Intro to Blog

Music is a very interesting subject. Of course, anything is, but music has a special connection between me and the world. But how do those little black notes do it? How do they reach to others, no matter what ethnicity or language? The subject seemed so mind-bending, that I decided to investigate. In other words, I decided to make the topic of this blog music. Since the brain controls every action of the body, music must control the actions of the brain. The question that seemed to best guide this blog is ‘How does music affect the brain?’ The last thing needed to be done is to see what do others think? Three viewpoints that I expect to see on at least three websites are:

·         Music can greatly affect a person and should be used daily.

·          Music must have certain attributes or requirements in order to greatly affect a person.

·         Music can affect a person depending on the contrasts between people.

I hope you can have a better understanding on the power of music. Enjoy!

Musical Training Affects Brain Development in Young Children

Canadian-based researchers have finally found evidence that music can affect the brains of young children and believe musical and meaningful sounds can benefit the brain as the age increases, too.

Scientists inform their audience of the tests performed and the comparison between musically taught children and non-experienced children. They practiced memory tests that produced general information in school that have produced better results in the musically taught kids than the untrained kids who were all 4 to 6 years old. The scientists took "four measurements in two groups of children -- those taking Suzuki music lessons and those taking no musical training outside school -- and found developmental changes over periods as short as four months." From the text, it seems that children should have the benefit of music lessons at a young age as soon as possible.

"Dr Laurel Trainor, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University and Director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, said: "This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year. These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive benefit that is seen with musical training." Prof Trainor led the study with Dr Takako Fujioka, a scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute." These trustful doctors and professors may have found a way to effectively teach any student so that they can remember and experience more information for their growing minds.

Also, like seen in articles before, soothing music is the best remedy to studying and test-taking. A violin noise and a white noise burst was played for two other groups, again: trained by Suzuki and untrained. The measurement of brain activity, magnetoencephalography or MEG, was used during the two sounds to help the scientists record the brain waves of the students.

"Analysis of the MEG responses showed that across all children, larger responses were seen to the violin tones than to the white noise, indicating that more cortical resources were put to processing meaningful sounds. In addition, the time that it took for the brain to respond to the sounds (the latency of certain MEG components) decreased over the year. This means that as children matured, the electrical conduction between neurons in their brains worked faster." The study explains the complexity of the level of learning students earn as their grade level increases. Thanks to the project, those who listen to "meaningful sounds" have a better chance of improving their musical processing and memory abilities. Although the next project is to see how meaningful sounds affect older adults, the results seem to surface easily due to the results of the present project.

The article has mostly an ethological conversation going on that tells of the good hands the project is rested in. With no conflicting evidence, the project only tells of one side (bias/slant), or the good effects that come out of listening to music. Even though the effects seem very productive, many readers probably still won't know if listening to soothing music will be good. However the site is very safe. For instance, the story source, the privacy policy (with a copyright of 1995-2011 for ScienceDaily), and the MLA format for the website is given at the bottom of the article, so as to attract attention, but not too much attention.

Schools can now be assured that a new way of educating students is sure to work.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920093024.htm

