Blogspot 9: What if there was no music?

Silence.

Imagine a world without music. What if you lost your sense of hearing? Ever wonder what a deaf mans concept of sound or music is like?

Songs play a huge part in our lives. When we’re heartbroken, we listen to songs that we can relate to and empathize with the lyrics, its comforting. When we’re happy, we tend to listen to songs that celebrate life and songs that give us the warm and fuzzies. We like to go about our lives, with a soundtrack. You wake up on the right side of the bed, and you bust out your Ipod with a playlist ready to set the mood to. What if that was taken away from you?

The Anechoic chamber holds the Guinness World record for quietest place on earth, as said by Ted Thornhill's article entitled "We all crave it, but can you stand the silence?" on dailymail.co.uk. NASA uses this as a research center to replicate the silence in space, the kind that astronauts would have to endure for long periods of time. However, it is said that staying in this room for 45 minutes can cause hallucinations and mess with a persons mind. The room is so quiet that you can hear your own heartbeat!.

Sound has several effects on the physical body, according to Hazrat Inayat Khan's article entitled "The Effect of Sound on the Physical Body" on sufimessage.com. If after 45 minutes a person can go crazy with the absence of sound, it just shows its importance. The ears adjust to the environment, therefore, if you take away the sound, our ears will magnify whatever sound it can pick up, whether it be our heartbeat or our intestines digesting.

It is clearly apparent that the human organism is in an extremely delicate state of equilibrium and any profound disturbance of this system wil have subsequent ramifications on the individual.

So, if you were deaf, or suffer from loss of hearing, how is sound explained? Music or sound, is mostly vibration, movement. A deaf person has a higher sense of touch allowing him to feel the vibrations more than a normal person would. According to forums for deaf, and explained by Adrian Lavelle's article entitled "How do you describe music to a deaf person" on adrianlavelle.hubpages.com, it really is mostly about feel and touch. Music was never made to be explained anyway, but to be felt.

We cannot exist in a world without sound or music. To be left with ones own thoughts is uncomfortable, to be with too much noise and not hear your own thoughts is equally unbearable. Music and sound, it’s a part of our lives, its what makes us human. Without it, we’re no different from beasts.

Blogpost 8: Analog vs. Digital

Technology has been an integral part of human evolution.  It has made our lives easier and has allowed us to go about our days faster by just one click. Personally, I like technology. I have family abroad and miss them terribly, and thanks to Skype, distance is of no bearing. Although, it begs the questions, “What happens to the interpersonal relationship? The connection? The “humanity” of it all?”

Music, like humankind has evolved through the years. Through the 50’s , the 60’s, 70’s and so on. But more than anything, its how your favorite songs were recorded and how it was brought to the masses, into the radio, into your homes.

There are different ways of recording music. The first form of it was Analog, as said by David Miles Huber and Robert E. Runstein in the article "The Analog Tape Recorder: An Intoduction" on prosoundweb.com, Audio is recorded onto a magnetized tape-based medium and is played back in tape form. 

Digital recording, according to Marek Roland-Mieszkowski's article entitled "Intoduction to Digital Recording Techniques" as written on digital-recordings.com, simply put is the conversion of analog signal into numerical value, to be recognized by a computer. Compared to analog, digital is easy to manipulate compared to analog recording.

Analog recording vs digital recording in terms of quality has been an ongoing debate among sound engineers and musicians alike, according to Steve Guttenberg's article entitled "Digital vs. Analog audio: Which sounds better?", on cnet.com. Purists prefer Analog recording because of the warm sound that the tube amp produces. As for musicians, to record analog, means to play the song live without cuts. Meaning, the emotion and raw, unfiltered playing is not lost while recording. The downside of analog these days is it is high-cost and future-retro which makes it a collectors item.  As for digital, it was embraced by the industry but was frowned upon by engineers and musicians because of how digital “mass produced” music.

As technology developed, compared to analog, digital gave musicians a chance to perfect their art by allowing them to cut when they made a mistake, and just simply record a new part without having to play the whole song over again. Digital is also more practical for home recording, cheaper and practical.

A movie called Sound City best explains the whole debacle of analog vs digital.Famous bands such as Buckingham and Nicks, Foo Fighters and Rage Against the Machines, all recorded in Sound City, a studio that is famous for its analog recording and perfect acoustic sound  using Rupert Neve's analog board

If my opinion, Analog is an art and Digital is the future but if we can find a way to bring these two technologies together, imagine the possibilities for the music we can make. Bottom line, it all really depends on the artists taste and preference as to which route to take. It is safe to say though that Analog recording, given its purity and fantastic sound, won’t be going anywhere.

Blogspot 7: The Role of Music in Video Games

I grew up as part of the video game generation, As many who may be wondering, I was born in the early 80’s as in the “EARLY 80’s” and as I kid I was lucky enough to share in this blog that I was able to play the earlier Atari games like pong and space invaders which had the old school howling ringing sound that for me still quite was addictive if you’d ask me. Created in the early 1970s, in an article by Sean Zehnder and Scott Lipscomb Ph.D, entitled "The Role of Music in Video Games" on soc.northwestern.edu, we know for a fact especially to those who can relate that the video game music of during those days were not as symphonic as it is today. For instance, Pong, the players would hit a ball back and forth across a center line with that now-recognizable onomatopoeic sound.

