MUSI20150 Music And Health University of Melbourne

University of Melbourne

MUSI20150 Music And Health University of Melbourne

What is music in relation to health?
– Simple to some but more complex to others
– Meaning of music  Ethnomusicologist Christopher Small:
o Published a book called ‘Musicking’ in 1998
o Suggests that humanity has began to see music as an object – a noun
 This loses the meaning of music as an act – a verb
 Small believes that not only the composers, audience and those directly
involved with music making contribute, but also ticket sellers, roadies all
form a part of the music making process
 Highlights important of music and relationships (ie. Health)
 Music is more than just the notes  more about the people who
share in it
o It is able to transcend great distances, span across cultures
o Musicking together is a metaphor for relationships – more so IDEAL relationships
– Evolutionary perspective  role of music and human societies over time – namely in
survival:
o Music/dance is ubiquitous in all cultures
o Theorists suggest music played a survival function in traditional cultures
o Rhythm was used as community building mechanism to build organisational
systems in pre-human species
 Promotes interbeing connectedness
 Long distance communication: Aids in communication and connection with
all community members even across large distances through drumming
o Enhancing sex appeal: being able to dance enhances appeal to opposite sex 
increases chance of procreation  survival
 Still a major part of modern contemporary culture
 Music videos focus on objectification
– Evolutionary perspective  non-verbal communication/social connection:
o This is exhibited in infant-parent interaction
 Ellen Dissanayake believes this provides the most significant + universal
explanation for the ongoing existence of music
 Proposes that parents utilise music’s capacity to elicit emotion to
co-regulate the infant’s emotions
o As a form of communication, music differs greatly from language-based interactions
(particularly in groups)
 Ian Cross: ‘floating intentionality’  music guarantees success of social
encounters by creating conditions which minimise conflict + enable a sense
of inclusiveness with a shared purpose
 Example: singing together in a choir as one voice for the purpose of
musicking together and for others  brings together different
political/religious views + varying levels of wellness
 Music affords us space to rehearse and sustain our social flexibility
– Affordances of music for health  What does music provide?
o Critical view provided by J.J. Gibson refers to features of an environment that allow
an observed to perform an action
 The term ‘affords’ is used by many scholars in music studies  music does
not act like a drug with a predictable effect on our health
 Music creates conditions/affords opportunities to rehearse, sustain, create
possibilities to impact and influence health
o Tia DeNora: ‘affordance’ used to explain how people use music to shape identity,
control moods + fit into their surroundings
 Can either enable or constrain actions
 Emphasises importance of human agency
o Use of music in ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ ways depends on how it is appropriated
by an individual/group  Music does not create health
What is health in relation to music?
– Biomedical perspective:
o An organism is healthy when it functions optimally without evidence of
abnormality
o Appealing viewpoint as it suggests a clear notion of what a healthy organism is + is
measurable  easy to research + generally applicable
o Limitations:
 Fails to recognise impact of contextual features on health
 Assumes single, universal notion of what perfect health in a human body
should be
 Criticised by disability activist groups + researchers
– Rights-based perspective:
o World Health Organisation 1948: health is significantly broader than biomedical
perspective
 “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
– Healthy promotion perspective:
o WHO later developed Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion in 1986
 Recognised that health is a resource for everyday life and not the objective
of living
 Good health allows us to live well, pursue dreams + aspirations
 Health is a positive concept – emphasises social + personal resources and
physical capacities
– Relational perspective:
o Prominent music therapy theorist Brynjulf Stige:
 Health is a quality of mutual care between people
 Feature of human co-existence made of personal qualifications gradually
developed over time
 Allows us to participate actively + meaningfully in the world
 Health is put into practice in relationships with others
 Social participation is an important part of living a healthy life
– Concept of communicative musicality:
o Combines relational understanding of health
o Musical interactions in early infancy teach us to attune + respond to people
o Musician and psychologist Stephen Malloch + psychologist Colwyn Trevarthen:
 Uses term ‘communicative musicality’ to describe critical pre-verbal musical
interaction between parent and child
 Plays significant developmental role in infants understanding of
interpersonal relationships
 Satisfying communication is established through creation of a
coordinated relationship through time
o Theorist Ellen Dissanayake:
 During interactions with an infant, we will instinctively match the pitch and
tone of sounds made by the child to create a back and forth dialogue
 Facial expressions + body movements reflect and embellish
vocalisations
 Dissanayake believes the interaction is not one sided with the infant as a
passive recipient
 Interpersonal process exists where the infant is highly receptive to
these untaught musical signals offered by the parent + actively
contributes
 Behavioural + emotional coordination between two individuals who
need each other for their own discrete reasons
– Musical parameters of communicative musicality:
o Malloch and Trevarthen have identified three parameters:
 Pulse: Interactions have regular succession of events (both vocal and
gestural) which overtime create a pulse where coordination is possible
 Quality: Interactions form contours of expression (vocal and gestural) that
move and evolve through time
 Narratives: Interactions form a narrative through combination of pulse and
quality to create sense of sympathy and situated meaning between parent
and child  framed by shared sense of passing time
o Distinct from language-based communication
o Similar interactions are observed between parent and children worldwide 
suggests communicative musicality is something we are born with
o Common musicality allows us to share meaningful time, offers emotional richness,
structural holding
o Serves as an essential human need for companionship
 Language serves need for sharing of facts
Case Study: Music and Public Health
