Classical Research Argument Essay

Synthesis and Analysis

Influence of music

It has been an old debate that whether the music affects our lives or not? Not only this, but the questions about the qualitative aspect of the influence of music have been raised in the past as well. Some people advocate the view that the music is beneficial for health whereas others seem determined to oppose the view in a sheer manner. In the following lines we’ll try to present both kinds of views as well as other views which may be existing.

The group of people who is of the view that listening to music is actually good for health puts forward different medical researchers in their defense. One of the biggest argument presented by them is that music makes the mood good. An interesting question rises here that whether this particular effect of music is absolute or relative in its nature i.e. music of one genre which may be favorite of one or more individuals may be the extremely disliked genre for another group of people. So, how’ll that specific genre affect both groups since the effects and influence of music should be absolute in its nature? Similarly, another question which is important in this regard is that whether the external stimuli such as the environmental and emotional conditions affect the influence of the music on the nature?

A medical study which was carried out in Canada in 2011, which got published in the famous medical journal Neuroscience as well, revealed that irrespective of the environment and the emotions, once you start listening to your favorite genre of music your moods keeps getting better gradually. Actually listening to your favorite music releases dopamine in your mind, a chemical substance which is responsible for the responses to sexual stimuli and other stimuli related with pleasure (Salimpoor et. al, 2011; Blood & Zatorre, 2001).

Apart from affecting the mood and mental health, music has been claimed to affect the physical health in a positive manner as well. This has been said to be proved from the results of different studies and researches as well. For example, one study carried at Brunel University , London revealed that listening to music while doing exercise workout increases the exercise endurance by 15% (‘Music increases endurance by 15 per cent’, 2008). It has also been claimed that listening music during the workout increases the energy efficiency as much as 1% to 3% (Ramsay, n.d).

Brain Stroke has been quite a common medical phenomenon these days. 60% of the patients who suffer from brain stroke are reported to have those areas of brain affected which are related to visual abilities. Many of such patients suffer from a specific condition which is called visual neglect. In this condition, the patient suffering from the condition can’t be aware of the side opposite to the affected area of the brain. It has been noted that making the patients of visual neglect listen the music can restore some of their visual abilities (Tsai et. al, 2013).

One more stunning effect of the music is that on the coronary or cardiac health. Listening music on regular basis can do wonders for the heart patients. It has been found helpful for the cure of heart diseases as the rhythm and loudness of the music may optimize the pulse rate and blood pressure to certain levels which are good for health (Bradt & Dileo, 2009).

Music has been criticized by several circles as well for its negative influences on the listeners. Although the majority of these objections and criticism comes from theological circles. The criticism that comes from non-theological circles is generally targeted at the songs and not on other categories of the music such as instrumentals. One reason to criticize the songs is that the many of the songs these days glorify the use of drugs and alcohol. And it is quite obvious that people who listen to these songs, will get influenced by the lyrics to some extent. For example, they may start seeing nothing wrong with the drug abuse and alcoholism. The risk is particularly high in USA where 9 out of 10 kids have MP3 player or CD-player in their bedrooms (Pope, 2008).

A research was carried out in University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine. 279 songs were studied in this research based on the rankings of Billboard magazine, from 2005. It was found that only 9% of the pop songs had content related to drug or alcohol. The percentage was 14%,20%,36% and 77% for Rock, RnB, Hip Hop, Country and Rap songs respectively. This clearly showed that some genres are particularly detrimental for character defining process of the adolescents and the kids (Pope, 2008).

The fact is that the use of the slang language and abusive words have been so common in the music industry, especially in the rap genre of the music, that it is hard to find a song which doesn’t have a slang or abusive word or which doesn’t glorify the otherwise generally and widely accepted social evils. Therefore such songs are sometimes categorized and referred as a separate genre known as gangster rap. The primary feature of gangster rap is that it doesn’t only urge the listeners to perceive drug abuse, alcohol, sex and violence but it insults and humiliates the system especially the cops. Tupac and Snoop Dogg, two of the most famous rappers of all the time were charged with the murders in different cases but got bailed out. They kept humiliating the cops and probably this attitude of theirs caused the loss of lives of many cops over the years. This is a clear indication that music of our age, especially rap music is proving itself detrimental for the collective character of the nation (Giovacchini, 1999).

So far, we have discussed the negatively passive effects of the music i.e. those on the character and the nature of the human beings in the long run. Now let us discuss those vibrant and evident negative effects on the human beings which are concerned with the physical health. Studies suggest that teenagers who are in habit of listening to the music too loudly are actually putting their hearing ability in danger. This study had 1,025 teenagers as participant. All of these participants were 13-17 years old. The findings of the study which were published in BMC Neurology journal revealed that teenagers who listened to music for one to two hours daily, complained of pain in the head.

Having discussed the clearly perceived positive and negative effects of the music on our lives, we’ll now discuss some of the misconceptions which have been taken for granted since quite long. One misconception about the music was that classical music is particularly better for the mental health. Some went even far to name a few musicians, especially Mozart, whose tunes and symphonies were particularly beneficial for the mental health. A meta-analysis of sixteen different studies has revealed that although music alters our mood temporarily, the effects are short lived and listening to classical music (or to Mozart, particularly) doesn’t make us wiser or more intelligent than those who don’t listen. Different studies showed that listening to Mozart had no significance at all as listening to some other musicians e.g. Schubert or engaging in other kinds of entertaining activities e.g. reading out a passage from some novel of Stephen King was just as good as listening to Mozart (Hammond, 2013).

Similarly, it has been perceived widely all across the world that listening to the music while driving isn’t a good thing to do as it may distract the mind and lead the driver to an accident whereas a study has shown that listening to the music affects the mood positively as it does in normal conditions and hence music can be used to affect safety during driving. It was also noted from the result of the same study that the music doesn’t have any negative impact on driving performance in high demand situations (Van Der Zwaag et. al, 2012).

References

· Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature neuroscience,14(2), 257-262.

· Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,98(20), 11818-11823.

· Music increases exercise endurance by 15 per cent. (2008). Brunel University London. Retrieved from

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/news-items/press/ne_24957

· Tsai, P. L., Chen, M. C., Huang, Y. T., Lin, K. C., Chen, K. L., & Hsu, Y. W. (2013). Listening to classical music ameliorates unilateral neglect after stroke. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67(3), 328-335.

· Bradt, J., & Dileo, C. (2009). Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients. The Cochrane Library.

· Tara Parker-Pope. (2008). Under the Influence of the music. New York Times. Retrieved from

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/under-the-influence-ofmusic/?_r=0

· Anthony M. Giovacchini. (1999). Negative influence of Gangster Rap and what can be done about it. Retrieved from

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/negative.htm

· Claudia Hammond. (2013). Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower? BBC. Retrieved from:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130107-can-mozart-boost-brainpower

· Van der Zwaag, M. D., Dijksterhuis, C., de Waard, D., Mulder, B. L., Westerink, J. H., & Brookhuis, K. A. (2012). The influence of music on mood and performance while driving. Ergonomics, 55(1), 12-22.