From Mozart to Metallica: How music stirs up our emotions

  • Music can spark joy. Whether you’re grinning to a Dolly Parton tune, thrilling to a Bach concerto or even weeping through a Puccini opera, you are engaged in what may be a uniquely human activity — the translation of music into emotions..

    “We know of no other animal than humans that seems to appreciate music the same way,” says Morten Kringelbach, a neuroscience researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and Aarhus University in Denmark. Deriving emotional meaning from music is an almost universal ability among humans and it’s probably as old as humanity itself. “Music has been with our species from the very beginning,” says Daniel Levitin, the founding dean of arts and humanities at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, and the author of Successful Aging. He’s also a member of the AARP Global Council on Brain Health’s (GCBH) committee on music and the brain. “We evolved with music and so music activates deep emotional centers in us because it was selected to do that by evolution.” Music can bring both well-being and happiness, a new GCBH report notes. The report recommends that people try listening to new music, singing with others and dancing — all of which can bring pleasure..

    How and why our brains create this emotional response is a matter of scientific debate. Music can engage the same brain circuits and brain chemicals involved in our enjoyment of food and sex: Pleasures directly linked with our survival. When a song sends tingles up your spine, “it’s like a musical orgasm,” complete with the release of natural opiates, says Kringelbach.

  • Continue Reading: https://stayingsharp.aarp.org/about/brain-health/brain-health-and-music-sample/music-joy/

Article submitted by Pat France, MSRN Member and true Music Lover!