Can music really have a therapeutic effect on humans?

According to Schopenhauer (1788-1860), music is “the language of feeling and passion” and a way for humans to directly experience the essence of the will (Schopenhauer, 1969 : 259). Music’s medium is sound and silence – A merging of rhythm, melody and harmony create an intangible art form that can arouse human emotions, evoke empathy, and ultimately transform the human experience at a core level. In this essay, I will argue that music has had a therapeutic effect on humans since the beginning of recorded history to present day. Firstly, I will explain why Schopenhauer claimed that, “music is as immediate an objectification and copy of the whole will as the world itself is” (Schopenhauer, 1969 : 257) and how music reflects the “inner being…with the greatest distinctness and truth” (Schopenhauer, 1969: 264). I will explore how music can aid in revealing emotions and developing empathy. Then, I will look at how music has been used therapeutically throughout history since ancient times to present day, with reference to modern scientific research to support my claim. I will consider how Schopenhauer’s view relates to the science. Lastly, I’ll conclude that music has therapeutic effects proven to directly affect bodily processes, mind functioning, emotions, and furthermore, the incredible power music has to enhance spirituality within humans.

Schopenhauer says that the human experience is ultimately misery, suffering and “the empty longing for a new desire” (Schopenhauer, 1969: 260) describing how humans transition from one desire to the next, constantly chasing a state of satisfaction and avoiding boredom. He called reality or the driving force of all energy the will: The deeper unseen will is the noumenal reality and the visible experiential will is phenomenal reality. He was deeply influenced by Indian philosophy, which asserts similarly that there is a deeper nature of reality, unseen and beyond daily suffering, and that the ceasing of desires can alleviate perpetual unhappiness. Schopenhauer claimed music is the language of the will, in particular of feelings and passion. He explains this by correlating the harmonic scale and technical aspects of music with internal states and emotions, or the human will. He says musical intervals (the difference in pitch between two sounds), can create harmony or dissonance within the listener, resulting in a feeling of joy or unease, yet a return to the keynote, or finishing a song with a harmonious interval, can bring about a sense of emotional satisfaction or completion in the listener. The constancy of the keynote can be representative of the mysterious eternal reality existing invisibly beyond the daily experience. Therefore, we can glimpse in to a transcendent reality beyond form, by experiencing and reflecting upon music, that holds, “the profoundest wisdom in a language…reasoning faculties does not understand” (Schopenhauer, 1969 : 261). For Schopenhauer, music provides understanding of the psychological and the metaphysical through embodying both the visible and invisible realities. Accordingly, humans can gain temporary relief from suffering, and feel a part of something vaster than themselves. Crucially, emotions can be experienced without needing to be immediately rationally understood.

As Schopenhauer suggests, music is a source of enjoyment and a vehicle to experience a variety of emotions such as joy, elation, sadness and melancholia. For this reason, music appears to provide an expressive outlet, as emotions echo out through the universe invisibly via a piece of music, leaving the listener feeling lighter or less alone, as the music appears to nurture current feelings. An emotional discharge can occur that may be therapeutic, such as crying, laughing, growing awareness of self, or even spontaneous dancing to the rhythm, enabling one to shift in to profound relaxation and joy, physically, mentally and emotionally. Music provides structure, in there being a beginning, middle and end to a performance, which is emotionally satisfying as well as providing stimulation for one’s brain in hearing and following the rhythm, melody and harmony. It could be said that listening to music is a form of meditation, providing a point of focus, where the personal nature of an emotion can be changed through creating space or distance, finding a fresh, new perspective within the present moment. Susanne Langer says, music is expressive in a symbolic but non-linguistic way and that “music is a tonal analogue of emotive life” (Langer, 1953 : 27). Langer highlights one of the main reasons why music can awaken the human will at the very core by accessing the “deepest secrets of human willing and feeling” (Schopenhauer, 1969 : 260). Without the need for language, music takes on an intangible and mysterious quality, that has the therapeutic ability to reach deep-seated emotions, like water permeating the earth - providing nourishment, growth and quenching an inner spiritual thirst instinctive within humans.

The depth of emotional experience caused by music is reminiscent of a type of empathic conversation humans may have with each other. Emotional contagion (a basic form of empathy that doesn’t rely on one’s cognitive faculties) occurs when one person become “infected” by the emotion of another, such as with happiness or sadness. Although music is not a person, it is created or performed by a person, plus on the basis of Schopenhauer’s’ claim, the sounds imitate emotional states which are then mimicked or felt by the listener, indicating a kind of emotional contagion or depth of understanding from music to human (although obviously not reciprocated). Music appears to have movement because of its rhythm and melody which interacts with the internal rhythm of the listener such as heart rate as well as creating activity in the motor system and premotor cortex, causing humans to be inspired to dance in rhythm to music and feel in to the emotional expression of the music. High-level empathy is the ability to cognitively process the mental position or emotional states of another, and understand more complicated emotions such as nostalgia, loss, love and grief. As music enables us to experience such emotions belonging to the deepest recesses of inner nature, it appears that empathy of the higher kind is accessible, and that music may be able to help us develop empathic capacities. An experiment by Clemens Wollner showed that “high empathy individuals more easily recognise expressiveness in instrumental music and…more readily actually experience the emotion expressed when they listen to expressive music” (Robinson, 2017 : 303). I would suggest that this type of experience is another form of empathic experience which requires a new word to explain, as it can be freeing, a way to unburden and feel connection outside of ourselves and provides a form of emotional processing which is highly beneficial to humans. Furthermore, music is a form of therapy one can undertake alone, feeling empathy with the sounds or the performer, music can create an inner journey of self-exploration through thoughts, feelings and emotions, with a transformation occurring independently of sharing perspectives with another.