The early 1980s “pumping quarters into arcades generation” played into the much improved Pac Man and Galaga machines which for those reading this I was able to also experience since my dad had one at home, come to think of it now had this really weird monotonous tone that till this day is stuck in my head if I recalled it. The fact is then, I never really paid any attention to it. The sounds were just sounds that resonated in my head, little did I knew then that these bleeps and bloops were slowly invading my brain.

Video game music although played a greater role in my life with the entrance of the Nintendo Family Computer and later the SEGA Mega Drive. With games like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog and the music that these classics carried made a mark in me with it's catchy and fun, but it's not exactly serious musical tones that until now I know when I happen hear them.

According to an article entitled "The Evolution of Video Game Music", wriiten on npr.org, Video game composer Tommy Tallarico who made the music for classics like Earthworm Jim and Prince of Persia explains, "If you remember in Space Invaders, you know, as the ships started to come down, the aliens, and as they got closer and closer, the sound got faster and faster. With that being said and with the motivation that most if not all videogame composers have when making music for video games I now know why these songs have made a great impact in me and in some ways affect the way I see the world. The excitement and panic that in a way traumatizes us in a nice way of course made video games a significant part of our audio world.

Therefore, like the purpose of all great video game music, as per computerandvideogames.com, which is supposed to change your heart rate at some point to change the way you move and feel. The soundtracks I believe of every game that I was lucky enough to have played with has in a direct way influenced and has continued to influence me in the way I handle things from light situations to more the serious ones. All of these in moderation of course. 

Blogspot 6: Effects of Music on War

We start this entry by asking the question: “How are music and war related?” We know for a fact that Music triggers so many emotions and passions into people's ears. As per  Oliver Sacks article entitled "The Power of Music" on the oxfordjournals.org. We also know that Music influences as per my older entries. Now whether or not we should believe that music has a direct involvement or effect in war is something that I would like to into in this particular entry. War and music is whole different matter all together as compared to my older blogs. I want to see the effect music had on the soldiers and people directly affected by this war and also get a glimpse if whether the music during the Vietnam War in particular had a great effect on the outcome this war and generation that had to bear with it.

We start by stating what is for certain, music helps out people in this case soldiers not to feel home sick or lonely, according to an article entitled "How to Cure Loneliness" on allaboutlifechallenges.org. Also we know that, every war preceding the Vietnam War had music to help or support the war, but was during the Vietnam War where music in wartime changed. It was during Vietnam War, A war I can still sort of relate with since I love the music that was played during that time. Many call the Vietnam War "America's first rock-and-roll war" because of the of rock music that was played and listened to by Americans and other nationalities worldwide.

It was also during this time that an overwhelming number of military personnel belonged to one generation where the average age of combat soldiers was 19 and 90 percent were under the age of 23. Many if not most of these soldiers also did not want to be in Vietnam compared to the fervor and willingness of the youth that fought during WW 1 and WW 2.  This time around no one wanted to be away from his/her home. 

This is reinforced by a blog that was written by Bob Staranowicz, entitled "More Music of the Vietnam War" on phillyburbs.com. Bob states that many soldiers took things that reminded them of home and Rock music was what most soldiers brought from home. The uneasiness of many of the soldiers and even the youth back home, meaning America, I believe was directed and inspired by music that they listened to. In the case of the soldiers, the music that brought with them which in turn connected them to their families and roots back home.

Music during these trying times was also pivotal in pressuring Government to end the war with the rise of anti-war movement and the Peace generation. Whether it was hard rock or psychedelic music they were listening to or rhythm and blues, classical or folk, music has one way or the other helped direct the thinking of that generation that was unfortunate to bear the responsibilities of fighting a war they did not believe in. 

Blogpost 5: Music and its Effects on Exercise

Many I am sure have asked: “How does music affect exercise and the one exercising?” A review of the literature on the subject which looks at this effect at the physiological level, was based on the investigating the evidence-based findings of a certain Dr. Len Kravitz and Nicole Harmon, written on drlenkravitz.com, wherein they found how different types of music affect physical results, such as strength, gait, endurance, performance and motor skill acquisition. In this blog, I will try look at things at a slightly different perspective, reviewing the ergogenic or enhancement of the physical performance and the psychophysical which is a branch of Psychology that studies the effects of physical stimuli and its effects on the sensory level, particularly on music, in an attempt to understand how this may enable the one exercising to achieve better results.

According to International Quarterly of Sport Science, written by the Faculty of Education and Psychology, Institute for Health Promotion and Sport Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. The fact is that music facilitates exercise performance by reducing the sensation of fatigue, while increasing psychological arousal, promoting relaxation and improving motor coordination and at the same time motivates in exercisers performance. I believe this to be true speaking based on my personal experience. But the more I put into the research aspect of writing this blog the more I realize that there have been some researchers that have made studies on the role that music might play in enabling exercisers to increase their workloads or their times to exhaustion. The standing theory that is out there is that music has an effect of preventing exercisers from focusing on specific physical sensations of fatigue, although some research suggests that this mechanism may be more effective at lower exercise intensities than at higher intensities, where the body’s internal cues of fatigue have a greater influence.

