The Astonishing Power of Music
How is it that music is a universal language? A communication takes place that does not require words. What is this communication? How does it work? I can’t say that I know, but most all of us know what I’m talking about. When you are in a certain mood, you reach for music specific to that mood. Why this impulse?
What about the 3000 white beluga whales that were trapped in the Senyavin Strait? 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.
Here’s an excerpt from a news article about this event:
“IN one of the more unusual rescue operations in the history of Arctic navigation, a Soviet icebreaker rammed a 15-mile path through thick ice last month to free thousands of trapped white beluga whales.
“The saga of the whales, known in Russia as belukhas or polar dolphins, made for some of the winter’s more suspenseful reading as the icebreaker Moskva raced against time and plunging temperatures to reach the whales before they suffocated or starved in shrinking pools of open water. Like other seafaring mammals, Belugas must rise to the surface to breathe.” [source]
Why did the whales respond as they did?
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.
Here are the conclusions from the experiment:
“David concluded from the experiment, that ‘music does indeed have an effect on the learning abilities of white male mice. Classical music has a very positive effect on their learning abilities, whereas, the hard rock music has an even greater negative effect on their learning abilities.’
“‘Aside from the facts which I have been able to show you today, I can say, from my own view and my own opinion, from observing the mice, that it seemed not only to affect their ability to learn, but their ability to cope, one with another.’ This was reflected even after the experiment was over, David reported.
“‘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.
“‘It’s been an interesting project,’ David concluded, ‘and I’ve enjoyed doing it, and I’ve enjoyed the results I found, as well as the research I’ve done. It’s too bad that it’s not a subject that is widely publicized, as widely as it should be, because I found multiple areas of research, which are extremely significant, whether it’s how great the effects of Classical music are on pre-schoolers learning their ABCs, or whether it’s just the bad morals in the hard rock music.
“‘Something very interesting is that these mice could not understand the lyrics, but the music alone was bad enough, much less the lyrics, which the people are subjected to, but the mice weren’t. And, that’s something that I think is pretty significant as well.’” [source]
How does all of this work? Why does it happen? In what ways can music affect us?
Luckily, there is someone who can expound these mysteries and a great many other factors and aspects of music. Dr. Michael Ballam. He gave a couple of Education Week talks on this topic. These talks are free to download:
The Power of Music to Lift and Teach – Michael Ballam, August 17, 1998 during BYU Education Week.
The Healing Power of Music – Michael Ballam, August 16, 1999 during BYU Education Week.
Dr. Ballam also has a CD set on this topic, called “Music and the Mind.” He also did a follow-up called “More Music and the Mind.” If you find the above presentations interesting, I would very highly recommend that you purchase these two sets. They go into great detail on how music affects our minds.
Additionally, for those interested in reading more on the subject, take a look at a book called “The Mozart Effect” by Don Campbell.
