How Music Affects The Mind

The Impact of Music on the Mind, Body and Spirit

Music is fun. The very mention of the word seems to stir emotions that are exciting and interesting. The mind shifts to recall memories that have long passed, moments that could presently be experienced, or future events that will hold a place in one's heart and mind. In everything, there is sound. Where there is sound, there can be music. Where there is music, activities are taking place with implications affecting one's path in life. In an elementary schoolroom, kindergardeners are learning the ABC song to go home and sing to their parents. Later, these kids are learning to not step on their date's feet on a gym floor at their first school dance. Years later, a team is preparing with exhilarating

Therapists Shelley Katsh and Carol Merle-Fishman explain, "...you need only think of the wealth of associations, imagery, thoughts, and ideas that are sparked by a single song" (157). Just by listening to a song, the emotional mind is activated. This statement simply makes certain that one does not have to study and perform music to benefit from it. Through music, feelings are experienced which cannot be encountered through any other way. Music links the auditory cortex, which is the main hearing part of the brain, to an area in the front part of the brain, which exhibits all of the emotions we experience each day. Of course, these emotions work mostly off what we remember, what we regret, and how we want to change it. Connecting with the emotion expressed by the tunes being listened to, memories and sentiments are surfaced to be expressed

When infants listened to music, oxygen was delivered around the body with better ease. From the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Fran Reuscher explains, "music helps improve children's ability to reason abstractly, by strengthening neural firing patterns of the brain that are relevant to both musical and spatial cognition." Neurologists have verified that brain size and neurological activity is greater in individuals who have had musical training. Specialists have found that music activates all the brain at once, therefore uniting the left and right hemispheres