Effects of Music on the Brain

The website, Brain Health and Puzzles, presents an article that tells the negative and positive effects (or two sides)of music. The conflicting evidence of the music effects helps compare and show what to do to be more successful in listening to music. The main message of the website is to inform that music must have certain requirements or attributes in order to affect a person fully. I think this is the main message because it says from the article, listening to new and different music at different times is said to keep the brain more active and productive, not bored. On the contrary, when picking new songs, people need to be careful of picking the genre of the song. "Some types of music can cause the brain to lose it's symmetry between it's right and left halves, or hemispheres. We've all experienced this, when trying to concentrate on a task while loud or otherwise disruptive music is being played." What the quote says is true. Trying to find what to play on your ipod while trying to finish your schoolwork at the same time can be very stressful and can produce the lack of concentration, no matter how useful the genre might be. The genres of music is shown through study that listening to loud and disruptive music can affect people in a totally different way compared to soft and soothing music. On one hand, rap and heavy metal has been proven to negatively change how well a person can concentrate on a subject. Listening to loud music can also lead to learning disabilities, behaviour disruptions, and feelings of anger and hostility in children and teens. Learning from experience, loud music seems to pull the listener in more and doesn't let the listener focus again until the song is done. On the other hand, soft music like Mozart can lead to higher averaged scores and a better improved memory when studying vocabulary words, even when the student is foreign. One quote states, "What is more, they remembered the words over time at a level of 92% retention. This feat was accomplished with the use of baroque classical music. The tempo was the most successful at a steady rate of 60 beats per minute. At this tempo, people seemed to remember the most." Also learned from a small experiment, smooth music doesn't have as much of a pull on the listener, but does soothe the mind to do what it's supposed to do. "It has been shown over and over again that one of the strongest effects of music on the brain is in the area of memory." That sentence has been supported by young Mr. Mozart himself. Since he was a child, his memory has been phenomenal when trying to learn the piano.

The copyright is very recent with certain doctors credited on the side of the article. Also, the facts that are supposed to help people are true; I've learned them from experience along with background knowledge of past events. The websites I've explored still match the information of this article.

With the right attributes, hopefully, music can help all people medically and educationally day by day.

http://www.brainhealthandpuzzles.com/effects_music_brain.html

How Music Affects the Brain and How You Can Use it to Your Advantage

Music can affect people in many ways and people can use it to their advantage.

In this interesting passage, the author, Thoren Klosowski, persuades that music theories, although unproven, is told to be reliable to use in numerous tasks and should be able to be used more often. For example, the text states, "Recently, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords used music therapy to help her learn to talk again. The still unproven theory revolves around the idea that music is represented in multiple parts of the brain and therefore accesses deeper pathways between neurons. Music then helps patients connect the stored knowledge of words through songs and helps create the new connections needed for speech. This same idea has been used for stroke victims in the past, and has been referred to as the Kenny Rogers Effect." Based on the quote, music can influence and sometimes change what a person thinks in the world. Music is told to also help benefit others educationally, too. "Performing music has been proven to increase memory and language skills," and listeners have used music to recall memories and even restore cognitive function. It works for Alzheimer's patients in the same way it works in everyone else," the article says. Being involved in a few music debuts, performing music does help quicken memory and language skills. Using the skills outside in daily life is easy enough to manage. But sometimes, with a little help from a teacher, the skills can be made better. One of the disproven effects, the Mozart Effect, includes listening to music during one moment, and finding the same past memory when listening to the same music. Listening to a song while doing school work has proven to be very useful when trying to remember the school work a student has done.

Science has also backed up the theory that listening to music can improve the immune system. The text states, "Soothing music is known to decrease stress, and when it does that, it decreases the level of the stress hormone cortisol. It's not just soothing music though, even upbeat dance music is known to increase the level of antibodies in your system. Dr. Ronny Enk, who leads the recent research about music's effect on the immune system suggests, "We think the pleasant state that can be induced by music leads to special physiological changes which eventually lead to stress reduction or direct immune enhancement." It's good to keep in mind that if you're stressed out or feeling sick, then listening to music is a good way to help you stay well and healthy. Along with these effects, music helps people exercise or work harder, lose focus to execute tasks effortlessly, and a good cheerer-upper.

Klosowski reveals the users who provided the article pictures, gives other readers permission to contact and comment on his email, and shows the date in which the article was published, which was pretty recent.  He also presents conflicting evidence in order to not only be truthful in what he says and does, but also explains to all readers(with no bias or slant) to show how powerful music really is.

Any song that someone listens to seems to benefit the knowledge, common sense, and the body physique. Even if the studies aren't true, listening to a little bit of music everyday has never hurt anyone. One thing's for sure, though. Music is the best antidote for a down, blue mood.

http://lifehacker.com/5865032/how-music-affects-the-brain-and-how-you-can-use-it-to-your-advantage