
take various aspects of music. For example, when a song is played
certain neurons work together to understand the lyrics, while other
neurons work together to understand the instrumental, and even more
neurons collaborate together to play an instrument to output the same

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noise (Lemonick.) Another phenomenon that scientists discovered was
how our involuntary actions are affected by music. When music is
played our brainwaves, heartbeat and breath all try to match the beat
of the music. In the entire world, the only two creature with the
capability to perform this phenomena are songbirds and human beings.
Scientists believe that because we are one of the only creatures to
perform such an act, that music is engrained on a neurological level
(How Music Affects Your Brain). Another reason why music may be
engrained in our brain is our ability to process and perform actions. It is
often said that people with a dominant left hemisphere are more into
the analytical side while people with a dominant right hemisphere are
heavily associated with the creative side. However, studies show that
people who research about the topic of music and listen to all genres
are equally dominant on both sides, therefore using both sides equally
(How Music Affects Your Brain). Music also has the capability to
increase or decrease performance. British researchers conducted an
experiment to obtain this data. Twelve men were brought in during this
experiment. Each man listed to three songs, a normal version of the
song, a slowed down version of the song, and a sped up version of the
song while pedaling on a cycling machine. Each man ending up
reacting the same way as each other. The result of listening to the
normal version was used a s a comparison to the slowed down and
sped up versions of the song. After listening to the slowed down

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version, every man pedaled slower than while listening to the normal
paced song and were all frustrated due to the lack of their
performance. However after listening to the sped up version of the
song, the men increased their pedaling rate and were happier due to
the increased performance (Reynolds). After researching all this data I
came to the conclusion that music is a very powerful stimuli that if
used right can positively affect humans.

I believe that music has had a positive impact on my life. As a kid

I used to be more analytical, playing games like chess and Sudoku. In
fact my favorite e subject was math. But as I progressively started
getting into music I became aware of all the benefits it has given me.
While I do work I listen to gentle and soothing music like classical
songs or jazz but when I work out I listen to hip-hop, which increases
my adrenaline and allows me to have an increased performance.
Listening to my favorite type of music increases my mood and allows
me to have positive emotions. In fact, music has changed my
personality for the better. I used to be very shy and keep to myself
most of the time. However, as I started changing they genre of music I
listened t o and listening to an eclectic amount of music I became more
out going and creative. Although I have researched about my topic, I
am still curious to learn the types of chemicals released when listening
to music. Does a certain genre of music like rock release certain

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neurotransmitters that cause emotion? If I were to continue I would
focus more on different experiments that were conducted with music.