Re: Opinions -- help with thesis topic


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Posted by Wade on October 01, 2002 at 20:33:56:

In Reply to: Opinions -- help with thesis topic posted by lisa on October 01, 2002 at 17:41:50:

Lisa,

Hello! I am going to try to address your various questions as best I can. This is a very important topic in the field of Music Therapy. Maybe you could seek publication in one of the scholarly journals of that field when your project is completed to your satisfaction.

Speaking from the physiological side, PLAYING makes a huge improvement in my overall sense of health and well being. Playing a wind-driven instrument (especially one of the larger ones) causes you to elevate the amount of oxygen in your system, which increases your brain activity/awareness level and gently gives the body's trunk muscles a bit of a workout. In any circumstance (but especially when one is ill) these factors combine to make one feel markedly better for a limited period of time. Therefore, one will almost certainly feel better "in the head" as a sort of indirect benefit. This happens to me at least twice per concert season. (I have numerous lung-related issues that crop up around November and February of each year.)

Whether or not string, percussion, or even the "less aggressive" wind and brass instrumentalists derive any direct physical benefit from playing while ill is not an observation that I have made first hand. Anecdotally, however, I have heard many players, ill at a gig, state that they felt much better after having played for an hour or so (winds as well as non-winds). They always feel as though they "finally woke up". Since many of these individuals were violinists, no breath-related benefit can really be attributed to this feeling.

One must assume that the mental effort expended while "playing" (working under a certain amount of artistic mental pressure with a goal of constant perfection - much different than sitting in an office cubicle, mind you!) has its own intrinsic benefit for musicians.

Therefore, if performers that are ill can derive some physical benefit from the increased and sustained mental activity of playing, it stands to reason that the complexity/intensity of the task has some sort of bearing on the player's overall feeling of health.

So, how might all of this apply to your topic?

Well, it seems to me that you may have already discovered the touchstone for your future research in the words of your own post. It seems that the level of mental engagement required by musicians to function at a high level is the key, and that the audience may benefit from it "second hand" IF the music captures and holds their individual imaginations. Did the performance "grab" or "touch" them? I think that when we do our jobs effectively as a group, that the audience leaves hall collectively "feeling" better, uplifted, or moved in some way.

Give a recording of Mozart to a head banger with no explanation and he will generally tune it out. Therefore, he will derive no benefit as he was not engaged mentally: he ignored the stimuli. Conversely, most elderly women will undoubtedly reap little or no physiological/psychological reward from being forced to listen to an hour of the Sex Pistols.

When depressed or ill, I always feel better listening to good music rather than watching the television. Music requires some use of your imagination, whereas television programming usually does not. The music sets a tone and a mood; but even when that mood is tragic, it is tragic to us at a higher level than TV “tragedy”, so you “feel” more. Even feeling sadness with more depth is feeling with more depth; when you are done listening you feel better than you would have had you not listened at all. (This is just my opinion, of course.)

These “feelings” must be chemically based, right? It makes sense to me, as it seems that all of our feelings and emotions are based on some kind of chemical process. So, if music elicits an improvement in your physical or mental state, then the music must have affected you at a chemical level. (My guess.)

Sorry for such a meandering stream of thoughts on this topic. I hope that at least some of this gives you a usable idea when you organize your research.

Best of luck to you.

Wade




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