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Kathleen Parkes
December 8, 2019
English Comp. II
Cassel
Human Brains and Music

Music is the common language around the world, always having a way of reaching any

type of person who speaks any language. I have always had a passion for all types of music,

whether it be old fifties music to hispanic music in this day and age. I have noticed many times

that music does have an effect on me, this has more than likely been noticed by the majority of

the world’s population. For example, listening to music has many times put me in different

moods, whether it be to make me happy or to give me so much more energy. While this is

something everyone has a common idea of, it is only the surface of what we know. When

thinking about what things can actually change a person’s mood drastically, it is less so material

things as it is people. People tend to change the moods of others most drastically and effectively.

However, music is something that is just as effective, with instead an addition of beats and

instrumentals, rather than just a person. We don’t know these artists, they are not our family or

friends, yet we put so much responsibility on our favorite artists to save us in some of our most

difficult times. As Oasis said in one of their most famous songs, “...But please don't put your life

in the hands of a Rock n Roll band, who'll throw it all away.” While this is only a simple lyric in

a song, it is no question that they wrote this with truth behind it. It is typical of humans to do just

this, putting their lives in the hands of musicians, who are in reality just like them. The power of

music is incredible to the human mind, where it controls every part of the brain. There is not one

part of the brain that music doesn’t travel to, while this is not the way for our other senses. Music

not only can affect the moods of people, but it improves many other parts of the human brain.

There are many ways music can positively take over our brains without us even knowing.
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Giving statistics about music is very important to show the true popularity of it in our

everyday world. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) creates a

yearly consumer report and finds all types of statistics of music in the world. The most popular

genres of the world that the IFPI found lead with Pop, and then lead to Rock, Oldies,

Hip-Hop/Rap, and so on. They also found that the most popular way to listen to music is to

stream it nowadays, like Spotify or Apple Music, at a percent of 89% (IFPI). This is common for

people to use because of the convenience, streaming allows people to listen to what they want

when they want and to have the choice of millions of songs. With streaming, music can be

listened to in the car, walking anywhere, relaxing at home, or working out. IFPI also found that

the average amount of music a person listens to in a day is more than 2.6 hours. As for a week,

the average time spent listening to music was at a whopping 18 hours (IFPI). The International

Federation of the Phonographic Industry found that the most common way that people listen to

music is through the radio, followed by smartphones, and lastly computers. All of these pieces of

statistics are important to know because it shows that if we are listening to music this often, that

we will be affected by it just as often.

Two professors from the University of Central Florida, neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya

and violinist Ayako Yonetani teach on of the most popular courses at the university called

“Music and the Brain”. This class teaches which parts of the brain that are affected by music and

what it does to each of them. The class also teaches some of the many positive effects of

listening to music. These include “changing your ability to perceive time, tapping into our primal

fear, reducing seizures, making you a better communicator, making you stronger, boosting

immune systems, assisting in repairing brain damage, making you smarter, and evoking
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memories” (UCF). The following information is explained by Sugaya and Yonetani, showing

each different effect of music in the parts of our brains…

1. Frontal Lobe- “‘The frontal lobe is the most important to being a human. We have a big

frontal lobe compared to other animals. By listening to music, we can enhance its

functions,’ Sugaya says.” (UCF).

2. Temporal Lobe- “‘We use the language center to appreciate music, which spans both

sides of the brain, though language and words are interpreted in the left hemisphere while

music and sounds are interpreted in the right hemisphere,’ Yonetani says.” (UCF).

3. Broca’s Area- “‘We use this part of the brain to express music,’ Yonetani says. ‘Playing

an instrument may improve your ability to communicate better.’” (UCF).

4. Wernicke’s Area- “‘We use this part of the brain to analyze and enjoy music,’ Yonetani

says.” (UCF).

5. Occipital Lobe- ‘“Professional musicians use the occipital cortex, which is the visual

cortex, when they listen to music, while laypersons, like me, use the temporal lobe — the

auditory and language center. This suggests that [musicians] might visualize a music

score when they are listening to music,’ Sugaya says.” (UCF).

6. Cerebellum- “‘An Alzheimer’s patient, even if he doesn’t recognize his wife, could still

play the piano if he learned it when he was young because playing has become a muscle

memory. Those memories in the cerebellum never fade out,’ Sugaya says.” (UCF).

7. Nucleus Accumbens- “‘Music can be a drug — a very addictive drug because it’s also

acting on the same part of the brain as illegal drugs,’ Sugaya says. ‘Music increases

dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, similar to cocaine.’” (UCF).

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8. Amygdala- “‘Music can control your fear, make you ready to fight and increase

pleasure,’ Yonetani says. ‘When you feel shivers go down your spine, the amygdala is

activated.’”(UCF).

9. Hippocampus- “‘Music may increase neurogenesis in the hippocampus, allowing

production of new neurons and improving memory,’ Yonetani says.” (UCF).