– Brynjulf Stige’s definition:
o “…the appraisal and appropriation of the health affordances of the arena, agenda,
activities, and artefacts of music practice.”
– Bonde describes 4 central aims of health musicking:
o Formation and development of identity
o Professional application of music to help individuals
o Development of communities and values
o Shaping and sharing of musical environments
– Theoretical model of health musicking:
o 4 quadrants depict perspectives on how musicking can develop various experiences
o Each quadrant includes arena, agenda, activities, and artefacts (as stated by Stige’s
definition)
– Studies supporting relationship between music and health (particularly on choir singing
participation) show that:
o Music experiences/participation can be a low-tech and low-cost source of health
promotion
o Music experiences/participation can improve quality of life/wellbeing in people
with health problems
– More specific cohort studies are required to study for whom and how health musicking can
be a public health resource in the 21st century
– Previous Danish Health and Morbidity Survey 2013 targeted:
o Everyday use of music
o Association between playing musical instruments, singing daily and health outcomes
o Community’s thoughts on extent to which music activities and music experiences
can help to stay healthy
o Music in everyday life formed 8 questions:
 Results show that majority of adults do not play music or sing on a daily
basis
 Up to 40% spend one hour daily or more musicking
 Young more active then old, and women more so then men
 More than 75% believed that music can help stay healthy to some extent
 Younger age groups use music everyday for various purposes while only 2/3
of participants over 65 years use music to regulate mood
 Both men and women who played musical instruments/sing rated their
health better than those who do not
o Main results:
 Clear association between daily singing/playing with health and health
related quality of life
 Adult Danes use music for many different purposes in everyday life
 Most Danes consider music a health promoter
Week 2
Music and Physical Activity
– Psychology studies tend to emphasise motivational qualities of music
o Focuses power of music in the mind rather than the body
o Daniel Berlyne in Aesthetics and Psychobiology:
 Claims meaningful perception of art generates a state of arousal or
activation.
 Arousal refers to multiple processes in the nervous system that
relate to heightened states of physiological activity (i.e. heart rate,
blood pressure, muscle activation, brain waves etc.)
 Arousal helps to regulate engagement with the environment 
determines our emotions at that time
 Believes that music has stimulating properties that induce heightened states
of arousal activation by providing structure and energy
 Structure is inherent in music  notes occur in predictable
sequences over time
 When structure strays from the predictable in music, suspense is
created
o David Huron refers to this as ‘sweet anticipation’
 This suspense or other emotions created by music generates energy
in the form of excitement, intensity, activation and stimulation
 Proposes arousal inducing potentials of music can result in hedonistic
response which is what makes it motivational
 Hedonistic: state of pleasure or reward
 Take away message: Combination of aesthetic + biological experience lays
at heart of arousal theories  suggests human brain seeks arousal rather
than being based on stimulus-response interactions
– Entrainment:
o Natural science standpoint: music is not seen as cultural phenomenon that reflects
local traditions and beliefs
o Hard science perspective: music can be understood as a system of variables – when
certain patterns of variables align, the response in humans is biological and
irresistible
 Example: when you tap your feet to a song without thinking, singing to a
predictable tune without having heard the song
o Music is not something we need to think about because rhythm bypasses higher
cortical processing
 People will exercise to the rhythm of music and movement is stable
 Brain detects patterns + sensitive to changes so bodies detect regular
patterns and join in with them  occurs below conscious perception
o Basic mechanisms of rhythmic entrainment based on direct, dynamic and
sensorimotor coupling
– Music variables of entrainment:
o Rhythm, tempo and form are central players
o Tempo: pulse underneath progression of notes
 Slow run: song performed at 120 beats per minute  two steps a second
 Relaxation + promote sleep: 60 bpm to regulate breathing
 Breathing is less likely to entrain than movement  requires
practice to be effective
o Form: overall structure that holds rhythm and tempo together through
 Shape of the music
 Pop songs: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, bridge chorus, coda
 Typical pop song structure + steady tempo creates predictability
 You sense that at the end of the verse, the chorus will occur, then
after, a verse will return  when this occurs, you fell satisfied
o Rhythm: speed and pattern of notes played over time repetition and variation of
different parts
 Micheal Thaut Rhythm, Music and the Brain:
 Music measures and marks flow of time,
 Rhythm is central element that creates and shapes our perception of
musical time passing,
 Rhythm organises time and guides the ear and brain to make sense
of acoustical patterns and shapes by directing focus to important
moments in the unfolding of music
 Involves four features: automatic tendency to join in with beat, priming,
cueing and cycles
 Doesn’t require conscious thought  body synchronises with music
o Powerful tool for exercise and relaxation
 Practice can allow our bodies to naturally adapt to speeding
up/down when particular musical cues are heard
 Using same music for exercise or relaxation becomes more effective
over time  recognition supplements cueing mechanisms inherent
in pairing of action and perception
Music and Physical Fitness
– Definition of physical activity:
o Dr Imogen Clark: any bodily movement resulting from skeletal muscle activation
that increases daily energy expenditure including physical activity performed during
endurance exercise or for work and daily living tasks
 Different to one-off movements/activities like the motion of sitting or
standing
 Endurance exercise involves significant level of energy consumption above
resting levels that is associated with health benefits
– WHO guidelines for physical fitness:
o Healthy adults above 18yrs: at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic
physical activity per week
 Alternatively, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity or
combination of both
 Activity should be in bouts of at least 10 mins at a time
 Recommended that activity is spread over at least 5 days
 Should

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