This Week in Music to Work to - August 7th, 2014

Listening to music can be effective for reducing pain in high-anxiety persons

Interesting study with decent sample size of 145 subjects that experienced controlled pain while focusing on music.   The idea is that music helps reduce pain because it activates sensory pathways that compete with the pain pathways and the data seems to back this up.  What was super interesting was that they got the participants to rank their anxiety about the pain before hand and had hypothesized that those with high anxiety with the pain would be least affected by the music.  Turns out the opposite - apparently the more anxious you are about the pain - the more likely it is that the music will have a positive and soothing effect. 

How music prevents organ rejection

research from Japan on Mice - the only thing you need to know is this:

"They found that opera and classical music both increased the time before the transplanted organs failed, but single frequency monotones and new age music did not."

take that Yanni!

Practice may not make perfect

I like this article - not least because the dataset involved over a thousand twins!  Bottom line - no amount of practicing is going to turn you into a pro unless you have a genetic predisposition.  So - sorry to all the people out there who tell their kids "You can do anything you want if you just try hard enough." yes it's a nice sentiment but the real world doesn't work that way.  It reminds me of student athletes who are promised they could play in the pros one day but whose parents gifted them a smaller frame than their competition.  It doesn't matter how hard you work - if you're 8 inches shorter than the other guy - it's going to be tough!

Prolonged Exposure to Loud Noise Alters Speech Processing

Should be required reading for all teenagers (and anybody for that matter) who live with their earbuds in.  We knew about high volumes damaging the hair cells (although I hadn't realized it was permanent) but this study would indicate that the damage is also replicated ins the auditory cortex - which will affect how you process speech and conversation.  The big takeaway - be careful with your volume - I really do suspect that there's going to be a whole generation that is hard of hearing later on in life!

#musictoworkto #musictherapy #musicandpain

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Written while listening to: Minecraft Playlist

Image Credit: Quinn Dombrowski - Flickr

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This Week in Music to Work to - July 31st, 2014

Study finds that snowboarders listening to music have less injuries

This is brilliant - seems that if you listen to music while you're snowboarding you're less likely to have an accident.  However, the data does come with the caveat that if you do have an accident while listening to music - it's more likely to be significant and end up with a trip to the ER instead of being handled by the snow patrol on the hill.

It reminds me of driving behavior in Germany back in the day - accidents were pretty infrequent, as most people obeyed the traffic laws, however - when there was an accident it was generally pretty horrendous due to the unlimited speeds allowed on the autobahn.

The takeaway for me is the whole idea that music can encourage and facilitate the development of a state of flow.  That place where you're not really thinking about what you're doing - you're just in the zone and performing effortlessly.  So for our snowboarders they make less mistakes and have less accidents.  the down side could potentially be that they start testing the limits of their ability - resulting in the big accidents that send them off to the ER.

Ah well - no pain - no gain!!!  ;-p 

Not Just for Music: Drumming Is Therapy, Too

When you look at the list of benefits as identified by scientific studies it just makes you wonder why more people aren't shouting about this.  Improved T cell counts, helping Alzheimer patients, reducing drop out rates and even reversing genetic responses to stress!  I wonder if it's just cultural - the idea that a drum circle is typically populated by 60's throwbacks and the whole hippie thing that keeps people from actively attending or doing something with this information.  I guess we're going to need even more studies before people are convinced.

Running to the beat of your own music

Studies over the years have show the clear benefits that music can bring to runners - I particularly remember the one quoted that shows that music can reduce the perception of exertion by 10% and that synchronizing movements to the beat can increase performance by 15%.  Who wouldn't want to get that benefit?

It's going to make runners at least more aware of the tempo of tracks and as the article says move people more into the techno and hip hop worlds!

They're Using Our Biology Against Us? Movie Makers Are Evil Geniuses!

Short primer on how composers use music to manipulate emotions in the movie world.  Although we're all familiar with the sounds of Jaws and the shower scene from Psycho - its the infrasounds used in Paranormal Activity - those deep frequencies that we can't hear but feel - that really - that I think are really interesting!

Does listening to music improve productivity? Here's 8 compelling reasons why it does

It's funny - when we sat down 9 years ago and wrote the business plan for music2work2 we knew that one of the indicators of success would be the arrival of articles that talk about how music can help productivity.  It always puts a smile on my face to read pieces like this.  If you're struggling with someone who says music doesn't have an effect - get them to read this.  but remember - it is all subjective - and even though these studies show a benefit - there are plenty of people for whom music is a terrible distraction - whether its instrumental or not!

#musictoworkto #musictowriteto #musictorunto

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This Week in Music to Work to - July 24, 2014

10 Pieces Of Music Created With Brainwaves | The Creators Project

It's fascinating to see certain paths develop in this opaque world that is music and human beings and psychology and neuroscience.  There's a been a trend in recent years of people taking obscure data sets such as galaxy clusters or road layouts and turning that data into music.  Which is kinda cool but it's not really that "interesting" to me 'cos the music created is filtered through whatever the programmers add as the sounds to be manipulated by the data set - so it's kinda interesting but never sounds very good.

What we have here is the same concept of sound being generated - but the data set is waaaay more interesting.  Instead of gathering discrete data points and feeding them in to a program - brainwaves are picked up by EEG and fed into the sound generator in real time - in one example the sound generator is live musicians reacting to a score being created on the fly - which is pretty gnarly if you think about it.

There are 10 different examples and a few of them actually sound pretty good - of course a few others sound like cats screeching - but hey - progress is being made! 

Think Before You Clap: You Could Be Beat Deaf

Had never heard of Beat Deafness before but it certainly makes sense.  The article starts a little tongue in cheek with the old chestnut that white people don't have rhythm but then actually gets to the science.  Interestingly enough even the guy who is supposed to be beat deaf can actually keep in time with a basic metronome.

The Romantic Power of Music

Aside from all the cognitive benefits of getting your kid into music classes early - here's another reason - chicks will dig them (and guys too!)  Well written article that looks at the first real rock star - Franz Lizt and examines why people go crazy around this kind of musical genius.  The consensus seems to be that if you can play your instrument at an exceptional level then you pretty much have your shit down - this is kind of like Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's towel.  

How Playing Music Affects The Developing Brain

Quite a long read but the key takeaways are:

• Having music in schools raises test scores
• Music training has a positive effect on the brain's executive function
• Music training increase brain plasticity
• Music can predict a child's literacy (fantastic tool and cheap!)
• music neuroscience faces the same funding problems as music in the classroom does

Well worth a read!

EyeMusic brings music to our eyes | Health

Reading this yesterday I immediately thought of that "terrific!" Ben Affleck Superhero movie - DareDevil - the one where he "sees" the world through visual radar - being able to use sound to bounce waves off objects and then interpret them kinda like a submarine!

This is not the case!  the point behind this article is the idea that the visual cortex isn't really about vision - and that if you train a blind person to read using touch with Braille, they use the same visual cortex as a seeing person.

What they're doing here is using sound to represent what the world looks like - not radar or sonar - but actually creating auditory signals such as upward swoops to represent smiles.  Apparently after just 30 minutes instruction, a blind person can identify a series of different shapes.

It's all pretty interesting and insightful when it comes to how the visual cortex isn't just about sight - but I'm not sure about the wider world applicability.  

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