10. Hypothalamus- “If you play Mozart, for example, ‘heart rate and blood pressure reduce,’

Sugaya says.” (UCF).

11. Putamen- “‘Music can increase dopamine in this area, and music increases our response

to rhythm,’ Yonetani says. ‘By doing this, music temporarily stops the symptoms of

Parkinson’s disease. Rhythmic music, for example, has been used to help Parkinson’s

patients function, such as getting up and down and even walking because Parkinson’s

patients need assistance in moving, and music can help them kind of like a cane.

Unfortunately, after the music stops, the pathology comes back.’” (UCF).

12. Corpus Callosum- “‘As a musician, you want to have the right-hand side and the

left-hand side of the brain in coordination, so they talk to each other,’ Sugaya says. This

allows pianists, for example, to translate notes on a sheet to the keys their fingers hit to

produce music.” (UCF).

Sugaya and Yonetani also found that no genre of music affects the brain with different

effectiveness. In the article, they state that whichever music you prefer is what will also

effectively influence your brain. There is no such thing as only classical music influencing you,

“For a while, researchers believed that classical music increased brain activity and made its

listeners smarter, a phenomenon called the Mozart effect. Not necessarily true, say Sugaya and
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Yonetani. In recent studies, they’ve found that people with dementia respond better to the music

they grew up listening to... ‘That means memories associated with music are emotional

memories, which never fade out — even in Alzheimer’s patients.’” (UCF). This is important

because it proves that being controlled by music is not secluded to only certain types of music,

the power of it is effective in any form.

Briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, music improves our mood, learning, and

memory. Sophia Muzzarelli for Medium collected information to back up these claims and wrote

on the reasonings behind each of them. As for emotions, she found that they are typically

perceived the same throughout all humans, “...when different people listened to the same song

the majority recorded having the same positive and negative feelings during certain parts of the

song,” (Medium 2017). Muzzarelli also said that one of the easiest ways to know the effect of

music on our emotions is to pay attention to our facial expressions. The amygdala controls our

emotions, so when we listen to music that is where it goes to give us a reaction of the song.

Different songs with different emotions go to different parts of our brain, an upbeat song will be

shown in the ventral striatum and the left superior temporal gyrus.

Muzzarelli next wrote about music and learning. Hearing is one of the only senses that

children have when they are growing in their mother’s womb. This means that our brains are

reacting to music before we are even born. In the article on Medium it said, “Immediately after

birth, it was shown that the brain responses of infants who were played music throughout

pregnancy differed from those that were not played anything.” (Medium 2017). Evidence has

also proven that dancing, learning to play an instrument, singing, and just listening to music all
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have the positive outcome on ne​ural function. “Learning an instrument causes our brains to work

harder,” (Medium 2017).

Lasty, she included the positive effects that music has on memory of the human brain.

Listening to music improves recalling memories that are linked to a specific song. Listening to

the same song when trying to learn something, makes the process easier. In Muzzarelli’s article

she shared that scientists Nyugen and Grahn had a theory, “This theory states that the retrieval of

information is easier for us when we recognize it rather when we have to recall it ourselves

(Medium 2017). When that certain song comes on the radio (or whatever platform you’re

listening on) we immediately recognize it, and because that song was playing when a certain

piece of information was encoded or a a memory was created we are more likely to have an

easier time recalling it.” (Medium 2017). In conclusion, memory, learning, and emotions are all

improved by the listening of music.

The last reasoning to prove the power of music and its positive effects was collected from

NPR. In an interview with author Elena Mannes, she explains how her book “The Power of
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Music” to interviewer Neal Conan. There is also an excerpt from her book included on the

webpage. Mannes stated that “scientists have found that music stimulates more parts of the brain

than any other human function” (Conan 2011). This is why music has the potential and power

that it does to the human brain, no other function or sense will ever be able to do the same thing

that music can do to our brains.

As for her excerpt, it goes into deeper depths of why music is as effective. One of her

reasons is that we can hear while in the womb and that the ear has an advantage over our eyes.

She writes about what babies can actually hear in the womb before their birth. In her book,

Mannes included an experiment done by Sheila Woodward where there was a miniature

microphone inserted into a pregnant woman's uterus to see what the baby could actually hear.

The microphone was placed next to the unborn baby’s neck. Woodward had the mother sing,

played music, and even sang her self to see what was being heard by the microphone and also the

baby. The following was found as a result of Woodward’s experiment, “we first hear the

rhythmic sound of blood coursing through the uterine artery... The recordings show that the very

high frequencies, like the sharp attack of an instrument, are attenuated and sound a bit muffled.

The overall effect is like listening to music underwater.” (Mannes). She also included that you

can still hear the difference between a man or a woman and that the tonal quality of voice is still

heard. But, just because the sound reaches the womb, doesn’t mean that the baby is guaranteed to

her it.

Woodward found that even with this, that a baby will still react to the sound of music

being played to them. The fetus’s heart rate rises once music begins to play and fills the womb.

