The Emotional Significance of Music
by Graham Dyster
The bible tells us that “first there was the word”.
Some people believe that the first energy to emerge in the
creation of the universe was sound and from sound came light.
It is likely that sound is the first thing of which we become
consciously aware, even before our birth. Sound is probably
the last of our senses to fail, so our final experience before
departing this life is likely to be the sounds we hear around
us. Man has always attached great significance to music and
all the world’s great religions seem to associate the
creator with beautiful divine music.
For someone who would describe himself as musically illiterate,
I have always been fascinated by the sheer emotional power
music holds for me personally. It seems I am not alone in this.
Music can bring joy or sadness, excitement or relaxation and
there seems to be so many elements in the equation that contribute
to the combined effect:
Firstly, the beat or pace, slow and peaceful for relaxation,
fast and lively for excitement.
Secondly, the mood is affected by the interpretation and skill
of the performer, the manner of the instrumentation.
Thirdly, the lyrics – although
instrumental music can also have immense power.
Fourthly, the mood of the listener when hearing the music,
particularly for the first time, can have a significant effect
on their mood response when hearing that same piece of music
on subsequent occasions.
There are many oddities I have
never fully understood. I have a great fondness for Celtic
folk music, particularly slow airs
and Gaelic songs. These entice me into a peaceful and reflective
mood and often tap into a vague sense of sadness and longing
within me which I find difficult to define. Now I cannot understand
one word of Gaelic, but language does not seem to impede my
emotional connection with their music. The Gaels have a phrase
which translates as “a sweet sadness” and it is
a quality I have come to understand. There is music which for
me creates an intangible sense of connectedness with the universe
and a feeling of universal love, peace and joy: Ralph Vaughan
Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” being just
one example. The awesome power of Gustav Holst’s “Planet
Suite” had a remarkable affect on me from the first time
I heard it as a nine year old boy with a vivid imagination.
Even now “Mars” sends shivers running down my spine
each time it is played. There are songs which fill me with
passion and anger, songs that lift my spirits, songs that make
me laugh. Whenever my wife Anne is in need of a lift, she plays
either Status Quo or music by Gilbert & Sullivan – a
bit of a contrast, you have to admit! When I heard Sting’s “Fields
of Gold” a few years ago, I recognised it is a lovely
song. Now, however, years later, whenever I hear Eva Cassidy’s
version of the same song, tears roll down my cheeks for reasons
I cannot explain.
Music is, of course, a very powerful
emotional anchor to past events in our lives and I have begun
recently to ponder how
this might be effectively harnessed to psychotherapy sessions
with clients. Certain music can transport me straight back
to particular times in my life and all the emotions, memories
and experiences of those times snap straight back very clearly.
I know I am not alone in this. I believe most of us could chart
our progress through significant periods in our lives by the
songs that were current at the time. By amazing coincidence,
as I was mulling over the preparation of this topic, I discovered
that a local radio station, BBC Essex, now has a weekend feature
called “Musical Memories”, where listeners request
certain pieces of music to be played which have great significance
for them, explaining what that memory is. It is fascinatingly
diverse! By a further happy coincidence, one of my clients
spontaneously began talking on this very subject and, subsequently,
she prepared a comprehensive list of music she plays and the
memories and moods associated with them. One of her big issues
is to do with suppressed anger and, yes, there is music which
enables her to get in touch with that anger and release it.
Two other regular clients of mine both told me, quite independently,
that they cannot bear to listen to anything but up-beat music
as anything too soothing makes them reflective. This, in turn,
they acknowledge, makes them feel uncomfortable. From work
undertaken in earlier sessions, I know that this is because
they are uneasy about their own role identity. Quiet music
therefore threatens the emotional status quo because it by-passes
their psychological defences!
Also about this time, a chance item on the national news mentioned
that music is being played to patients in the ITU Ward of a
hospital in Denmark because research has shown how much it
assists recovery. Music is also used in maternity hospitals
for therapeutic reasons and to aid relaxation. Music can help
in medical treatment by putting the patient into a more receptive
mood, by relaxing him if he is tense, stimulating him if he
is apathetic, connecting him to his surroundings if he is withdrawn.
Because music is understood and experienced at low levels of
our brains, it is not dependent on IQ or education to be beneficial.