But on a personal note, I believe that music helps me attain a slightly higher exercise workload than without it and I can truly say that the difference was quite significant. Based on the studies suggested that state that music may temporarily distract exercisers according to them is mainly caused by fatigue. I believe on the latter, I believe and this backed up by source that I found online on 3fatchicks.com, states that music in fact fights fatigue caused by workout. In fact, music not only helps fight workout fatigue at the psychological level, but more so the effect of music on the brain which is our body’s main control system affects the body greater physiological way as well. That's why I make sure that when I play or workout, I chose the best and angriest sounds that I have in my playlist, I always get better results with it. 

Blogpost 4: Music and its Significance in the Promotion of Spiritual Values

Music, along with other arts, as we know it has a time-honored place in many if not most of our past and present history this can clearly be seen in any church institution particularly here in the Philippines. And being a people that are emotionally and traditionally dependent on this art form, it would seem that this particular form of art is credited with a special kind of spiritual value that is better felt when singing happens during worship., this is according to Bob Kauflin, author. Director of Worship Development: Soverign Grace Ministtries.

The association of music with our culture notwithstanding the discipline it involves in learning the songs and the aspects associated with it affects the ethnical complexity of our culture and gives us a moral and aesthetic value that expresses our sense of being a people in a deep and spiritual level.  That being said, it may be less clear how other art genres or forms could be as significant in establishing values at a spiritual level.

The fact is there is a lot of potential that can be used here to promote the right values using the spiritual approach in altering the behavior of an individual. There must be sense of caution especially when using music as a medium for spiritual growth as I said earlier in my earlier blogs music has been proven to not only change individuals but more so societies and generations at large. We therefore, put a premium to its usage and look at with a real value and importance.

In closing, We can quote what English philosopher and expert in aesthetics, Roger Scruton said about how musical and moral superiority, which he wrote in the American Spectator, can better be seen when classical works are used as a medium for spiritual growth over the much popular music that we are sort of accustomed in hearing today. The fact is according to him, is that the classical form of music has the greater structural order, organization, and complexity in comparison to the latter. Scruton would seem to regard musical form, order, and organization as directly linked to emotional and spiritual discipline, so that whereas the classics may be expected to cultivate ordered passion and sensibility, the unmelodic, discordant, and rhythmically unsubtle sounds of much modern popular music can only be expected to engender crude, disorganized, and uncontrolled feelings.

  

Blogpost 2: Music and Human Behavior

I have always wondered how music affected human behavior based on study and scientific fact. I have always been known to run away into my cave when I’m feeling some sort of emotion and whether it be happy or sad and pairing it with an appropriate song or album that would better allow me to absorb and soak into the moment.

 I know personally that it affects behavior, as I know first hand how music stimulates not only the auditory senses but also more so all the others and more that is known to be found in us humans.  But that's just my own personal opinion, but after getting my fingers going in writing this blog entry and after making the necessary research to enlighten my claim. The fact is that after a study conducted by certain Dr. Roger Stahl, Music actually does NOT directly affect the behavior of those exposed to it.

 According to him, as someone who listens to music at least every once in a while, you would know that immediately when you turn on radio to a tune that you may have been lucky or unluckily to have stumbled that you are more likely to not break out into dance or sing when you here it.The fact is that it may happen, but it does you will have to consider that there are other controlling factors that play a key role along side music such as: the environment that you are in, the people that you are with, what you are wearing etc. these external factors outside of the music help us apparently to determine ones behavior to how you would react to hearing a certain form of music. 

Although the study states that there are other factors that contribute to determining ones reaction or behavior towards the kind of music that one is listening, music is also been proven based on the same study to affect people's emotions greatly. As you listen to the blues, it might create more mellow and steady feelings, or jazz may relax you more, Rock and Roll, may make you more rowdy and Hip-hop may make you feel more aggressive. Some not me may even listen to classical music while they study in order to concentrate better; I guess it's a matter of personal preference. However, these emotions created via music can sometimes if not more often may lead to action, and then in turn affect your behavior, in a more indirect way though.

In closing, we all know that music has always been a form of art that people have listened to and enjoyed since its invention, no matter how simple or complex it may be the idea that music has a direct effect on people's behavior andthat it may be used to even control behavior to a certain extent is quite scary actually.

I say rather than allowing oneself to get his/her behavior controlled by music, this blogs purpose is to show and point the reader to the idea that based on the mode, tempo, and volume intensity of the music being played, music may affect a person's emotional state, which in turn will produce a kind of behavior based on the particular state that the person is in while listening to a particular type of music.

Therefore, my message in this blog is to be careful on what you listen to and where and who your listening with, because we may or may not know the extent of the effect it will have on an individual's behavior and how it will directly impact their emotional state at a given situation.