Music

As long as there are two people living on this planet, there will always be differences of opinion.  Not everyone is into sports, not everyone appreciates art, dance, hiking, hunting, and just about every other aspect of life, but have you ever noticed that EVERYONE  is into and can appreciate music?, It’s just a matter of what genre.  Why?  Because music is powerful.  Music is inspiring and can communicate what most are unable to communicate for themselves.  Music has the ability to resurrect your soul, or drag you down so much deeper than your current emotional pit. 

I was teaching my Sunday school class on Sunday and we were discussing “modern day Korihors.”  Korihor was a man who lived around 71 BC.  He took it upon himself to confuse and lead away the people against their leaders by tempting their thoughts and confusing them.  I asked the class to name a “modern day Korihor” and one of the class members raised her hand and said, “Music.”  I told her she was absolutely right, and that in my opinion abusing the power that music can have can be as dangerous as any other obvious trap.  Mostly because no one understands or most tend to underestimate the power of the subconscious mind.  I asked them if the phrase, “I don’t listen to the words, it just has a good beat,” sounded familiar to them? I’ll bet if I asked you the same question, if you were to say no, I’d probably  call you a liar because I would venture as far as to say that you’ve not only heard that phrase but you’ve used it as I have in defense of listening to otherwise distasteful lyrics.  I asked one of the other class members to say the word “white” ten times fast, which he did, I then asked him what cows drink and without hesitation he said, “Milk.”  It took him a minute to wipe the “what a dumb question with an obvious answer” look off his face to realize that cows don’t drink milk, they obviously drink water.  In fact he didn’t even realize what was so funny to all the other class mates at first.  Why on earth would he answer that?  Because his subconscious mind took over.  White clearly made him think of milk, which is associated to cows and without thinking, became his answer.  Music can be dangerous in a similar way.  “Only listening to the beat” is impossible.  I would guess that every single one of you have experienced the bliss of driving in your car, radio cranked up, singing along to your favorite radio station, as if the American Idol cameras were coming through your front windshield, catching your stellar performance.  Did you learn and rehearse those lyrics at home prior to your “in-car” one-man concert?  No, one day you realized that you know 90% of at least some of the lyrics sung on your favorite station.  And I’ll also bet that you didn’t know you knew them until you were singing along. 

I struggled in school growing up.  Despite my “A-B” efforts, I was a “C-D” student and my mom was just as frustrated as I was.  It was 3^rd grade and my teacher gave the class a list of poems that needed to be memorized and no matter what I did, I couldn’t do it.  Then one day, my mom recorded poems over and over again on a cassette tape, yes I am that old, and I listened to them while I slept, playing on my baby pink, rectangular boom box with a rainbow strap-boom box every single night.  She would read them, even setting them to music and sing them on that tape that I listened to in my sleep.  Within two days, I could recite these poems and even learned the 7-page poem entitled, “The Highway Man” that I can still recite to this day, decades later.  Why?  Because the power of the subconscious mind is astounding. 

Dr. Lipton, former professor of Medicine at Stanford University conducted some experiments to prove the power of our subconscious minds. [i]He concluded that, “The subconscious mind cannot move outside its fixed programs – it automatically reacts to situations with its previously stored behavior responses. AND (here’s the rub), it works without the knowledge or control of the conscious mind. This is why we are generally unaware of our behavior, in fact most of the time we are not even aware that we are acting unconsciously. Studies from as far back as the seventies show that our brains begin to prepare for action just over a third of a second before we consciously decide to act. In other words, even when we ‘think’ we are conscious, it is our unconscious mind which is actually making our decisions for us. And it seems the unconscious mind is running us on its automatic pilot mode, 95% of the time!”  If we are only “listening to the beat” and allowing the harmful subconscious literature to creep into our minds, how much of what you listen to would you choose to govern 95% of your “auto pilot” choices?

Lyrics aside, the music itself is just as powerful, which I believe is the reason it universally speaks to everyone.  Just as harmful as certain lyrics with the power of suggestion can be, most underestimate the harmful power of what can come from, in my opinion, distasteful music.

