Historians do not agree on which of the two phrases he uttered, whether he uttered both, or whether it is one of those quotes attributed to him but which he never said, who knows.
The difference between music and noise
The point is, the difference between noise and music is beauty. If it has beauty, it is music and if it doesn’t, it is noise and that beauty seems to reside in the combination of three ingredients, melody, harmony and rhythm. If a noise has these three ingredients, it becomes a pleasant sound that inspires us emotionally and rationally, stirs our feelings and gives us pleasure, if it lacks any of them, in the best of cases, it is indifferent to us and in the worst, it annoys us.
As early as the beginning of the first human populations, people discovered the emotional power of sound and how sounding ‘noise’ in a certain way affected us positively. With social evolution, humans discovered different ways to create new sounds, from bone flutes found in Palaeolithic sites to digital synthesizers, and we innovated and learned to combine those sounds, always adapting to the social circumstances of each era, which has taken us from the Hurrian hymns of 1400 BC (the oldest musical composition we know) to the latest pop hit by Taylor Swift. Music, like all other artistic disciplines, evolves and adapts in terms of techniques, materials (instruments) and subject matter according to the historical moment in time. Musical compositions are a magnificent source of knowledge for understanding the societies in which they were written.
I am not going to talk about the history of music, nor the physical reasons why some sounds are consonant and others dissonant, nor how these physical characteristics of waves are translated into musical theory, but about the benefits that music brings us as sentient beings, but I don’t want to do it with a list of scientifically proven advantages, for that, write ‘benefits of music’ in ChatGPT and we would already have it. I’m going to do it from my life experience as a musician and as a music lover (as a creator and consumer), what music means in my life and what it has brought me. It may sound egocentric, but it is what I can give, the differentiating point compared to proposing the subject to artificial intelligence.
My reflection
That music affects the mind is something we have all experienced in our own flesh, curiously, this ‘almost magical’ power affects not only humans but all other animals with a certain level of neurological development. I have been able to verify this myself with Leia, my cat, whenever I start practising, she sits at the door of the room where we keep the instruments in my house and stays there, still and doesn’t move until I finish. You can see her moving her ears and closing and opening her eyes according to the intensity with which I play the piece or practice the exercise. I know that this doesn’t happen with reptiles, you can see that, from a certain neurological development, the laws that make a sound harmonic affect you regardless of the fact that each species has a range of audible frequencies and their brains give more predominance to some than others and that, obviously, she doesn’t hear the piece in the same way as I do.
For most people, music is a pleasant element in their lives, for me, music was salvation. I am now a perfectly functional adult, those who know me know that I am outgoing, sociable and have a full social and professional life but it wasn’t always like that.
I was a child with ADHD at a time when there was no general knowledge of what it was. I had problems with concentration, impulse control and social skills. No teacher realised that I might have a condition and my parents even less, I was just a weird kid. A candidate for ostracism and bullying in the playground, but this ‘special’ child admired people who made music, saw orchestras, performers in bars and on television, anyone who played an instrument, and marvelled as some kids marvel at footballers. I found what they did very difficult and magical.
I was never medicated or treated professionally to help me with this trait, in fact, I was diagnosed at almost 40 years old, after my son was found to have it and my wife and I had tests that revealed I had it and it all made sense. I didn’t have Medikinet, nor neurology and psychology sessions, but fortunately, I had tools and motivational references to inspire me and that saved me, helped me to overcome, improve and overcome it, how? Well, here is the list of reasons:
Music improves attention span and concentration: It is obvious that learning to play an instrument requires attention and concentration, for a child with problems in those two aspects, learning to play an instrument can be a fun way to train those two skills, fortunately, my parents saw music as an ‘expendable hobby’ so they didn’t pressure me and let me go at my own pace. This is something I tell all my friends who tell me that their child wants to learn to play an instrument, it is imperative that the child sees it like they see video games, that at first you are not good at it but since it is fun, you practice it with pleasure and little by little you get better at it until you master it. If you push the child with music theory and force them to practice against their will, they will see it as another compulsory subject and will end up dropping it as soon as they have the chance.
