Few can deny the effects that music has on the emotions. Music and song become an integral part of our lives from the moment we're born. In the past 50 years, researchers have identified the physical effects of music on the mind and body. Read on to learn how music affects our emotions and how it's used in treatment therapies.

Identification
Though the mechanism by which it works is not completely understood, scientists have identified definite correlations between music and the way the brain processes information. Studies conducted by the University of California have shown how music's effect on the right hemisphere of the brain improves spatial reasoning processes within the left hemisphere. The students observed showed improvement in their ability to learn math and science when music was applied in the background.

Theories/Speculation
A phenomena known as the "Mozart effect" was proposed by a French researcher named Alfred Tomatis in 1991. His book, "Why Mozart?" described how listening to classical music improves the brain's ability to reason and learn. This effect was said to be only temporary, though particularly effective when performing mental tasks that required spatial reasoning. While considered a controversial theory at the time, a second book written in 1997 by Don Campbell, entitled "The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit," served to further validate the theory. Campbell described music as a transformational force, able to enhance intelligence and learning, as well as aid in the treatment of a variety of emotional, physical and learning disorders. However, many of Campbell's theories have not been validated by other research, and the book has been mostly discredited by scientists.

How Music Affects Emotion, Intelligence, and Health

So many outside factors can affect our emotions, such as movies, friends, books, television shows, something someone says, or even food. One of these factors is obviously music. Even without words, music can make us joyful or depressed, energized or sleepy.

Think of the last time a song really moved you, or meant something to you. Listening to and playing music stimulates many different sections of the brain, affecting us physically as well. Why are we as humans so connected to music?

Making music is one of our most basic instincts. There’s a reason we refer to music as the “universal language”; there has been no known human culture without music. Dancing and music came before agriculture, and possibly even before language. Bone flutes were found in Europe dating back 53,000 years ago. The head of the Biomusic program at the National Academy of the Sciences, Patricia Gray, and her colleagues comment, “The fact that whale and human music have so much in common even though our evolutionary paths have not intersected for 60 million years suggests that music may predate humans-that rather than being the inventors of music, we are latecomers to the musical scene.” (Leutwyler)

Music and the Mind

William J. Cromie, writer for the Harvard Gazette, explains how we our brain listens to music. “Your inner ear contains a spiral sheet that the sounds of music pluck like a guitar string. This plucking triggers the firing of brain cells that make up the hearing parts of your brain. At the highest station, the auditory cortex, just above your ears, these different firing cells create the conscious experience of music. Different patterns…excite other cells, and these associate the sound of music with feelings, thoughts, and past experiences.” (Cromie, “How Your Brain Listens to Music”) This is just a generalized statement; the actual processes that go on are very complicated, and we don’t really know all that much about them.

No single portion of the brain seems completely dedicated to our perception of music. The right side of the brain is generally associated with music and the arts, but studies done on people who have suffered brain damage show that both the right and left side play a part in musical perception. While the right side is crucial for pitch, melody, timbre, and harmony, the left side takes care of changes in intensity and frequency. Both sides need to be working together in order to correctly understand rhythm. Also, sections of the brain relating to music affect other things. For example, the part of the brain having to do with perfect pitch additionally effects speech perception. (Cromie, “Music on the Brain”) Interestingly, parts of your motor system react when you are simply thinking about a rhythm, even when you’re not moving.