Tempo refers to the speed in beats per minute (bpm) at which a song progresses. There are many types of tempo, which range from Larghissimo, at 20 beats per minute or less, to Prestissimo, which is extremely fast at a rate of over 200 beats per minute (“Basic Tempo Markings”). It may be a common assumption that a slower-paced song may dampen a person’s disposition, but research has shown that, not only does temp affect temper, it affects his mood and arousal.
In an experiment conducted at University of California Press, the experimenters altered Mozart’s sonata “K. 488” to follow two different speeds, one fast and one slow.
The original sonata was played at a tempo of 110 beats per minute, the slow tempo at 60 beats per minute (Lento), and the fast tempo at a rate of 165 beats per minute (Allegrissimo) (“Basic Tempo Markings”). These tempi were selected because the experimenters believed that these were the most extreme changes in tempo that they could make without making the sonata sound unnatural to the untrained ear (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 156).
In the experiment, participants completed mood and arousal questionnaires and then were randomly assigned to listen to either the fast or slow-paced sonata. After this, they filled out the questionnaires once more. The results of the experiment showed that the quicker tempo led to higher arousal levels, and the more sedated tempo precipitated lower arousal levels (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 162). Surprisingly, tempo appeared to have no palpable effect on the participants’ moods.
While tempo had a significant effect, it is not the only technical aspect of music that psychologically impacts humans.
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Mode, in turn, has its own role in the sensations that reach people in music. According to Western music theory, a mode may be classified as: “any of several ways of ordering the notes of a scale according to the intervals they form with the tonic, thus providing a theoretical framework for the melody.” (“Mode”). In layman’s terms, a mode is a scale used in a song that specify how the song’s notes are arranged. Mode can be separated into two basic categories: major and minor. While both of these modes are technically denoted to different sets of musical scales, their connotations spiral them into concepts of much deeper meaning and implications. The major mode tends to be connoted to happy, light, whimsical, and at times blissful, music, whereas the minor mode is typically known to be that of mournful, holy, slow, and sad music. Therefore, with the tacit knowledge of these modes’ connotations, one may assume that mode must have an effect on a person’s mood.
This assumption is well-supported by another portion of the tempo experiment. When the experiment was conducted, not only did the experimenters modify Mozart’s sonata to two different tempi, they also modified it to fit two different modes: one major, and one minor. These refinements resulted in four different adaptations of Mozart’s “K. 488”: fast-major, fast-minor, slow-major, and slow-minor (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 160). The researchers organized the experiment so that the mental effects of both tempo and mode could be observed together, and then after the experiment was conducted, the results were analyzed. As previously mentioned, tempo had no noticeable effect on the participants’ moods, only on their arousal levels (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 162).
However, mode seemed to have minimal effect on arousal, it merely moderated the effect that the sonata’s tempo had on participants. The experimenters observed that the sonata’s with major modes led to above average mood improvements, whereas minor modes had below average mood improvements, meaning that either the participants showed no change, or they exhibited moodier or more negative behavior (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 162). Each sonata as a whole – meaning the fast-major, fast-minor, slow-major, and slow-minor sonatas – had different collective effects. Participants enjoyed pieces more when they were played in the fast-major or slow-minor form, rather than fast-minor or slow-major (Hussain, Thompson, and Schellenberg 164). These results can be contributed to the fact that a fast paced song is generally related to a more uplifting, upbeat mode, whereas a slower song is affiliated with a melower, more somber mode, and people simply prefer songs that fit into the categories that they are normally associated with. Nonetheless, the participants’ reactions to each different version of Mozart’s K. 488 show that, despite the fact that musical mode and tempo have disparate effects on mood and arousal levels, these two technical aspects of music have an interactive effect on musical enjoyment.
Not only do the technical aspects of music affect a person’s mind, the genre of a musical composition also plays its own role. In a study conducted at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California, four researchers investigated how different genres influenced tension, mental clarity, and mood in 144 study participants. The four genres tested were classical, New Age, grunge rock, and designer music (“The Effects of Different Types of Music on Mood, Tension, and Mental Clarity”). Each genre chosen for the study had diverging qualities to provide a range of music that covers a broad variety of subgenres. While classical music and grunge rock are well known to the vast majority of people, designer and New Age music are slightly more obscure. New Age music, which is intended to promote serenity and optimism, is distinguished by sounds from nature and light melodies. Designer music is a genre that is formulated to have a particular effect on the person listening, therefore it can be designed to elicit any number of emotions and reactions (“The Effects of Different Types of Music on Mood, Tension, and Mental Clarity”).
In the study, each participant filled out a psychological profile, listened to music from one of the four genres, and then recompleted the profile. Grunge rock, the participants tended to exhibit significant increases in tension, fatigue, sadness, and hostility, while also exhibiting significant decreases in relaxation, mental clarity, vigor, and compassion (“The Effects of Different Types of Music on Mood, Tension, and Mental Clarity”). Designer music tended to evoke higher levels of the positive reactions that grunge rock repelled, and lower levels of the negative reactions that grunge rock elicited. These results have led the researchers to believe that designer music may be useful in treating distraction, negativity, and tension. Classical music and New Age music showed variegated outcomes that were not generalized to the genres themselves, and seemed to depend on the participants, instead (“The Effects of Different Types of Music on Mood, Tension, and Mental Clarity”). Although this experiment may not have investigated a large quantity of genres, the genres that the researchers selected served as an umbrella that covered countless musical subgenres, therefore making the findings relevant to many more areas of music than those detailed in the experiment.
