There’s a beat: in our earbuds as we stride on a treadmill, through speakers as we dance in disco-lit clubs, from a stage as we hear the synchronization of a symphony. And there’s a beat in our hearts. Music is everywhere; some may argue even within our anatomical structures. But how does it attract us individually or collectively? How does it motivate us?
Adjunct Bassoon Lecturer Joy Flemming said, “There is a part of humans that responds so deeply to music, it’s something that’s been used…celebrated, since pre-recorded history; there’s always been music. I think by making that connection to music, we get into a part of our thinking which is less analytical and more free, more creative.”
Flemming said there is a deep correlation between creativity and learning and that creativity can enrich every student’s education, regardless of their major. She said music can promote passion.
“There’s something really deep that keeps me going; [music] helps you express what’s in your soul,” Flemming said.
KSC junior and men’s soccer player Connor Leahy, said that music encourages him to sharpen his skills in soccer. “I listen to pump-up music to help me get going. I usually listen to…‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. Music helps me get focused for the game.”
When he’s not playing the game he said he likes to listen to jazz to unwind. “I like Norah Jones,” Leahy said, “she’s nice and calming.”
KSC sophomore Andrew Schein explained how just the other day music helped calm him down after he experienced a stressful day. “I think music can drastically change people’s moods, and therefore [their] motivation,” Schein said.
It appears there is a correlation with emotions, music and motivation.
Flemming said, “If you’re feeling kind of blue and you listen to a sad song, it can make you feel bluer, which can actually help work your way through…in a way it makes you feel better because…it gives some validity to the emotion you’re feeling right then.”
On the other hand, some people might find a different type of music helps them through tough times.
KSC Psychology Professor Lawrence Welkowitz said, “I think that…depending on our histories…we
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all have different predispositions towards what types of music we’re going to respond to.”
He said his most recent interesting find on how music motivates is the 2014 documentary “Alive Inside.” Directed and produced by Michael Rossato-Bennett, Alive Inside is about the impact of music on individuals with Alzheimer’s.
In this documentary, Rossato-Bennett shows how adults plagued with Alzheimer’s, who can often be unresponsive to others, start to come back to reality when listening to popular songs , like tunes from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Most individuals even started to dance and sing. In addition, many were able to reciprocate questions of complexity and give in depth answers, when they had previously been unable to.
In the trailer of this film, Rossato-Bennett stated, “Music connects people with whom they have been, who they are and their lives.”
Before Welkowitz was a psychology professor, he interned helping people with developmental disabilities. His first patient was a young boy with autism. “I was told this child would never speak, and never be able to do certain motoric (relating to muscular activity) actions, like build [with] tinker toys. So I brought my Sony Walkman in….and I played Bob Marley and the Wailers,” he laughed, “and it totally did something,” Welkowitz said.
Welkowitz said how he used that music to help this child eventually eat and swallow food and drinks.
“At first I just played [the music] for him. His eyes lit up like it was the most exciting thing. It was like an awakening,” Welkowitz said.
Walter Sayre, professional musician, said “music gets me going…it’s my center. Music can make [people] more adaptable to different situations.” He said he practices every day, and sometimes even in his sleep. “Music has always been my life,” he said.
Sometimes, however, music doesn’t always have a positive effect. Sayre said that some types of music could rile certain people up and make them disconnect from who they are, which ultimately, but not always, results in violence. “I think with the wrong personality, music could encourage lawlessness or anarchy.”
Welkowitz said he doesn’t believe music itself promotes violence but that violence starts within a particular culture and music might then be indirectly associated with it.
For example, Sayre mentioned how Nazi Germany had marches with musical accompaniment that they altered from traditional anthems. “In Nazi Germany, they took the [first verse of Joseph] Haydn hymn and made it their…anthem…that was kind of evil, even though the original song wasn’t evil.”
Sayre said he doesn’t believe all anthems are of evil intent. “What about our [own] national anthem…or even ‘God Bless America’; Irving Berlin wrote that way before WWII, but it became something after [Kate Smith] sang it [in 1938]. It just brought everyone together,” he said.
Welkowitz said, “Music holds out…great hope for global connection; playing for change…it’s something that can be visceral. I think we need to look for things that bring us together and don’t push us apart, and I think music is certainly one of them.”
Flemming said, “I think back to the development of humans and looking at cultures where it’s still not industrialized…or have as much….technology as we do. The metaphor of the campfire and the drums and the singing and the dancing, and everybody…participating. That’s really where we came from. Everyone in the group [had] input,”
It appears the motivation of music can spread from an individual impact to a universal one. Ultimately, one could say there is a force that resounds, and it begins on just one note.
Dorothy England can be contacted at dengland@kscequinox.com