Since ancient times, music has been synonymous with healing of mind, body, and spirit and has been related to emotions, passions, mathematics and spirituality as well as holding a special place within community events. In Mesopotamia and Egypt c. 3000 BC onwards, music was used for religious purposes and within funeral rites. Egyptian buildings were designed as to increase the resonance of sounds and it is believed that they used vocal toning and sound therapy as a way to bring people back in to a state of harmony and balance. In this way, music was medicine. In Ancient Greece, for Aristotle (384 – 322BC) music was an essential part of the Greek paideia meaning education or learning. In Politics, long before Schopenhauer, Aristotle claimed music had “the power to gladden hearts” (1339b20) and that “there are.. in rhythms and melodies.. likenesses of the true natures of anger and gentleness.. of courage and moderation” (1340A20). He said people who listen are “affected sympathetically” (1340A10) and like to Schopenhauer, “everyone comes to have some sort of cathartic cleansing and to have a pleasant sense that burdens have been lifted” (1342A10). Pythagoras (c. 570 – 495 BC) famously developed the theory that mathematical ratios could be applied to musical intervals, such as 3:2 representing the “perfect fifth”, an interval said to have a harmonising affect on the bodily system. His “Harmony of the Spheres” proposed that the planets all work in symphony and emit their own celestial sounds, which could be calculated mathematically. This history shows that music has always been revered and understood to have a healing quality, which can restore humans physically, mentally and emotionally.

In the early twentieth century, music therapy became formally established primarily as rehabilitation treatment for veterans who were affected during WWI and II. Research in to music therapy began, and there is now neuroscientific evidence supporting its beneficial uses for people physically, emotionally, cognitively and socially. Following on from the ancient observations that music affects character, and Schopenhauer’s reflections that emotional states are directly affected through melody, sound therapy is an emerging field growing in popularity that relies on the use of ancient and modern instruments such as gongs, Tibetan bowls, crystal bowls, voice, drums and chimes, to bring about a state of profound relaxation and allow for emotional discharge. The method of using musical intervals to create harmony and dissonance will be used in a session, with Tibetan bowls in notes C and G being played, representing the 3:2 or perfect fifth spoken about as in Pythagoras’ theory. According to research by neuroscientist Dr Stephen Porges, improved functioning of the vagus nerve through sound therapy techniques can improve functioning of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) which improves a persons ability to relax, stimulating the “rest and digest response” resulting in deeper breathing, lower blood pressure, slower heart rate and the reduction of stress hormone cortisol. He says interruption of the functioning of the vagus nerve “may result in affective disorders, including emotion regulation problems or severe mood states” and also that “the vagus and vagal circuit do not function independently of other neurophysiological and neuroendocrine systems” (Porges, 1994). Sound or music therapy can alter brainwave patterns from beta (active, thinking, data processing) to alpha and theta (creative, daydreaming, problem solving, relaxing). The combination of brain entrainment (as one follows the rhythm of the drum), stimulation of the PNS and altered brain wave states cause physiological and psychological changes including emotional regulation, supporting my claim that music is therapeutic.

In conclusion, modern research echoes Schopenhauer’s earlier views that humans can shift emotional states and more through music and that it has a unique power, which can bring about therapeutic benefits so far reaching that healing can occur. He would refer to the deepest recesses of human willing and feeling being accessed through music and the scientific research that shows music can penetrate humans at a biological level is representative of the correlation of ideas in a different format. Schopenhauer’s theory that music is the “language of feeling and passion” has been true for people throughout the ages. That music reflects the “inner being…with the greatest distinctness and truth” (Schopenhauer, 1969: 264) is the reason why humans respond to music with such reverence and regard it as an art form that goes beyond words and has powerful influence upon one’s character and emotional states. Empathic states can be found through listening to music, a type of transcendental alleviation of worldly worries, emotional release such as crying or laughing and even a connection to the order and structure of the universe through Pythagoras’ mathematical harmonic ratios. Neuroscience is showing that music permeates every part of a human, including bodily processes, mind functioning and it can greatly enhance mental and emotional wellbeing. All this taken in to account provides the evidence to show that music is therapeutic for humans and has been throughout history. The effect of music being known to all people, shows that there may be a deeper unseen reality connecting us all and that music is the key to moving rational understanding aside and accessing a space where understanding naturally arises and humans can feel free and unburdened from what Schopenhauer saw as incessant suffering.

Bibliography

Maibom, Heidi L., 2017, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy, New York, Routledge

Chapter Title: The sacred geometry of music and harmony Chapter Author(s): Sherif Abouelhadid Book Title: Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology Book Subtitle: Characters and Collections Book Editor(s): Alice Stevenson Published by: UCL Press. (2015) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69z2n.24

Hoskyns, Sarah. The Handbook of Music Therapy, edited by Leslie Bunt, et al., Routledge, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anglia/detail.action?docID=1501555.
Created from anglia on 2019-11-30 13:25:10.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1969, The World as Will and Representation, Canada, Dover Publications Inc.

Langer, Susanne, 1953, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons

Woerther, F. 2008, "Music and the education of the soul in Plato and Aristotle: Homeopathy and the Formation of Character”, Classical Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 89-103.

Aristotle. Politics, edited by Joe Sachs, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co., 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anglia/detail.action?docID=967776.
Created from anglia on 2019-12-03 04:48:23.

Vagal Tone and the Physiological Regulation of Emotion Author(s): Stephen W. Porges, Jane A. Doussard-Roosevelt and Ajit K. Maiti Source: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Vol. 59, No. 2/3, The Development of Emotion Regulation: Biological and Behavioral Considerations (1994), pp. 167-186 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1166144 Accessed: 10-12-2019 14:53 UTC