Music And Emotions
In 1812, Beethoven fell in love with a girl, whose identity is still a secret. Although they planned to marry, they couldn’t, because of her father’s disapproval. She got married, but Beethoven remained solitary, dedicating the famous ‘Moonlight Sonata’ to her. This composition went on to become the epic song for all lovers and many started defining and idealizing music through his composition. Lovers befriended music to express their heartfelt superfluous feelings, Intense and overwhelming casual music and his self-created classical sonatas gained respect due to the rising adrenaline levels among the youngsters who conceptualized music and attained the power of love.
Why Only Love?
The effects of music on human emotions and sentiments are universal. it emanates from alarm clocks in the morning, and fills our cars, gives us chills, and makes us cry. All the various songs, no matter what genre, culture, creed or country primarily incorporates a love element. Whether the theme is new love, enduring love, lost love or a broken heart, rhapsodic theme, funny, momism based songs, love for the country or friendship, the base emotion is love. But have we ever thought of the reason?
Perhaps, love is the most intense and happy of human emotions. Our basic (soulful) nature is loving and peaceful. One gets angry and this subsides overtime, one feels low and then again one feels normal, unlike the feeling of love, which by default dwells in our consciousness. This is the reason why we don’t get to hear many songs on death, depression etc. On the contrary, a substantial quantity of songs about love are misery laden or based on lost love.
Music speaks the language of love which makes one easily identity his/her inner actual quality. You follow a piece of music, anticipate what’s coming next, then either you confirm or get a shock and perceive the feel-good emotion. These little cognitive nuances provides euphoric pleasure and the only basic emotion which persists is love.
In a research conducted, a disheartened guy, who had a recent breakup and who was almost into depression was made to listen to a few sad songs of his choice followed by some interactions. The guy shared some aggressive, negative and sad experiences related to his girlfriend. The next day he was made to hear some fast, peppy numbers. This resulted in happy, enthusiastic experiences with his girlfriend. He was reminded of her generous qualities, her love for him and wept heavily in repentance. It was concluded that music has the power to subside ego and over-layer the quality of love and generosity among mankind.
Ramisha Vardalikar, a Maharashtrian theatre vocalist once blogged about her frustration of married life as her husband disrespected her and made her sing in his cheap cocktail parties. She was getting implicitly repelled by her hubby but couldn’t divorce him because of the kids. But one day, her friend insisted on her accompanying her for a Shreya Ghoshal concert. Coincidently, the queen of romance recited a few songs which were Ramisha’s husband’s favourites. One by one, she started delving deep into those songs, getting nostalgic about the erotic moments she shared, fully drowned into the lyrics reminiscing the appraisals that came from her hubby, meditating strongly about the faded love which has been layered by ego and expectations. Eventually, her delectations and ecstatic mood consummated with the romance/lovable songs made her take the right decision. She improved her lite, but one thing she made sure of was to increase the frequency of her attending music concerts and shows to make it a habit of generating optimistic and pure, love-laden thoughts. She was able to change her hubby too.
The Brain And Music
Valorie Salimpoor, a neuroscientist at McGill University and a researcher on brain and music says, “Music affects deep emotional centres in the brain. A single sound tone ¡s not really pleasurable in itself; but if these sounds are organized over time in some sort of arrangement, it’s amazingly powerful. People are drawn towards love, peace, bliss and music embraces these attributes. Therefore, people love music for much the same reason as they are drawn towards relationships, sex, drugs, gambling and food. It’s an addiction which is good to have.
Like heat and light affect all animate and inanimate forms, so does music. It is the rhythmic flow of the energy of sound by specific compositions and vibrations. These vibrations initiate the various emotions and sentiments aroused through the hormone fluctuations. Also, in the book ‘Stay alive all your life,’ many near death experiences comprise of the visualizations of having seen bright golden light and divine music expressing love.