The meaning of music is Intrinsic and lies within self. It can be extracted only through an act of musical understanding and not by an assignment of values of the kind provided by Semantic Theory… R.SCRUTON, Aesthetics of music
Musical Intelligence
Musical Intelligence allows a listener or a performer to discern or interpret nuances of meaning hidden in various musical ingredients – pitch, note, loudness (amplitude), texture, timbre (tone colour), rhythm, melodies, metrics, harmony, pattern, agogic etc., for example – and their almost infinite arrangement patterns, their inclusions or even exclusions resulting into intermittent pauses of silence. Musical intelligence also enables one to create metrically arranged pitched sequences as a means of communication with themselves or with others. Linguists have noticed that certain contours in music are universally valid such as the rise in pitch for questions. Any musical experience is thus made of ‘questions’ and ‘answers’ or in other words ‘tensions’ and ‘resolutions’, which helps in exercising one’s mind, the very same way a treadmill can influence our body to become supple and strong.
Singing notes, adhering to a pitch and beats all these activities call for the activation or attention of one’s mind. Music can thus function as a mental trainer which can influence the process of thinking and in forming the right kind of attitude towards oneself and towards the society to which one belongs. Music, like yoga, meditation; psychotherapy aims at pacifying or relaxing one’s mind, without which the peace in society or nation would be. next to impossible.
Music and IQ
In an experiment with music conducted in the USA by Frances Rauscher, 36 students took a standard intelligence test after listening to either silence, a relaxing guided imagery tape or a musical piece of Mozart. After a duration of silence, the average score obtained was 110. This was 111, after a duration of guided imagery tape. The score was significantly higher after listening to Mozart: 119. This experiment also revealed that even those people who had expressed their dislike for classical music had scored quite high in all these tests! It was concluded that listening to complex, non-repetitive music like that of Mozart, may stimulate neural pathways, which are essential for the process of thinking.
Spatial Intelligence – The Mozart Effect
Spatial intelligence, which is crucial in higher brain functions like chess, mathematics, music, etc., is the ability to see the visual world accurately, to form mental images of the physical objects and to recognize variations in objects. Reports are galore, which indicate how musical training could help in developing such crucial brain functions. According to a study, listening to Mozart increases spatial scores of high school and college-level students on IQ tests. Researchers at the University of California at Irvine have concluded that simply listening to the classical music of Mozart can enhance spatial reasoning performance. In yet another study, spatial intelligence was tested by projecting sixteen abstract figures similar to folded pieces of paper on an overhead screen for one minute. The exercises tested whether one could tell what the shapes would look like when they were unfolded. For 5 days, a group listened to silence, while another to music of Mozart and the third to mixed sounds. The experiment revealed that while all the three groups improved their scores from day one to day two, the Mozart group was significant as its score rose by 62% compared to 14% for the silent group and 11% for the mixed sound group. It is interesting to note that the Mozart group continued to achieve for the subsequent days as well.
In yet another study, again conducted by Frances Rauscher, it was also found that the spatial reasoning performance of 19 kindergarten children — who received 8 months of music lessons — far exceeded that of 15 others who were never exposed to any music lesson. The study revealed the essentiality of music training in pre-school children, which would pave the way towards developing their mental capacity as they start going to schools.
The Music-Mind Nexus
Every bit of our musical experience presupposes the mind’s presence or involvement. Mind influences music and in turn gets influenced by it! As music and mind exhibit identical polarity or pattern, it is considered analogous to the human psyche. It is a deeply felt reflection of one’s inner core of existence, where all the life’s disappointments, regrets and traumas accumulated over the years are encrusted. While referring to them, music performs magic: the pain becomes pleasurable, agony, ecstatic and melancholy, sweet.
While in the Western classical system, music is formed by ‘intellectual’ melodies with ’emotional’ beats, in the Indian classical system, it is quite the reverse. Both Hindustani and Carnatic systems opt for ’emotional ragas’ – pre-eminence to bhava – but with highly logical and mathematically – precise (‘intelligent’) beats. Both these classical schools, of music, enable us to harmonize our emotions with reasons, facilitating a balanced approach towards’ ourselves and others, ensuring equanimity in life
Yoga and Music : The Mind’s Creations!
In both the systems of yoga and music, the mind initiates and participates in the process. In fact, without its involvement, it is next to impossible to experience the fruits of either yoga or music. But, the peculiarity is that as one progresses after initiation, the mind (along with its associated ego) is exterminated automatically. It’s like crushing the ladder after one has used it for climbing!
A musician, while singing, finds himself merging into those musical vibrations, alapanas, alankaras, kalpana swaras etc., which are innovated almost involuntarily! As far as the yogi is concerned, he’s virtually off his head, as he merges into his consciousness in such a way that he doesn’t know whether he is inside his body or outside! Thanks to yoga, the inside becomes the outside, the outside, the inside! What is called ‘involution’. This frees the yogi from all the inside mundane worries as he is able to enjoy his vibrational bliss! In both these cases, the mind which has created the systems of music or yoga, eventually gets erased. No doubt, the destruction of the mind is a cause celebre here as it involves shedding off ends ego, considered as the root-cause of everything negative in our life-experience.
This article was published in My Doctor July 2007 – Pages 24 to 26
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, July 12, 2021