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Madison Lemoine
English 1001
Mrs. Coco
27 November 2015
Audience: People who are studying music
Preface
After researching at the library, I knew I needed to change my direction. Where I was
headed did not have any information. I did some research going off my GAP to decide what to
do, I eventually decided on music and the brain. This is a very interesting topic to me as I love to
read different articles on this subject. The amount of research I found on this was crazy!
Certainly opposite of my original idea. The overabundance of articles made my research go very
smoothly.
I think that my strengths in this paper are my citations. My research has good information
to help support my paper I believe. What I need to work on is maybe developing my ideas a little
more and talking on each subject. Some roadblocks I am facing is possibly too much repetition
throughout the paper. It is exciting to see the final draft of my research paper.
The Effects of Music on the Brain
For my inquiry project, I knew immediately I wanted to expand off of my GAP project.
After many trials and errors, I decided on my line of inquiry: what are the effects of music on the
brain?
Does music affect your memory? Whenever you hear a particular song, does it make you
think of someone, something, or a certain memory? To answer the question for myself, I would
say most certainly. Different songs and different music make me think of different things and
bring back many different memories. But why is this? Why does that one particular song give
your flashbacks to your freshman year of high school? I suppose certain songs just make impacts

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on you to remind you of certain times. To researched this subject to explore it a little more.
Emotions and stimuli associated with emotions can be memorized. With regard to music, a
musical stimulus might evoke a conditioned response, or it might evoke an emotion because it is
associated with an autobiographical memory of an event (referred to by Juslin as an episodic
memory mechanism).With regard to autobiographical events, the perception of music associated
with that event can evoke the emotional memory representation of that event Musical
information with symbolic sign quality (due to semantic memory) might evoke a concept with
emotional valence, which in turn might also lead to an emotional response (Koelsch 3). It is
crazy how music can stimulate the brain to remember all these different types of memories and
feelings. Something even more exciting is other way music affects us.
Have you ever wondered if music affects everyone the same? What about musicians and
non-musicians? To make an educated guess, I would say that music is different to every person
who listens. The song may send out the same message and lyrics to everyone listening, but not
everyone will interpret it in the same manner. For instance, while a love song may make
everyone feel happy and joyful inside, to someone who is in love, they may feel a little different
considering they truly know the feeling. These inter-person differences are a result of a wide
range of influences and include the individuals prior experiences, their current mood, and a
range of other factors both internal to the person and external to them. Broadly speaking, a
persons emotional response to a piece of music can be said to be a function of both the music
itself and of the individual (Daly et al.). Differences among people mean differences in the
musical affects. Considering these true elements, does this mean music affects musicians
differently than non-musicians? I would say most certainly. As a musician you understand music
more and can better analyze what you are listening to. As a non-musician, you may listen to a

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song only because of the catchy tune and think nothing else on the subject. A music and nonmusician may experience different emotions for the same song. An experiment was conducted to
see the differences, if any, between musicians and non-musicians. The conclusion was as
follows: Consistent with previous studies that have shown differences in emotion processing
between musicians and non-musicians, our study supports the notion that musical training may
alter the behavioral and neural processing of distinct emotions conveyed in music. On the
behavioral as well as the neural level, we find that it is in particular sadness and fear in music
that is processed differently by musicians and non-musicians, musicians showing stronger
behavioral and altered neural activations in their responses. Our results highlight the strong
association of formal musical training with altered cognitive and affective processing of
musically expressed emotion (Park et al.). If such small differences make music affect one
differently, does age matter?
In elementary school a friend of mine did a science project to see if music helped
preschoolers during nap time. But is preschool the ideal time for brain development through
musical education? Although I am unsure of an exact age, I believe a young age would be ideal
for brain development through musical education. Brain development is very important at a
young age so I believe musical education would be the same way. Anita Collins wrote a work
titled Musical Education and the Brain: What Does It Take to Make a Change? where she held
an experiment and found the age where brain development through musical education is ideal.
Her research states: The age at which music education begins has been widely researched and
findings in this area are similar; the earlier a child begins to be exposed and understand music the
more they benefit. Although this idea is important, it will be just as important to follow the
musical learning and brain development of children over a longer period as 2 years, which will

