Music Is a Better Tool
May 26, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
From an exchange between musician David Byrne and Daniel Levitin, professor of behavioral neuroscience and music at McGill University and author of This Is Your Brain on Music in the April 30th Seed magazine:
………… music is a better tool than language for arousing feelings and emotions.
This ties into what we were discussing a few months ago, about music and visual art bypassing the filters that language seems to get snagged on, in emotionally affecting you.
Every time I stand beside Charlie as he practices the piano—new this week is playing a chord with his thumb on E and pinky on B, a fifth; it is new position for him to hold his fingers in—I think this more and more: That music is indeed a mode, a means of communication, by which he bypasses those “filters that languages seems to get snagged on.” I think of words said by the human voice as like the burrs on thistles, things that Charlie gets caught on, and that pull, and hurt a bit; as prickles that cling and poke.
Maybe it is just that music is a better tool.
I’ve been surrounded by music all my life, and I hope I’ve passed on that legacy to my children. On the spectrum or Neurotypical, music soothes and enriches.
After our afternoon at the lake, I did something I have not done in a while—sat down at the keyboard and played (and missed my piano as the keyboard does not have as many keys). And sang with Charlie and had some warbling exchanges back and forth—-music does make so much communication with Charlie, and so much communication, happen.
I always love the episode in M*A*S*H where Winchester has a patient who is a concert pianist and loses useof a hand. There is a scene where Winchester explains the difference between being able to play and having real talent- “I can play all the notes… but I cannot make the music. ”
And for one more music analogy, there is always Siddhartha, meditating on the riverbank. He has left the palace and become the most learned and powerful ascetic in the world, trying to find the meaning of reality. A musician and his pupil are boating on the river. The musician explains to the pupil, “if you tighten the string to much, it will snap; if you leave it too slack, it will not play.” With that great truth, Siddhartha realizes teh truth of the Middle Way, rises, eat,bathes, and begins the true meditation that leads to the Enlightenment.
Such is the power and truth of music.
Last year I was flipping thru channels on the TV with Sweet Pea in the room (she was 4 at the time). I stopped on an old movie for about 15 seconds. There was a black and white shot of a forest. Sweet Pea said, let’s watch that, daddy, something scary is going to happen.
It was a Hitchcock movie, and she was right. In a few measures of music she gleaned that indeed, something scary was about to happen. That impressed me with the power of music to communicate.
There is a similar (though non-musical) reference to a bow being at just the right tautness in Heraclitus—–though he does speak of “harmony” means “appropriateness, fit-ness…..”
Did you keep watching to see what scarey thing did happen…..
I used to play in an orchestra, and sat next to a man who lives with Autism.
To this day, I have yet to meet someone whose passion, joy and excitement can rival what this man would exude during rehearsal and concerts.
It brings a smile to my face, when I remember this time of my life. This man, taught me a great deal about music, and life.
I think he would be pleased to know that I consider him to be one of the most important teachers that I have encountered, although I didn’t technically study with him.