An article by Caitlin Whelan covers how some of the same and some different genres affect a person’s mood. The author writes about blues and reggae, rock and classical, heavy metal, country, and even Broadway music in her research article “Does The Type of Music You Listen to Affect Your Mood?” According to the article, heavy metal does not always encourage aggressiveness and negativity, it can increase self-esteem, promote relaxation, and help a person deal with stressful and taxing situations – it all depends on the individual (“Does the Type of Music You Listen to Affect Your Mood?”). This discovery contradicts the information collected in the Institute of HeartMath’s study on grunge rock, which suggested that grunge rock elicited negative reactions in virtually every individual studied. These two findings are contradictory because grunge rock is technically a fusion of rock and heavy metal, which should suggest that the two genres would evoke similar reactions (“Does the Type of Music You Listen to Affect Your Mood?”). Further findings on rock and classical music also contradict the Institute of HeartMath’s research.
Whelan writes that rock and classical music can increase brain power, lighten one’s mood, and increase one’s energy. While the Institute of HeartMath found similar results in their trials on classical music, they found that grunge rock – a subcategory of rock – only elicits negativity, fatigue, and angst (“Does the Type of Music You Listen to Affect Your Mood?”). Whelan also wrote about findings that have not been contradicted by the HeartMath, such as how her article shows that the blues and reggae can reduce anxiety, nervousness, and even anger in some cases by slowing down one’s heart rate. Another of Whelan’s findings shows the Broadway music tends to inspire the masses of people it reaches (“Does the Type of Music You Listen to Affect Your Mood?”). In addition, Whelan found that country music has been seen to lead to depression and, in severe cases, suicide – it’s no wonder so many people hate country music! Although different articles found different results for how certain genres impacted participants’ moods, the findings of both articles detailed significant information on how varying musical genres affect people both as a group and individually.
While researching the effects music has on a person is significant, knowing why these effects are precipitated is also important. One may ask himself, what does music do to a person’s body to cause these divergent reactions? The areas that music affects the human body can be separated into multiple different categories: blood pressure/pulse rate, chemical release, general body functions, and regions of the brain. In a cardiovascular experiment conducted by researchers in Italy, the researchers observed that music with a fast tempo has been observed to increase systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, mid-cerebral artery blood flow velocity, ventilation, whereas slower tempos had either no effect or the complete opposite effect. In addition, meditative music has been found to decrease blood pressure and heart rate.
The results of this experiment were magnified when a participant had a background in musical training (“Cardiovascular, Cerebrovascular, and Respiratory Changes Induced by Different Types of Music in Musicians and Non-Musicians: the Importance of Silence”). Playing and listening to music enhances the production of hormones and neurotransmitters in the human body. For example, singing releases the hormone oxytocin, also known as the “cuddle hormone,” which encourages bonding. Additionally, listening to music increases serotonin levels, which plays a large role in controlling positive moods, the sleep-wake cycle, and pain perception (“Music & the Brain: The Fascinating Ways Music Affects Your Mood and Mind”). Furthermore, other that blood pressure/rate and chemical release, music affects the human body’s well-being. Music revitalizes and promotes pro-immunity antibodies, as well as aiding in treatment and rehabilitation of diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. Music also holds the power to stimulate motor function, language, motivation, and endurance (“How Does Music Affect Your Brain?”). Music may not be prescribable, but it certainly has a way of boosting nearly every aspect of the human body’s performance.
All aspects of music, from listening to it, reading it, and playing it, trigger every region of the brain. When a person listens to music, the sound waves travel through the outer, middle, and inner ear to the brainstem and cerebellum (“Music, Rhythm, and the Brain”). Next the music journeys to the auditory cortex of the brain, and then to the memory sections, known as the hippocampus and areas of the frontal lobe. Dancing to music or tapping to the beat of a song involves the cerebellum, and thinking of a song’s lyrics necessitate the language centers of the frontal and temporal lobes. Performing music not only requires the frontal lobe, but also the motor and sensory cortexes (“Music, Rhythm, and the Brain”). Musicians have more intricate networks between the left and right hemispheres of the brain connecting the motor cortex on each side, and they are also known to have greater dexterity due to the use of the somatosensory touch and auditory feedback required to perform music (“Music, Rhythm, and the Brain”). Moreover, music increases the sizes of the brain’s auditory and motor cortex due to neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change and expand certain areas of the brain to accommodate for a person’s needs (“Music, Rhythm, and the Brain”). The brain plays an infinitely important role in processing music, from the auditory aspects of listening to it, to the motor and visual aspects of playing it, and to the memories that are made and recalled with it. Without the intricate twists and folds of the brain, not only would music be completely different to mankind from how the world knows it, music would be completely obsolete.
Experiment by University of California Mozart Sonata. (2022, Feb 07). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/experiment-by-university-of-california-mozart-sonata/