This ability to increase concentration and attention is not only achieved by ‘playing music’ but also by listening to music. You have to know how to listen to music by paying attention to the details, to the arrangements of all the instruments, to notice things that many people miss, it’s like taking the sandwich apart and enjoying it in parts. If you teach a child to listen to music in this way you will be exercising his attention and concentration, he will discover little treasures in the form of arpeggios, scales and riffs and he will listen to the songs several times as if it were the first time. In addition, you will give him the ability to realise the deception of the ‘template song’, but I won’t go any further, as I don’t want anyone to be offended. Listening to music is also a good way to train attention and concentration.
- Improving memory: Practising with an instrument develops memory, but it has been proven that active listening to music, as I explained in the previous point, also exercises the areas of the brain responsible for long and short term memory. For a child who struggled to retain ideas, active listening and the practice and study of musical discipline was like doing weights with the brain.
- Reduced stress, anxiety and improved mood: I don’t think I’m telling anyone about this, am I? We all experience it like getting wet if we go outside when it rains. I won’t dwell on this point.
- Helps in the development of mathematics, language and spatial skills, and therefore increases academic performance and motor skills: Experts say that learning rhythmic patterns and musical structures, either by studying or simply by actively observing music, improves mathematical comprehension, language skills, and thus school performance. It also improves the ability to handle and visualise objects in space.
- That is what science says and my experience corroborates this statement. As I said, as a child I was not particularly bright at school and was rather clumsy in my movements, however, as I progressed in musical knowledge, my academic performance progressed in equal measure and my clumsiness diminished. In the end I was able to finish two degrees and a master’s degree, I am more or less fluent in English and French, and I play sports regularly with acceptable results. I am sure that music was a fundamental factor in all these achievements.
- Increased self-esteem and self-confidence: This is more on the musician side than on the music lover side. As I said, I didn’t have a lot of social skills, poor academic and sporting performance, being teased and taunted by teachers and schoolmates in my childhood didn’t help me to think highly of myself, but being on stage since I was 16 and having given, over the course of my life … I don’t know … 200 concerts? It was a very good way to get rid of my stage fright and to ‘break the ice’, plus, one’s own achievements with the instrument and the applause really boosts the ego. I can say that it sculpted my character.
- Improved social skills: Having collaborated with other musicians in bands, concerts and recordings has made me meet a lot of people, but also learn to work as a team, coordinate, collaborate and fit my work with that of others to create something greater than the sum of the individual parts. A band is made up of several people, each with their own interests, their own personality, their own problems, their own scale of values and priorities, which is a source of conflict, in most cases, you don’t even earn money and you do a lot of work. You have to develop good empathy, negotiation and conciliation skills to make it work and, above all, so that when it ends, like any working group, a band is bound to end, it ends well. For a long time, playing in bands was seen in the business world as something negative, as if those of us who do it have ‘birds in our heads’, want to be like the Beatles and are not serious workers, but if you look at it coldly, it should be a point in our favour because, believe me, the gypsy saying ‘you can see yourself with musicians’ is very true and those of us who do it practice all those skills that are extremely important in companies.
All this is from the musician’s side, but from the music lover’s side, the passion for music also helps social cohesion. Going to festivals, concerts, music halls, or simply talking about music with other lovers of the same styles are activities that enrich people’s social life.
- Encourages creativity: As with the point about reducing stress and mood, I won’t dwell too much on this point. That learning art, be it music, painting, theatre or whatever, makes us more creative is a fact, but paying attention to music, listening actively encourages creativity in the same way as reading a lot of literature or looking closely at the details of a good painting. I don’t need to give personal examples because we all experience it.
- It encourages cultural curiosity: Those who have a musical taste in styles such as heavies, rockers, classical music fans, jazz or flamenco tend to have more cultural curiosity. I don’t say so myself, but many academic studies say so. There are those from the University of Warwick in England, the University of Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh or the report presented at the 18th annual conference of the New York Psychological Association.
- Promotes personal identity: Music can be an integral part of personal identity. Actively studying and listening to music helps individuals explore and define who they are and what they are passionate about. In my personal case, I don’t think I would have been the person I am today, nor would I have done the things that have brought me this far without the accompaniment of music as the soundtrack to my life.
To conclude this article, we have reviewed just some of the benefits that, according to science, music brings us, but seen from the subjective perspective of my own experience. We have gone over how music was the ‘Concerta’ and although I am sure that everything would have been easier with medical treatment, without music, I probably wouldn’t have done half of the things I have done in my life and that forces me to think again.
I am living proof that ‘music therapy’ is effective and that teaching children to listen to and appreciate music is very useful without contraindications.