[ii]A researcher named D.L. Wells did a study on effects of different genre’s of music on dogs.  She concluded that heavy metal agitated the dogs, indicated by increased frequencies of standing and barking, and that neither human conversation nor pop music had any apparent effect on the dog's behaviors. In the kennel environment, over 70 percent of the dogs became calmer with the simplified, 50-60 beats per minute (beats per minute or bpm) — both solo piano and trio music. In the home environment, the solo piano at 50-60 bpm showed an average of 85 percent becoming calm, and over half the dogs went to sleep.

 [iii]It is on record that some kids who listen to hard rock, have at one time or the other contemplated suicide, drugs and alcoholism in accordance with the messages that the songs sometimes preach. On June 16, 1998, a teacher, Debbie Pelley, testified in court that rap music might have influenced a thirteen-year-old boy, at the West Side Middle school in Jonesboro Arkansas, who shot fifteen people in the school1. A couple of students attested to the fact that the boy had become a disciple of rap music.

[iv]After studying 522 girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from non- urban, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods, researchers found that compared to those who never or rarely watched these videos, the girls who viewed these gangsta videos for at least 14 hours per week were far more likely to practice numerous destructive behaviors. Over the course of the one-year study, they were:

·         Three times more likely to hit a teacher (I love this one, I really want to know how they concluded it)

·         Over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested

·         Twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners

·         1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol

So…am I saying that if you listen to harmful music such as rap that you will attempt suicide, get arrested, hit your teacher, or become addicted to drugs?  Of course not.  Logically you and I both know that if you turn on the radio and listen to harmful music that you’re not going to immediately go out and attempt those awful acts….BUT that logic is where you get into trouble.  Although its unlikely that you’ll just head right out and commit some awful crime, the more you allow those subliminal suggestive words creep into your mind, they are there to stay.  It’s a progressive downward spiral, and here’s where it becomes harmful.  [v]Recording artists often use music as a means for self-expression and people listen to music because they usually can identify with what is being expressed. There is a song that fits any situation, circumstance, and emotion. Music can soothe, calm, and relax. Music can also, depress, anger, and agitate. It all depends on what you're listening to.  Music strikes a chord within us that taps into our emotions. The melody, rhythm, beat, and lyrics create an experience in which we channel our feelings. The repetition and reiteration of key words and phrases in music helps us to remember songs so that we can sing along, but at the same time it also invokes the power of suggestion, arousing our subconscious mind.  For so many people music is like medicine. A friend of mine refers to music as her "drug of choice."  A proper dose of music can be just what the doctor ordered, but it's important that we take the time to identify the best prescription and dosage for our particular state of mind.  Unlike medicine or prescription drugs, music does not come with direction labels or instructions. We take in music by choice and at our own risk.  While we cannot blame music for the circumstances of our lives we can blame ourselves for not listening to music that inspires us to greatness, encourages our heart, or plants meaningful seeds in our subconscious minds.

How many of you like scary movies?  I hate them, I hate that jumpy, scared, anxious, crawling out of your skin-feeling of being in the movie theatre waiting for the moron who went to investigate a sound in a dark, abandoned house.  Think of the scariest movie you have ever seen.  For me, the “Grudge” was quite terrifying.  When I was little, if I really wanted to try and brave through a movie but didn’t have the guts, I would mute it.  Next time you see one at home, try it and see how less terrifying it is without that high screeching violin music making you more, and more anxious.  Or better yet, next time mute it and sing the “Sesame Street” theme song and see how different the mood becomes.  When I was 8-yrs old, my brothers sat on me and MADE me watch Jaws and I would be lying if I told you I didn’t take a bath for 6 months.  I was SURE that demon shark would come up through the drain and eat me alive.  And to this day, if I’m in the lake or even a pool and just thinking about the “Jaws” theme of “Duh-nuh….duh-nuh…” makes me cry real tears and swim faster than Michael Phelps to safety.  Music has the power to create emotion and set the mood.  [vi]Having researched 700 most popular heavy metal songs revealed that half of them is about murder, 7 percent is positive about suicide, and 35 percent preaches a variety of Satanist ideologies"……He shared with the journalists that according to the American National Education Association every year near 6,000 young Americans kill themselves under the influence of music like that.

