The Music Effect

Music Physiology and Clinical Applications

Daniel J. Schneck, Dorita S. Berger

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781846424625
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicoterapia

Music is well known to have a significant effect on physiology and is widely used as an effective therapeutic tool in stress and pain management, rehabilitation, and behavior modification, but its effects are not well understood.

This book explains what 'music' is, how it is processed by and affects the body, and how it can be applied in a range of physiological and psychological conditions. Rhythm, melody, timbre, harmony, dynamics, and form, and their effects on the body are explored in detail, helping practitioners create effective therapy interventions that complement other treatment systems. Case studies and evidence from research and practice show how music therapy can benefit people with autistic spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and sensory difficulties, among other conditions.

The Music Effect is an essential resource for music therapists, clinicians, educators and anyone with an interest in holistic therapy.

Chapter 1

Introduction

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Back to basics

The more researchers learn about the structure and function of the human body – the more its intricate levels of organization are explored, from atoms to molecules to cells to tissues to organs to systems, and the more its input/output characteristics, its hierarchy of sophisticated feedback–feedforward control systems, and the paradigms by which it operates are identified, defined, and quantified – the clearer it becomes that the human body is programmed, first and foremost, to sustain itself for survival. That’s as basic as it gets. Underneath all the logic, all the reasoning, all the mathematics and physics and chemistry, the basic instinct for survival is embedded in subcortical, instinctive emotional behavior that pre-dates cognitive behavior by hundreds of millions of years (Damasio 1994; LeDoux 1998; Schneck 2003f ). When threatened, or perceived to be threatened, one reacts emotionally at first. You might not actually “feel” afraid, even while your body is already in a reaction mode; but you may become consciously aware of such threats, think about them, and intellectualize much later (e.g., see Libet 2002, 2003).

Thus, through its complex ambiensomatic sub-systems (referring to both the environment and the body) the human organism receives, processes, and responds to incoming sensory information (technically called input signals) long before cognitive information-processing networks even know about it.

Throughout this book, the reader will come across physiological terminology that formally describes the working mechanisms of the human body and how sensory information is dealt with for the purpose of survival. As one becomes more familiar with the language of physiology, what will also become clearer is its relevance to the physics of sound, as embedded in the elements of music, and how all of this is used in the clinical applications of music therapy.

Sensory information-processing intended to maintain the internal environment of the body

Physiological sensory information derives from two distinct sources: (1) from within the organism (-somatic, meaning “of or having to do with the body”), through interoceptive pathways, defined further below; and (2) from the external environment (ambien-, a prefix that connotes “having to do with the surroundings”), through exteroception (also defined below), which includes the perception of music. The essence of sensing is transduction,which refers to the conversion of one form of energy (e.g., heat, light, sound) into another. We shall have much more to say about this in Chapters 3 and 4.

In the human body, biological transducers – which are various sense organs – are technically known as ceptors, from the Latin capere, meaning “to take.” Hence, interoception means “to take information from inside the body” exteroception means “to take information from outside the body.” Proprioception is the name given to a special type of interoception (“proprietary” referring to “one’s own”) that provides information specifically about the activity of muscles, muscle tendons, and joints – so that you can tell, for example, where your arms and legs are in space even with your eyes closed.

The ceptors convert (transduce) the various forms of energy to which they are sensitive into electrochemical bits of digitized information. The various forms of energy (described further in Chapter 2) are called adequate stimuli and include, for example, light which stimulates the eyes, sound to which the ears respond, heat which excites the body’s thermal sensors, chemical energy to which taste buds and nasal receptors are particularly sensitive, and mechanical energy which affects the body’s tactile receptors. The digitized bits of transduced information are called electrochemical receptor potentials, which can be measured as small voltages. These are conveyed as action potentials (sensory nerve signals) to the central nervous system (brain plus spinal cord) for further processing. Such processing, especially as it relates to signals embedded in the elements of music, will be described in some detail in the following chapters.

The central nervous system (CNS) receives, analyzes, and evaluates incoming information. Based on the results of this processing the CNS may choose to ignore the information and do nothing, or it may call for a physiological response through the motor (as opposed to sensory) portions of the peripheral nervous system, and/or the autonomic nervous system, and/or the system of glands in the body (Schneck 1990, 1997). These, in turn, control effector organs that carry out the desired response. This response is in direct proportion to how the information has been perceived, rightly or wrongly, subcortically (i.e., emotionally), in relation to the basic instinct for survival.

Over a period of time, these instinctive responses to perceived reality have been coded into the human body’s operating set-points, which are reference or baseline physiological quantities. Some of these have values that are commonly called normal vital signs, such as optimum blood pressure, pulse rate, breathing rate, body temperature, and so on; others include blood sugar, acidity/alkalinity balance (pH), fluid balance, etc. Thus, equally complex anatomical control systems attempt to maintain the body’s actual operating parameters, within very narrow desirable limits based on those baseline operating set-points that have been established as being critical for sustaining life. That is to say, the real-life motor outputs – which include internal metabolic processes, as well as external activities of daily living – in response to sensory inputs are fine-tuned and balanced against optimum performance criteria. This carefully controlled state of affairs, this dynamically equilibrated and delicately balanced milieu, together with the physiological processes by which it is maintained, are collectively referred to as homeostasis.