It is not even necessary to consciously listen to the music
for it to affect us: If it were, there would be little point
in those sophisticated scores written for the film industry!
It is often the background music which subliminally sets us
up for tears or builds our excitement or fear. In 1958, a French
psychiatric hospital in Bonneval conducted an experiment with
music on the collective-cure method. Seven patients sleeping
in the same room were played specially recorded music before
and during sleep. It was found that this did have some influence
on the occurrence of dreams, with the patients reporting certain
states of anxiety, euphoria, eroticism, guilt, fear and others,
all seemingly related to the character of the music played.
These experiences were then explored and interpreted with the
psychologist.
In researching this topic on
the internet, I discovered that “Music
Therapy” is actually an accredited approach to Psychotherapy.
There are a number of Organisations devoted to furthering its
cause, the Bonny Foundation (see www.bonnyfoundation.org),
the USA based National Association for Music Therapy (NAMT),
The British Society for Music Therapy and the British Association
of Professional Music Therapists (APMT), The European Music
Therapy Confederation (see www.musictherapyworld.net). Masses
of high level research papers can be accessed on the website
of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy (see www.hisf.no/njmt).
At a more modest level, the website of the Westchester Hospice
provides a simple testimony to the therapeutic powers of music
(see www.hospiceofwestchester.com).
Modern musical therapy can involve passively listening to
music or actively participating in creating it. For many, listening
to music has helped to stimulate their imagination and put
them in touch with unexplored emotions, whilst even musically
unskilled people have gained benefit from the self-expression
of playing. Both approaches can prove useful in releasing suppressed
material for exploration with the psychotherapist.
That music affects mood is nothing
new. The ancient Greek and Arab civilisations both used the
flute in hospital wards
to help patients suffering from mental illness. Pythagorus,
the Greek mathematician-physician, is said to have used music
with mental patients which he referred to as ‘musical
medicine’. We know that music has been an important aspect
of life in virtually every culture since time began. The native
North American Indians, for example, used music to aid healing,
to appease the spirit world, to induce trance for vision quests
and to raise the courage of their warriors before battles.
The following quotations are taken from Juliette Alvin’s
book “Music Therapy” (pages 61 and 77):
“Music has the power to affect mood because it contains
suggestive, persuasive or even compelling elements. In music
accompanying a specific function one of these elements is usually
dominant. But whatever its purpose music is always related
to man’s own experiences, since it has been born out
of his mind, speaks of his emotions, and lies within his perceptual
range. It has the power to reach him. It has been said that
music penetrates into the most secret recesses of the soul,
an effect against which man is more or less defenceless.”
“Music works at id, ego and superego levels. It can
stir up or express primitive instincts and even help to let
them loose – it can help to strengthen the ego, release
and control the emotions at the same time, give a sense of
purpose to the listener or the performer – it can sublimate
certain emotions, satisfy the desire for perfection through
high aesthetic and spiritual experiences. Music can express
the whole range of man’s experiences because of it’s
relationship to the three levels of his personality.”
Music can act on the body as well as the mind and by the 18th
century there was a certain amount of research into the purely
physiological effects of music. It was discovered that there
is some relation between bodily rhythm and musical rhythm,
and between pulse rate and musical beat. It was observed that
music affects breathing, blood pressure and digestion.
For myself, I’ve noticed
that if I am driving whilst a driving rock beat is on the
radio, I tend to drive faster,
whilst slow, peaceful music produces a peaceful, unhurried
mood and I drive more slowly. In a recent test, one of the
many Robert Winston TV programmes separated two identical twins
with identical tastes and put them both in a controlled environment.
One was played happy, upbeat music and a comedy video. The
other heard sad songs and watched a weepy film. Both girls
were then given a generous cash allowance and told to spend
it shopping. Not only was there a marked difference in the
kind of things they chose to buy, but the girl who had heard
the sad music found much less that she liked and spent much
less money. Since this experiment, thousands of hopeful husbands
have been trying every Saturday to replicate the result!
A friend and colleague, Steve
Fox, tells me that whilst he was involved in a therapy organisation
called “The Turning
Point”, music was used in all kinds of ways during therapy.