Here’s the problem.  People in general find music that interprets what they’re feeling.  When they’ve just broken up with their boyfriend and maybe they want to feel empowered, they crank up Pinks “So What,” which by the way is my 6-yr old’s all time favorite song year old’s favorite song, or maybe they listen to that new country hit “I’ve got a brand new girlfriend.” There is a song for every mood, every heartbreak, every situation, and every ‘I’m so mad attitude.’  So, let’s say you’re already really mad….just SOOOO mad and you decide that Marilyn Manson really puts it into words best.  It is an emotional outlet, can you see how a particular choice in music might cause more harm than good?

I wanted to point out the facts about harmful music and the power that it has.  However, the power of good music is equally beneficial as harmful music is destructive.  [vii]There is a man that is recognized as one of the smartest men who has ever lived. A little known fact about him is that when he was young he did extremely poor in school. His grade school teachers told his parents to take him out of school because he was "too stupid to learn" and it would be a waste of resources for the school to invest time and energy in his education. The school suggested that his parents get him an easy, manual labor job as soon as they could. His mother did not think that her child was "stupid". Instead of following the school's advice, his parents bought him a violin. ….He was Albert Einstein and became good at the violin. Music was the key that helped Albert Einstein become one of the smartest men who has ever lived. Einstein himself says that the reason he was so smart is because he played the violin. He loved the music of Mozart and Bach the most. A friend of Einstein, G.J. Withrow, said that the way Einstein figured out his problems and equations was by improvising on the violin. The power of music to affect memory is quite intriguing. Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes the brain to be more capable of processing information.   According to The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, learning potential can be increased a minimum of five times by using this 60 beats per minute music. For example, the ancient Greeks sang their dramas because they understood how music could help them remember more easily). A renowned Bulgarian psychologist, Dr. George Lozanov, designed a way to teach foreign languages in a fraction of the normal learning time. Using his system, students could learn up to one half of the vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term (which amounts to almost 1,000 words or phrases) in one day. Along with this, the average retention rate of his students was 92%. Dr. Lozanov's system involved using certain classical music pieces from the baroque period which have around a 60 beats per minute pattern. He has proven that foreign languages can be learned with 85-100% efficiency in only thirty days by using these baroque pieces. His students had a recall accuracy rate of almost 100% even after not reviewing the material for four years.

[viii]In 1982, researchers from the University of North Texas performed a three-way test on postgraduate students to see if music could help in memorizing vocabulary words. The students were divided into three groups. Each group was given three tests - a pretest, a posttest, and a test a week after the first two tests. All of the tests were identical. Group 1 was read the words with Handel's Water Music in the background. They were also asked to imagine the words. Group 2 was read the same words also with Handel's Water Music in the background. Group 2 was not asked to imagine the words. Group 3 was only read the words, was not given any background music, and was also not asked to imagine the words. The results from the first two tests showed that groups 1 and 2 had much better scores than group 3. The results from the third test, a week later, showed that group 1 performed much better than groups 2 or 3. However, simply using music while learning does not absolutely guarantee recall but can possibly improve it. Background music in itself is not a part of the learning process, but it does enter into memory along with the information learned. Recall is better when the same music used for learning is used during recall. Also, tempo appears to be a key of music's effect on memory. 

One of my all time favorite “good music” statistic is that of the [ix]3000 white beluga whales that were trapped in the Senyavin Strait in frozen ice.  They tried everything to get the whales to turn back around and swim to safety where they could breath. The Russian icebreaker Moskva came to their rescue. The ship played all types of music, but the beluga whales only followed the ship to safety when it played classical music.

