The science of music.

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“Without music, life would be a mistake,” said Friedrich Nietzsche.

Music is both an art and a science, and music and science are closely related. Both use mathematical principles and logic, blended with creative thinking and inspiration to arrive at conclusions that are both enlightening and inspirational. It could be said that Science is the music of the intellect, and Music is the science of the heart.

Music is Math

Music composition is basically a mathematical exercise. From a basic source of sounds, rhythms and tempos, an infinite variety of musical expressions and emotions can be produced. It is the interaction of sounds, tempo, and pitch that creates music, just as the interaction of known facts and knowledge coupled with imagination, conjecture and inspiration produces new scientific discoveries. Both Science and Music use “formulas” and “theories” to solve problems and to explore the intangible mysteries of life.

Music is as complex and varied as any scientific principle or theory

There are a number of scientific theories that try to explain music. This is a clear indication that music is as complex and varied as any scientific principle or theory. As mathematics is both a science and an art, Music is both an art and a science. In this way, the art of music and the science of mathematics are related.

Some have postulated that music is the father of mathematics. To make music, you must know how to break “sound” into elements of pitch, rhythm and tempo. Science teaches us that sound is vibration, and the frequency of vibration is what makes different sounds. Music then is the study of the sound created by those vibrations and puts them into patterns that elicit emotion. Music is based on mathematics. And mathematicians view mathematics as “music for the intellect”. Their joy in a perfect mathematical solution or theorem is as inspiring to them as a Bach Cantata.

Music Makes Us Human

But music is not just an arranged set of noises pleasant to the ear. Music is a bridge that spans the gap between cultures and languages. Music is a means of finding compatibility within a society, as well as a link with other societies. Music has the ability to progress past science.

iStock_Street_Musicians600x350 Knowledge Base The science of music.

Music is the common human denominator. All cultures have it. All cultures share it. There are many scientific theories about music and it’s origins, but a purely scientific explanation of music misses the point. Music is emotion. Music is an unexplainable manifestation that is uniquely human. Birds “sing”, but do they weep or cheer as they march to war at the sound of it?

Studies and music

Music — and not just classical music — inspires a sense of creativity and sustains our motivation, going hand-in-hand with the empowering nature of science. The delicate interplay between music and science in our education helps us think without letting us forget how essential it is to feel.

Socializing and music

“The role of music is socialization,” explains Jeremy Montagu, a musician and professor at Oxford University. In an essay published in the journal Frontiers in Sociology, Montagu argues that music is so primitive that it would be prior to language. He argues that the humming a mother makes to calm her baby is music and that it probably happened before we were able to speak.

For this expert, the bond that music establishes between mother and child is also present in a group of workers or in the ancestral men who danced and sang before a hunt or battle. “By establishing such a bond between individuals, music created not only the family but society itself,” he says.

Communicates emotions

The hypothesis that music played an essential role in the formation and survival of groups and in conflict mitigation is one of the most accepted. Mark Tramo, of the Institute for Music & Brain Science at Harvard University, defines it as a factor of social cohesion. “Men needed to organize to hunt and defend themselves. It paved the way for us to communicate with each other and to share emotions,” he explains.

sirve-musica-ppal-21 Knowledge Base The science of music. — According to a study of the University of Cambridge, the music reveals the personality of each. Credit: **Nickolai Kashirim**

The ability to communicate emotions was precisely what made music persist after the development of language. A study by psychologists at the University of London showed, for example, that even when listening to a short piece of music, an individual is more likely to interpret sadness or happiness in his or her interlocutor, even if the subject maintains a neutral facial expression.

In its task of forging links between people, music also reveals the personality of each, according to a study of experts in Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge. A group of strangers was divided into pairs and had six weeks to get acquainted. Participants were asked to judge the other person’s personality based only on their list of 10 favourite songs. Psychologists noted that participants correctly identified the personality traits of their partners in the study and concluded that musical taste is a reliable source of information about an individual.

Promotes creativity

Science has also found an explanation for a more instinctive function of music—to make us feel good. A study published recently by the journal Nature and led by Daniel Levitin, neuroscientist and author of the book “This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession,” indicates that it acts in the brain in a manner similar to drugs, sex or food. Songs activate the frontal lobe, produce dopamine and act on the cerebellum, which is able to “synchronize itself” to the rhythm of the music, which causes pleasure. “It’s like a toy for the brain,” says Levitin.

And this “toy” also stimulates creativity. Research from the University of Oxford indicates that music at a moderate level enhances abstract processing power, which favours creativity when it comes to performing activities or solving problems.

Musica-21 Knowledge Base The science of music. — Music produces dopamine and acts on the cerebellum, which is able to “synchronize itself” to the rhythm of the music, which causes pleasure. Credit: **Eddie Berthier**

In children’s brains, musical activity increases cognitive and motor skills. A team of neurologists at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) found that children who have three years or more of training with musical instruments have better motor coordination and auditory discrimination skills, learn vocabulary more easily, and have better non-verbal reasoning skills, which implies better understanding and analysis of visual information, such as identifying relationships, similarities and differences between shapes and patterns.

Is therapeutic

Of all the functions of music, perhaps the most mysterious corresponds to its possible therapeutic use. British neurologist Oliver Sacks reported in his books cases of patients with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s whose symptoms improved when they listened to songs. Other investigations mention patients with strokes who showed better visual attention upon listening to classical music.

According to pianist Robert Jourdain in the book “Music, the Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination,” it overcomes the symptoms because it “relaxes the cerebral flow,” while “stimulating and coordinating the activities of the brain.” For him, this “magic” happens to everybody. “Music lifts us from our frozen mental habits and makes our minds move in ways they ordinarily cannot,” he says.

Music is a force that can unite humans even as they are separated by distance and culture. Science can explain many things, but science alone cannot create them. Science can explain music, but only intellect and emotion can create it.

Also published on Medium.