One particular therapist had an extensive CD collection of
conventional releases and specialised music. With uncanny accuracy,
this therapist would select a piece of music to play during
the session which tapped right into the emotion of the moment,
deepening the client’s connection and enabling the feeling
to be acknowledged and fully experienced. Another practice
Steve witnessed on numerous occasions was a group relaxation
session in which, at one point, each participant was asked
to imagine that he or she had a large funnel positioned over
their chest which was going to direct all the energy of a piece
of music into their body. An abstract piece of music was then
played beginning with a series of long notes of a certain pitch.
The result was that the participants invariably ended up crying
as a great wave of emotion released. Steve believes that the
cause was the vibrational energy of that music and there is
evidence that music talks through this energy not only to our
ears, but to our bodies also. I can still remember a trip to
the London Palladium to see the stage musical “Grease”.
As I arrived in the foyer of the theatre, the volume of the
music being played in the auditorium greeted me like a wall.
Not only were my ears receiving it, my whole body was literally
vibrating as the sound waves travelled through me. During the
show, there were times when this effect was heightened and
I can actually remember feeling vaguely queasy from the vibrations
in my stomach on two or three occasions.
A couple of things occur to me.
A baby’s body responds
in sympathy with a natural rhythm whilst still in the womb
and that rhythm is the breathing and the heart-rate of the
Mother. So when the Mother feels anxious or stressed, her breathing
rate and heart-rate increases. The baby experiences the tensions
and stresses and learns to associate those feelings with the
rhythms he hears within the womb. Consequently, music or rhythms
which mimic the rate of an agitated heart-beat trigger a memory
of stress and tension in the womb. Slow, calm music obviously
recalls the opposite memories, which is no doubt why soothing
music is often played in the labour wards of maternity hospitals.
The rhythm connection is an important point to remember. An
old “grandfather” clock with a slow, measured tick
creates an atmosphere of calm for the very same reason, whilst
a clock with a loud but fast tick is intuitively taken as a
signal for agitation.
Music is also processed in a
different part of the brain to language and that is another
possible clue as to its emotional
power. The Robert Monroe Institute in the USA has developed
and refined an audio technique during the past 40 years which
they call Hemi-Sync. Researchers found that specific sound
patterns could lead the brain in to various states of consciousness
ranging from deep relaxation or sleep to expanded awareness
and other extra-ordinary states. Working for optimum effect
through stereo head-phones, Hemi-Sync works by sending different
sounds to each ear. The two hemispheres of the brain then act
in unison to “hear” a third signal – the
difference between the two tones. This, we are told, is not
an actual sound, but an electrical signal that can only be
perceived within the brain by both brain hemispheres working
together. The result is a focussed, whole-brain state known
as hemispheric synchronisation or “Hemi-Sync”.
Different Hemi-Sync signals are used to facilitate deep relaxation,
focussed attention or other desired states. When these signals
are combined with music, the total result is amazingly powerful
and any verbal guidance included within the recording is particularly
effective.
Music is an astonishingly rich
subject for therapy but it is still largely untapped within
our own particular area of
work. I invite all of you to start to question where music
might prove of value within your sessions. Obviously, we can
use it to create an appropriate mood for a session by playing
it quietly in the background during sessions or using it as
a specific aid to the hypnotherapy. However, since we spend
a lot of our time trying to find a way past our client’s
critical faculty, it occurs to me that music can help us here
also. Music can provide a bridge between the conscious and
the unconscious, a link between outer reality and our own private
inner world, a key to an unreal world in which a client may
have become trapped or isolated. As music is an aesthetic experience,
it carries no moral implications which might give rise to resistance.
This makes it a desirable ally for the therapist.
“As far as we can judge,
patients treated with psychotherapy in combination with music
usually responded to treatment more
rapidly and required total treatment of a shorter duration
than those receiving psychotherapy alone.”
(Donald Blair, T A Werner & M Brooking “The Value
of Individual Music Therapy as an Aid to Individual Psychotherapy”,
International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. VII, No. 1,
1961, pp54-64)
Using Music in Client Sessions
Here are just five suggestions for ways we might harness the
potential of music in our work:
1. Invite your client to take
some time to review their life, listing pieces of music that
they relate to important events
and periods in their life. (Music therapists use this associative
power of music to discover what they call the individual’s “musical
history”.) Get the client to talk to you about those
emotional connections. Ask how they feel when they now hear
that music played. If it is appropriate, you might subsequently
wish to investigate one of those events in hypnosis. Perhaps
you might invite the client to imagine that music playing,
either as an emotional deepener or as a means of transporting
the subconscious back to the event. Even better – if
it is practicable, actually play that piece of music in the
background as you do that work.