Other studies have also shown that if the mother is listening to music that she finds calming, then
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the baby will too, their heart rate will lower. The same thing goes for if the mother is excited or

anxious while listening to a song, the baby’s heart rate will rise instead, Woodward says that,

“...even when music that can penetrate the womb is absent, the fetus is surrounded by those

natural rhythms of the body — heartbeat and pulse and breath.” (Mannes). All in all, music the

power of music and its powerful effect is because of its before birth effects and that it stimulates

more parts of the brain than anything else.

While all of this information highlights the positives of listening to music, there can

always been downsides that are believed among the world’s population. One of the popular

criticisms of music is of Rap and Hip Hop. Many people think that it is bad for the youth, and

negatively affects them, making them more violent. There is a moral view to this and a statistical

one to this opinion, going both ways. Rap and Hip Hop music was not intentionally created for

the purpose to “corrupt the youth and others”, it was created by people who lived just that,

corrupted lives. Rap music comes from people who have had to live these lives they are singing

about, it comes from people who don’t live where it is safe. So many rappers have written these

songs to bring knowledge to their situations they are living in. NWA is known for creating very

controverial songs, one of them being “Fuck Tha Police”, while this song was hated for the

crudeness of it, it was made to make a stance on the way black citizens are treated by the police

in the United States. Many people believe that because their is alcohol, drugs, and killing in these

songs that it is inappropriate, but it is just the lives they are living being described. In a post on

Penn State's website, the author gathered information from NPR and Western Connecticut State

University. Within the research, there was evidence that after watching a rap music video,

answering questions about women, family, and their personal beliefs were more violent than the
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people who had not watched the rap video. However, it was concluded in the article that “...the

question of whether or not it is influencing listeners to act violent and graphic is unknown.

There’s not enough research and it’s too difficult to tell based on other factors such as the

teenager’s upbringings, hometown and education,”(PennState 2015). So, Rap music may be

disliked by adults because of the content, but it is not proved that the actual action of its listeners

are more violent.

Another counter argument is that even with the positive effect of our mood, it can make

listeners mor​e sad. A study found on the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the

National Institutes of Health Website had research that showed that “...anxiety and neuroticism

were higher in participants who tended to listen to sad or aggressive music to express negative

feelings…” (​Carlson, Saarikallio, Toiviainen, Bogert, Kliuchko, Brattico, 2015). Even though

this argument is proven, the positives effects of music outweigh the negative ones, and people

the positive outcomes of music on our brains are much more autonomic than the negative ones.

In conclusion, the power of music on the human brain is enormous and listening to it

takes responsibility of being one of the most important functions to our brains. No other function

reaches and affects as many parts of the brain as music does, influencing it in the most effective

way than anything else. It affects the Hypothalamus, Amygdala, Hippocampus, Corpus

Callosum, Putamen, Cerebellum, Occipital Lobe, ​Nucleus Accumbens, Frontal Lobe, Temporal

Lobe, Wernicke’s Area, Broca’s Area and more. ​Listening to music overrides every other

sensation because of this.​ Also adding on to this that it affects a growing baby in a uterus, which

is also another thing that only music can do. Music improves peoples’ emotions, lifting them up

from a slump, it makes them happier. It also improves the learning ability of people, music
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stimulates many parts of our brain that can later help us remember more. That just being one way

learning is improved, many other ways were earlier listed. ​Mentioning the negatives of listening

to music seems pointless when we are given all of these amazing facts and claims about it. It

helps humans much more than it hurts them. Even with the effect that listening to sad music can

make you feel that way, simply listen to upbeat music to change your mood. People have and

always will go to music as a source of comfort. It is the language of the world, a constant in

everyday life even with the many differences throughout the World’s cultures. Listening to

music helps people with health issues or no health issues, young or older people, sad or happy

people, it’s helping everyone. Without us even knowing, music is doing all of these things, all of

the time. Whenever we hear music, it is positively affecting our brains and improving many

different things in us.

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Works Cited

Carlson E, Saarikallio S., Toiviainen P., Bogert B., Kliuchko M., and Brattico E. “Maladaptive

and adaptive emotion regulation through music: a behavioral and neuroimaging study of males

and females.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2015. Accessed 3 Nov. 2019

Kristen, et al. “SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy.” ​SiOWfa15

Science in Our World Certainty and Controversy,​ PSU, 20 Oct. 2015,

https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/10/20/does-rap-music-lead-to-agressive-behavior/. Accessed

3 Nov 2019

Mannes, Elena. ​The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song​.

Walker & Co., 2013.

Music Listening 2019.​ IFPI, 2019, ​Music Listening 2019,​

https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/Music-Listening-2019.pdf.

Muzzarelli, Sophia. "The Relationship between Music and the Mind." ​Medium,​ 3 Dec. 2017,

medium.com/@SMuzz/music-and-the-mind-aa0820c8c8fe. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.

Pegasus. "Your Brain on Music." ​University of Central Florida,​

www.ucf.edu/pegasus/your-brain-on-music/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.

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