“David Merrill, a high school student in Suffolk, VA performed an experiment on how music affects mice. He took 72 mice and divided them into three groups. One group listened to no music, one group listened to Anthrax for 10 hours a day, and the last group listened to Mozart for 10 hours a day. All the mice were put in a maze. In the beginning, it took all mice an average of 10 minutes to finish the maze. Over time, the control group (no music) mice improved to about five minutes. The Mozart mice improved drastically to just under two minutes. The Anthrax mice took an average of a half an hour to complete the maze. They also became extremely aggressive toward one another. ‘After the second year of doing this project–as I said, I kept them separate this year, to try to eliminate the fighting–I would take all the mice to a local pet store, just to get rid of them, and give them away. And, when I did this with the Classical and the Control mice, one group at a time, I would put them into two aquariums, and take them away. That’s 24 mice in 20 gallons. I thought that wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t, for the Classical and the Control. They were fine with one another. ‘However, when I put the Hard Rock mice in there, within an hour, they had just begun fighting so severely, that I had to separate all the mice. And, I gave them about a week just to ‘chill out,’ I guess you could say, and sort of calm down, because I guess the music had made them so uptight, and had been putting such bad messages into them, that they couldn’t handle one another. So I gave them about a week, just to calm down and settle down. I actually played a little Classical music to them, to see if it would reverse the effects. ’Even a week later, he reported, the Hard Rock group was still fighting, but he managed to get them to the store alive.”

Am I saying that you have to listen to Classical music only?  Although I do believe that it can help you with your grades and concentration, I personally do not care to listen to classical music.  I used to sing professionally at the Venetian in Las Vegas and it was really hard to stick to the stuff.  And although I have a whole lot more respect and know that it’s one of the harder forms to perform, I really don’t like it.  You just need to make sure you choose your music wisely when it comes to interpreting your mood, or just in general what you choose to listen to.  Keep in mind that there are good forms of music that fit the bill of what you want.  Music that has a good beat, but don’t have as harmful message as others. I’m not saying you have to stick to EFY and Bach…just remember that it’s not just the beat you’re listening to, you are filling your brain whether you realize it or not….what will you choose to fill it with?

I’ve always loved music.  I’ve grown up in a very musical family and long before any memories of my childhood, I can recall loving music.  It has been my support and often times a crutch to help me communicate what I feel in my heart.  I believe I would be one of those people that even if I couldn’t carry a tune, I would still sing my heart out.  I really don’t like hearing myself sing, I would much rather listen to someone else’s voice rather than my own, it’s the way that it makes me feel that I am addicted to.  After I had Connor I couldn’t sing.  I really didn’t know what it was but I couldn’t even call the dog in the house without the sound either dropping all together or making a horrible “squeaking sound”.  Finally after seeing 4 different ENT’s, I was finally referred to the Voice Disorder Clinic at the University of Utah.  They had me vocalize different vowels and sounds.  They numbed my throat and stuck a camera down to see what my vocal chords were actually doing.  This is a picture of the vocal chords.



 They look like little worms that when they come together, they almost massage each other and the vibration creates sound. When they stuck the camera down, mine would either come to the center and the left side would just freeze, or it wouldn’t come all the way to the center which was what was making the sound drop.  They didn’t know why it was doing that, the only solution they had was to do an EMG (Electromyogram and Nerve Conduction) which basically tests the integrity of the nerves telling the vocal chords and their muscles what to do.  They said that it would hopefully rule out nerve damage because as long as it wasn’t nerve damage, whatever was causing it to happen was fixable.  They stuck these needles into four different spots beside my trachea on my throat while I was lying down and had me try and make different sounds.  We went back into his room and I’ll never forget the doctor in a very “matter of fact” tone tell me that my right side was fine but the left side has sustained nerve damage.  I thought I had misunderstood him, I really felt like the floor had been ripped out from under me because they had made it sound like this was not going to be the outcome.  So I said, “OK…well what does that mean?”  He said that nerves that are damaged can sometimes rejuvenate and “connect to the right places” (imagine your brothers “high tech” stereo torn apart with wires coming everywhere….times 100 miraculously finding their own way back to their right places.  He said that however more than likely they’ll connect to the wrong spots and result in what’s called “Vocal Paresis” where the left side isn’t paralyzed, it just won’t always do what you “tell” it to.  He said that I could wake up one day and they would be back to normal, just like that.  But usually if they don’t from about 12 months after the initial injury, they never will.  At that time it had already been almost 10 months.  I knew what that meant.  I remember calling Jim sobbing.  Uncontrollably sobbing.  I didn’t know who was without it.  I felt like I had lost my ability to communicate.  I wasn’t expecting that outcome and was therefore emotionally unprepared.