2. As a variation, it would be
an interesting exercise to simply explore your client’s taste in music, telling
you of any particular pieces that are important to him/her.
This can tell you a lot about the client’s attitudes
and values, as well as high-lighting music from significant
events in their past. I guess this equates to a therapeutic
version of desert island discs! It can also be regarded as
an auditory equivalent of the “10 items” exercise.
3. If a significant event is being discussed with a client,
ask them if there are any songs or pieces of music that they
associate with that time in their life. How do they feel when
they hear that music played now? If appropriate, ask them to
close their eyes and imagine that music playing before undertaking
regression to the event. This might help to strengthen the
work in hypnosis by pre-conditioning the subconscious mind
to connect to the emotions of that experience.
4. Carefully choose two or three pieces of music which you
consider might be either appropriate or challenging for your
client. Invite them to close their eyes and then, one at a
time and with a decent interval between each, play that music
to them. At the end of each piece, ask them how they feel about
that music. What images or memories came to them as they listened?
Does it produce any physical changes within their body? How
does it affect their mood?
5. The following is inspired
by the approach of the French Psychologist Dr Jean Guilhot
in his work on relaxation and
music in the early 1960’s:
After helping the client into
a receptive state, play music which initially reflects the
client’s actual mood at
the time. Then progressively expose the client to music which
gradually shifts that mood. Check afterwards to find out how
the client’s mood has changed in response to the music
and explore the whole experience.
Graham Dyster 14/3/04
The Emotional Significance
of Music – Acknowledgements,
References & Bibliography:
Juliette Alvin, “Musical
Therapy”, published by
Stainer & Bell, London
(ISBN 0-85249-803-9)
“Music Analysis and Image
Potentials in Classical Music”,
by Lars Ole Bonde. (Paper published in the Nordic Journal of
Music Therapy, 1997)
The Bonny Foundation (see www.bonnyfoundation.org)
The National Association for Music Therapy (NAMT), USA
The British Society for Music Therapy and the British Association
of Professional Music Therapists (APMT),
The European Music Therapy Confederation (see www.musictherapyworld.net)
The Nordic Journal of Music Therapy (see www.hisf.no/njmt)
The Westchester Hospice (see www.hospiceofwestchester.com)
The Health Superstore (www.healthsuperstore.com/articles/stress/what-is-music-therapy.asp)
www.medicomm.net/consumer site/am/music.htm/how-does-it-work
www.internethealthlibrary.com/health-problems/back
pain - researchalttherapies.htm
The Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, Charlottesville,
Virginia, USA
“Far Journeys” by
Dr. Robert A. Monroe (ISBN 0-285-62733-3)
www.apu.ac.uk/music/mt_research/dissertations/index.html
“Holotropic Breathwork” – an
article by Stanislav Grof, MD, as reproduced by The Association
of Transpersonal
Psychology (www.atpweb.org)
Graham Dyster 14/3/04
Group Exercises:
1. Share within your group any moods, thoughts, imagery or
physical sensations evoked by the various individual pieces
of music you have just heard.
2. Choose three pieces of music that mean a lot to you and
write them down. Take it in turns to share within your group
the significance of your selections and, by questioning and
reflecting, help each other to identify any aspects of these
selections which might not be immediately apparent. What do
these choices say about your personality and your belief systems?
List of Selected Music for SACH Higher Diploma Weekend, Sunday,
28/3/04:
1. Kathleen Ferrier “Blow the Wind Southerly” CD,
title track 1 (2’20”)
2. Wolfstone “The Chase” CD, “Tinnie Run”,
track1 (3’20”)
3. Edith Piaf “20 French Hit Singles” CD, “No
Regrets”, track 17 (2’24”)
4. Hamish Barker “Natural Culture” CD, “Barn
Owl”, track 4 (4’27”)
5. Debenham’s “Natural Calm” CD, “Green
Island”, track 2 (5’15”)
6. Adiemus “Songs of Sanctuary” CD, “Adiemus”,
track 1 (3’52”) |
