By Dan Falk, a science journalist based in Toronto. His books include “The Science of Shakespeare” and “In Search of Time.” Automatically pushed to Undark.
It’s not clear who first said that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” but they had a point: Music has a certain power over us, but it’s not the kind of power that one can easily measure or analyze. Music moves us, often very deeply – but how? If anyone is qualified to answer this age-old question, it is Daniel J. Levitin, a neuroscientist, musician, and author, who has spent a lifetime immersed in the world of music, both as a scientist and as a musician and producer. . (Levitin’s 2006 bestseller, “This Is Your Brain to Music: The Science of Human Consciousness,” is an in-depth exploration of the connection between music and the mind.)
Levitin, professor emeritus at McGill University and visiting professor at UCLA, is back with a new book called “I’ve Heard There’s a Music Secret: Music as Medicine” (the first part of the title is an excerpt from Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah”). His focus is on the many ways music can help heal our bodies and minds.
Music, Levitin argues, helps us cope with trauma. Playing or listening to music, he explains, can change the body’s levels of serotonin and dopamine. Music also stimulates the brain’s ability to make new neurons, and new connections between them, “enhancing the brain’s recovery, and normalizing the stress response.”
Music can also treat movement disorders. Levitin notes that “the pathways and movement patterns in our brain are sung to music, synchronized with it, and our body and limb system”—the part of the brain that causes emotion—”shows pleasure when it does.”
He lists five movement disorders that have been shown to respond to music therapy: stuttering, Tourette syndrome, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. And even in other cases, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), where Levitin says more research is needed, music has been found to relieve anxiety and depression, and improve quality of life.
That music can be used to treat depression will probably come as no surprise: Even those who have never sought medical help for depression will have recognized the power of music to lift mood. Levitin notes how music helped record producer Quincy Jones cope with depression: “Music made me full, strong, famous, confident and cool,” he quotes in Jones’ autobiography. In a similar vein, Bruce Springsteen has described music as a form of therapy, which has brought him a kind of peace that is “very hard to find,” he told PBS NewsHour.
Music can have a positive effect on other diseases as well. Alzheimer’s disease is, without a doubt, one of the most devastating disorders. Levitin’s description of guitarist Glen Campbell’s battle with the disease is poignant. After receiving his diagnosis, Campbell continued to tour. “He didn’t know what city he was in,” Levitin wrote, “and often he didn’t remember that he had just played a song, so he would play it two or three times in a row.” Yet despite these challenges, Campbell’s performance was still strong.
Although there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, Levitin shows that music, at least temporarily, can alleviate the disease. He describes the story of a man named George who was diagnosed with this disease when he was 72 years old. After six years it could no longer walk or speak, without the ability to express “yes” or “no.” But the nursing home where he lived often played music, and, as George’s neurologist told Levitin, it made a difference. George “could sing when the music was playing like he was 30 years old again.”
Even if music does not slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, it can improve a patient’s quality of life by relieving anxiety and agitation. Levitin cites the work of Frank Russo and Adiel Mallik at Toronto Metropolitan University. The two have been modeling the brain’s “resting network” and developing treatments that help manage certain symptoms of dementia. Levitin says their research “points the arrow at the medicine of music for relaxation” and highlights the importance of non-pharmacological treatments.
One limitation with the types of treatments Russo and Mallik have been investigating is that they are difficult to scale up, since there are far fewer therapists than people in need of treatment. Here, Levitin suggests that artificial intelligence can help. AI can help “choose music that meets both personal preferences and desired goals for therapy and wellness. A lot of startups are doing just that.” This research, he says, “could usher in a new era of personalized music medicine.”
Levitin’s personal relationships with other artists give the book a warmth it might not have otherwise. He is a long-time friend of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, who was hospitalized after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. When Mitchell returned home, Levitin arranged for Mitchell’s nurses to play a CD he had put together years ago as a part. in Starbucks’s “Artist’s Choice” series – a collection of custom songs, performed by some of Mitchell’s favorite artists.
Levitin told the nurses to start playing the disc once a day, and to ask Mitchell when he played it and how often he did it. After playing the CD for Mitchell for the first time, the decision was made: “The nurses called me this afternoon and said it was the first time they had seen him smile since he came home.” Mitchell’s condition gradually improved. Levitin believes that music may have been just one factor in his recovery, but he suggests that it was, at the very least, a factor.
While Levitin makes a strong case that music can heal, he also points out some inescapable truths about the situations many musicians face, which seem disproportionate to the general population. Professional musicians, Levitin writes, are more likely to become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and more likely to die a violent death (or die of an overdose, or liver disease) than non-musicians. Levitin cites a British survey that found 71 percent of musicians experience anxiety or high levels of anxiety, while 69 percent have depression (three times the rate of the general population).
The underlying reasons for this disparity are not fully understood, and many overlapping factors may be at work. Levitin suggests that one factor may be the high stakes associated with success or failure in the music business. He writes: “Their failures are often obvious. “More than in many fields, an actor’s sense of self-confidence and self-esteem is consistent with who he is and his status as a musician.”
Nevertheless, the reader is left convinced that the benefits of listening or playing music far outweigh the disadvantages. Levitin points to research that shows music can relieve pain and strengthen the immune system; that it can increase our energy levels when we exercise; that it can make us empathetic. Learning a musical instrument can improve attention, improve speaking skills, and improve brain health.
This book covers more than the healing power of music. Levitin examines various interrelated topics – the complex connection between music and memory, for example, or how people with Williams syndrome (a genetic disease marked by developmental delay and mild mental retardation, among other unique characteristics) or autism spectrum disorder , or make, music.
And although the book is based on science, Levitin recognizes the limitations of science. Towards the end, he ponders philosophy as he returns to the puzzling question of how music affects us so deeply. Ultimately, music is a mysterious art form, and this mystery is part of its magic.
Understanding how music moves us involves science, but it also asks us to embrace something beyond science. This engaging, compassionate, and well-researched book reveals how much we have learned about the interplay between the world of sound and the world inside our heads, as it leaves the magic behind music intact.
Source link