Andrew Huberman is an associate professor of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine.
He is also a professional podcaster on sport and health with 4 million YouTube subscribers.
This video by him explores how music works in the brain and body.
He discusses peer-reviewed studies about:
how music may have developed before spoken language;
links between music, health, breathing and blood pressure;
how and what types music tend to lift our mood into happiness, or enable us to process sadness;
how the frequencies of tones, cadences and rhythms of music trigger matched frequencies of firing of neurones and release of neurotransmitters across key brain sites;
how music activates aspects of the neuromuscular control system.
(Huberman does make 2 or 3 short paid verbal endorsements of businesses in the video - but these are clearly distinguished from the educational, scientific content of the talk.)
I learned a lot about music and hearing from this video.
No, I understood that - perhaps my use of that term was misleading: I was just wondering if it in any way discussed the effect of mood on how humans hear/perceive music - acceptance, enjoyment, appreciation, absorption etc - given that in part it appears to cover the effect of music on mood.
Yes, he does cite peer-reviewed research on many aspects of the mutual relationship between mood and the qualities of how music sounds.
His focus is mainly on how music can improve peoples lives, and can be used to improve peoples lives.
He talks about things like the relationship between drumming and war.
He discusses why and in what ways listening to music and playing instruments is good for us and good for the development of our nervous systems, and that many areas of the brain are coordinated in how we listen to music, and act on it, and learn from it.
He also discusses the especially positive benefits, not only of just listening to music that we already know, but also searching for and listening to new music that we’ve never heard before.
Thanks!
Much I think I will be familiar with (as will many/most people seriously into music listening). Perhaps he also covered music as an aid to concentration and learning (though not necessarily for everyone - some people, I am one, can switch off all un-needed senses while concentrating, whence music makes might as well not be on). And of course as a distraction from those.
The last point you mentioned is interesting as the only benefit I recognise is an expansion of things to enjoy playing when I find something new I like - but hearing lots of music I don’t like is an irritation.
Yes, he covers music as an aid to concentration and learning in detail.
Simplified: concentration on a cognitive task is on average most effective with no music, then with instrumental music, and worst with music with singing that one is very familiar with. Cognitive/linguistic processing reasons why this is the case are discussed.
Anyone who wants to view a topic (such as the one you mention) can simply hover their mouse over the many sub-sections and play the relevant one that appeals to them.
The ancient Egyptian Dendera Hieroglyph was in fact depicting an electronic musical instrument that the gods used to hypnotise the slaves with soothing sounds and rhythms.
Indeed. You can often see this in this forum, for example the 300 series listening experiences only thread had a big drift into exactly that a few days ago.