That doctor started sending me to his speech therapist that really got me no where.  They were used to dealing with people who had much bigger problems than what I was crying over and she basically just helped me learn exercises that would relax the left sides muscles.  I called a friend of mine who had helped me learn a classical song when I competed for Miss Iron County when I was 18.  She had never helped someone with my particular dilemma but thankfully was willing to try.  All the while, I woke up every day hoping that I would be able to open my mouth, concentrate, do what I knew how to do my whole life and sing.  Never happened, no sound would come out let alone a good one.  I spent 9 months slowly learning how to manipulate my muscles and the sound to support it away from my throat.  That probably sounds odd.  There are different vowels that you use, same as when you’re speaking, but when you sing you typically learn to support them in different places depending on the vowel.  E’s were easy for me, when you sing an “E” vowel, the shape forces the sound forward, (you’ll feel silly, but sing “E” and you’ll make a “smile” shape) The best way I can describe it is for a pianist learning to play with 6 fingers on each hand instead of 5.  It was frustrating and some days, most days, devastating.  But slowly I learned how to manipulate the sound.  I don’t sound like I used to, I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, there are some things I still can’t do.  But ironically, since it forced me to gain a better technical base, I could also do lots of things that I couldn’t do before.  The hardest part was I couldn’t get caught up in the emotion of the song, because the minute I stopped concentrating I would naturally revert back to how I used to sing and the sound would literally drop.  I still can’t feel myself swallow on the left side, I never noticed that I could feel it at all until then. 

I grew up singing.  I never knew what nervous felt like, it was always pure enjoyment and effortless.  All the sudden it was unpredictable.  At the time I was leading the music in primary and I would be singing, forget and make this horrible boy going through puberty-squeak and the kids would laugh.  I asked to be released and decided that I was from then on a shower singer and that was it, I lost my “guts.” I showed up to my lessons and Jackie had signed me up for a concert, it was a Broadway theme and I was horrified.  I begged her to call them back and get me out of it.  She said no, I needed to do it.  One of my favorite quotes is hanging in my father in laws office that says, “Courage is being scared but saddling up anyway.” 

At the time I had found a new Broadway musical called “Wicked.”  My favorite part of the whole play is when Elphaba decides to “defy gravity” and stop listening to what she can and can’t do and start listening to herself.  One of my favorite lines in that song is, “Everyone deserves the chance to fly…and if I’m flying solo at least I’m flying free, tell those who ground me, take a message back for me…tell them how I am defying gravity.”  I needed to defy my own gravity.  Even if I crashed and burned in front of an audience.  I chose that song to sing for the Broadway night, not just because of the message that it spoke to me, but because it would have been difficult to sing BEFORE the nerve damage and I knew that if I could sing that song, I could sing anything and that I was ok.  It was my way of saddling up anyway.

I don’t think I have ever been as nervous as I was sitting in that chair waiting my turn.  I really felt like I was either going to vomit, wet my pants, or faint… not necessarily in that order.  I was scared, I don’t scare easy and didn’t know how to calm myself down.  But I did it.  It wasn’t perfect, but it also wasn’t horrible and it helped me regain my ground. 

Defying Gravity means more to me than most could ever understand.  But mostly, that song showed me what music REALLY means to me.  Before the damage, I was thankful for music and loved to sing, but now…I appreciate it and have so much more respect for its power and its communicating abilities than I can express in words.  It taught me courage and determination and I’m so grateful.

How’s that for an epistle?  Jayme had called me to dig up the music statistics I had accumulated for a music fireside I gave years ago and it got me thinking.  If you’ve reached this point in the blog I am super impressed and you can consider yourself a loyal reader!

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[i] http://www.lifetrainings.com/Your-unconscious-mind-is-running-you-life.html

[ii] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_n115_v29/ai_16423324/

[iii] http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/uzokwe/090803.html

[iv] http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030303/does-rap-put-teens-at-risk

[v]http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/404117/the_subconscious_mind_music.html?cat=33

[vi] http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=27796

[vii] http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/mente/musica.html

[viii] http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/mente/musica.html

[ix] http://www.lifeintrospection.com/the-astonishing-power-of-music