I absolutely love music. Some days I listen to it for hours on end, and I never get tired of it. When I am running and one of my favorite songs comes on, I get a rush of adrenaline that makes me feel like I could run a marathon right then and there. Simply put, I could not live in a world without music.
My favorite genre of music is hip-hop and rap. On any given day, you will catch me listening to different subgenres of hip-hop, such as trap and melodic rap. I enjoy listening to hype songs with loud, bass-heavy beats and fast lyrical flows because they put me in an upbeat mood. Millions of people share a similar music taste to mine, but millions more play music that sounds nothing like what I like. In fact, some people probably could not bear to listen to the music I put on, and vice versa. Personally, I would rather sit in silence than try to listen to country or opera music, yet every genre of music exists for a reason: because people enjoy listening to it.
What is so fascinating about music is that different genres sound completely different from one another, yet they all serve the same purpose: to put people in a good mood. It might be hip-hop for me, it might be pop for someone else, and it might be electric dance music for another person, but regardless, we all listen to music to make ourselves feel good. A song from Lil Uzi Vert is going to sound nothing like a song from Harry Styles, yet both will please their fanbases and make millions of people happy.
Why does listening to our favorite songs and artists make us happy? According to an American Psychological Association article, when listening to pleasurable music, "the dorsal and ventral striatum release dopamine" (Yoon, Verona, Schlauch, Schneider, & Rottenberg, 2020), which is a neurotransmitter that enhances concentration and boosts mood. Elevated levels of dopamine give us a "high" and satisfy our natural reward system, encouraging us to listen to more music in the future. A more positive attitude while listening to music is not just something you are imagining-- it is a scientifically proven chemical process with a cause-and-effect relationship.
Now, so far I have only discussed the mood-boosting side of music, when in reality many songs are intended to produce the exact opposite effect. Artists write songs when they are in a dark place, and people listen to these songs when they are in a dark place as well. While you would think that listening to sad music would put you in a depressed mood-- a logical assumption-- this belief has been rebutted. A study published in the journal Emotion examined participants with major depressive disorder (MDD), whose cardinal symptom is persistent sadness, and found that "the strong appeal of sad music to people with MDD may be related to its calming effects rather than any desire to increase or maintain sad feelings" (Kawahata, 2020). Research suggests that depressed people actually find sad music calming and even uplifting. So, even though it seems counterintuitive, sad music can increase mood in a similar manner to happy music.
Whether happy or sad, hype or mellow, loud or soft, music has the "unique ability to promote neuroplasticity through the increase of dopamine production, the synchrony of neural firing, and the production of a clear signal" (Yoon et al., 2020), according to the American Psychological Association. Different music puts people in different moods, but they all share the capacity to increase brain function.
Finally, music does not only influence mood in the present-- it also holds the potential to change your attitude towards the people and environment around you in the future. Lyrics play a more significant role than the production of the song when it comes to influencing attitudes. For example, a song about police brutality or racism has the ability to educate listeners about a certain group's struggles and, as a result, cause listeners to have a more egalitarian and empathetic outlook on life. The impact of music runs much deeper than simply how it sounds, and I will delve further into this topic in my next post.
Bibliography:
Kawahata, Ichiro, et al. “Music and Dopamine – Potential in Movement Disorders.” Science Repository, Science Repository OU, 7 Apr. 2020, www.sciencerepository.org/music-and-dopamine_JBN-2020-1-102.
Yoon, S., Verona, E., Schlauch, R., Schneider, S., & Rottenberg, J. (2020). Why do depressed people prefer sad music? Emotion, 20(4), 613–624. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000573
Comments