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likely happen as the field continues to grow and research questions become more sophisticated
(Collins). As suspected, the ideal age for brain development through musical education is a very
young age. However, I did not expect the age to be that young. That is very interesting to see
how important brain development can be at a mere 2 years old. It helps children to better
understand more concepts in life and to branch out in the arts. Music is a very powerful thing
that affects people in many different ways. A song that may make one feel sad, may make
another feel empowered.
As discussed earlier, music opens a doorway for many different emotions for different
people. Not one person is affected by music the same way. Each and every person feels different
emotions towards songs, their lyrics, and their rhythms. In most treatments of music-related
affect, however, feelings are only considered from psychological or sociocultural perspectives,
without consideration that feelings are also neurobiological phenomena and play a central role in
life regulation. To address the underpinnings of music experience comprehensively and because
feelings are so central to that experience, we believe that the research effort also requires the
inclusion of a neurobiological perspective. To that end, in the pages ahead, we introduce a
general neurobiological framework; we explain why feelings and emotions should be regarded as
distinct phenomena; we relate music to the neurobiological perspective; and we review relevant
findings concerning the neural counterparts of music-evoked affects (Habibi et al. 1). The
concept is simple, everyone is different so music is different to everyone.
One factor in music that remains the same for everyone is the fact that a song can get
stuck in your head and stay there for days. Have you ever had a simple song playing on repeat in
your head for days on end? Well of course, everyone has! Why is this? What kind of affects does

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music have on the brain to make this happen? Involuntary musical imagery (INMI) happens
more frequently to those who are musically trained. An experiment conducted in 2013 states that
results link several facets of INMI with the variability of cortical structure, providing evidence
that the structure of fronto-temporal, cingulate and parahippocampal areas contribute to both the
occurrence and evaluative processing of the spontaneous internal experience of music (Farrugia
et al. 9). To become stuck in your head music directly affects your brain. For something that
may seem so complicated happens quite frequently.
Music can open a world of possibilities. I have always been interested in music and how
it can make people feel or affect different parts of your brain and life. When first starting my
inquiry project I never knew how many questions I would encounter during my research. There
is a world of possibilities when researching music and the brain. Music is something that can
bring people together while at the same time giving each individual slightly a different emotion.
More than likely, the same song will not make two people feel the same emotion. This
characteristic makes music and its affects so powerful. Another powerful aspect is how music
can bring back certain memories and feelings from a particular time. Sometimes all it takes to
relive a memory is to listen to that one special song. I explored how music affects musicians
differently than non-musicians. This elaborates on the fact that music affects every single person
differently. Musicians feel and appreciate music more due to the fact that they have more
knowledge on the subject. Musical education and brain development are so important. The
affects music can have on the brain are endless.

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Works Cited
Collins, Anita. Music Education And The Brain: What Does It Take To Make A Change?.
UPDATE: Applications Of Research In Music Education 32.2 (2014): 4-10. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 18 Nov. 2015

Daly, Ian, et al. Music-Induced Emotions Can Be Predicted From A Combination Of

Brain Activity And Acoustic Features. Brain And Cognition (2015): ScienceDirect. Web.
19 Nov. 2015.

Farrugia, Nicolas, et al. Tunes Stuck In Your Brain: The Frequency And Affective Evaluation
Of Involuntary Musical Imagery Correlate With Cortical Structure. Consciousness And
Cognition: And International Journal 35 (2015): 66-77. PyscINFO. Web. 19 Nov. 2015

Habibi, Assal, and Antonio Damasio. Music, Feelings, And The Human Brain.
Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, And Brain 24.1 (2014): 92-102. PsycARTICLES. Web.
17 Nov. 2015.

Koelsch, Stefan. "Music-evoked Emotions: Principles, Brain Correlates, and Implications for

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Therapy." Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences 1337 (2015): 193-201.
MEDLINE. Web. 17 Nov. 2015

Park, Mona, et.al. Differences Between Musicians and Non-Musicians In Neuro-Affective

Processing Of Sadness And Fear Expressed In Music. Neuroscience Letters 566.(2014):
120-124. MEDLINE. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

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