Functional responses and behavioral patterns that are specific to each particular system derive also from each individual system’s perception, whether correct or incorrect, of what could be threatening to its survival. This often leads to a phenomenon referred to as the fear spiral, which is discussed further in Chapter 5. The following paradigm, developed in the chapters that follow, is a model intended to illustrate how the fear spiral can be truncated through the clinical use of musical intervention, and how the ability of music to work through the body’s own adaptive control mechanisms can be exploited to alter behavior in a variety of diagnosed populations.

The paradigm

Here is the essence of the paradigm developed in the chapters that follow.

1.The human body acts only upon information received both internally (interoception) and externally (exteroception) through its various sensory systems (ambiensomatic perception), as developed in Chapters 3 and 4.

2.This information is evaluated first and foremost through instinctive, emotional pathways that are ultimately concerned with maintaining an internal environment that ensures that both the individual and the species will survive – a state of affairs called “homeostasis,” as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5.

3.Homeostasis is maintained by finely tuned control mechanisms that keep the body operating as closely as possible to predetermined reference set-points, as explored further in Chapters 3, 4, and 5.

4.Persistent changes and disturbing influences that affect sensory information input, in such a way as to require ceaseless, inordinate control to maintain homeostasis, are known as continuous disturbances, or more technically as environmental driving or forcing functions. Such constant sensory stimulation can result, as necessary, in the body altering its homeostatic operating set-points (including behavior), and/or its responsiveness to those inputs, through a process called functional adaptation.The latter refers to the body’s ability to “adapt” to whatever it is being asked to do (“function”), provided this new function does not threaten its survival. Functionally adaptive responses are triggered by the body’s yielding to continuous forcing functions, a process called physiological entrainment, which is discussed at some length in Chapter 6.

5.Thus, by systematically applying forcing functions to the organism, driving it through specific types of sensory stimulation (in particular, stimulation such as that embedded in music to which the body attends naturally), and by constantly repeating and reinforcing such stimulation in ceaseless fashion, one can invoke the processes of physiological entrainment, followed by functional adaptation, to ultimately induce desired changes in systemic operating set-points, including behavioral patterns.

6.Finally, the specific types of sensory stimulation that are addressed here are those embedded in the elements of music (rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, dynamics, form) and their various combinations, permutations, and configurations.

We shall be presenting plausible hypotheses to explain the nature of the dynamic interactions that take place between the aforementioned elements of music and corresponding elements of physiological function. To the extent that these theories are formulated on a solid foundation of well-established physical principles and anatomical considerations, they are rigorous, reasonable, and reliable predictors of anticipated physiological responses to musical stimulation. They can thus be used as a basis for formulating clinical protocols for the effective use of music in:

•helping the body to heal itself from a wide variety of pathological, emotional, and psychological ailments

•managing patients with special medical needs, including the terminally ill, those dealing with pain, and individuals requiring special geriatric care

•attending to populations with special adaptive needs, including not only clients suffering from formally diagnosed “syndromes,” such as autism and Cornelia de Lang syndrome, but also those individuals experiencing phobias, emotional, and anxiety issues which may not be specifically “diagnosed” (such as dealing with stress-provoking situations like public speaking, performing on stage, sitting for examinations, and so on).

They can also be used for developing research protocols that can quantify, in a dose–response sense, the role of music in the human experience.

This book will journey through fundamental principles of physics and physiological function, with particular emphasis on how they relate to the generation and processing of musical inputs. As mentioned earlier, such understanding of how the body functions, and why and how a medical specialty interacts with that function, is crucial to the implementation of effective therapy interventions – which brings us to the main reason for writing this book.

We shall be discussing human physiology from a musical perspective, and music from a biomedical/physiological engineering perspective. Based on this integration, we shall suggest ways in which music can be used effectively as a clinical intervention for any system being treated, whether it be afflicted with autism or Alzheimer’s, in need of pain or stress management, undergoing recovery and rehabilitation, or even the most healthy system simply seeking to function more effectively. We also suggest research opportunities: questions still in need of answers, issues worthy of further investigation, problems for which solutions are still being sought, and essential information that is sorely lacking, yet vital to the clinician who is trying to formulate an effective program for patient care.

The authors hope that after reading this book you will have gained an in-depth knowledge of principles that explain not only that music does something, but, going one step further, what, how, and why it does it, and why it is so potent in directly impacting physiological function to produce such profound effects. Aside from the clinical advantages already addressed, using this knowledge as a basis it will also be possible to explain to doctors, educators, administrators, families, and persons in need, the specific applications and effectiveness of focused music intervention.

Why music?

Why music, indeed! The history of music in the human experience is at least as old as our civilized past, and probably even older. Consider the very origin of the word “music”: it derives from the Greek Muses (nine of them), who were the goddesses of the fine arts and sciences. The ancient Greeks believed that achievements in the arts and sciences were divinely inspired – in that ord...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by George D. Patrick, Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center, Bethesda, MD
• Prelude
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: What Is This Thing Called “Music”?
• Chapter 3: Principles of Physics and the Elements of Music
• Chapter 4: Principles of Physiology and the Elements of Sensory Information-processing
• Chapter 5: Fear and the Instinct for Survival: What Happens When the Set-points Go Awry?
• Chapter 6: Physiological Entrainment
• Chapter 7: Rhythm in Music and Physiology
• Chapter 8: Melody: The Pitch of Human Emotion
• Chapter 9: Timbre, Harmony, and Dynamics: Adding Richness and Depth to Rhythm and Melody
• Chapter 10: Form: Creating Aesthetic Wholeness
• Chapter 11: Nature Expressed Through Nurture
• Chapter 12: Coda: Where Are They Now?
• REFERENCES
• SUBJECT INDEX
• AUTHOR INDEX