Music and the Human Psyche

Did you know that folks with Alzheimer’s can often remember songs they’ve sung since childhood, even if they remember little else?  The same holds true for stroke victims, and sufferers from brain tumors or other brain diseases. Music making exerts a profound influence on our brains and psyches that can outlast disease and even enliven a nearly dead memory.

And quite possibly, music makes us human.

Recently I came across an article from The Voice of Chorus America that addresses the connection between music, the brain and the human spirit from both a scientific and a personal perspective.  It quotes musician and neurologist Daniel J. Levitin, author of The World in Six Songs, who argues that what distinguishes us from all other animals is our art making, particularly the making of music.  We share some behaviors with other species: chimpanzees and some bird species use tools (as we do), crows deceive (as we do!), ants and bees live in structured societies (as we do—for good or ill), and many animals communicate through sound (as we try to do), but only human children spontaneously combine rhythmic movement and sound, or even respond to music at all.  And no other species creates music for joy, comfort, religion, or just about any communal purpose you can name.  And not only do we create it, it maintains a prominent place in our lives, is the very essence of our beings.

The article showcases an octogenarian, Woody, a nearly lifelong singer who suffers from Alzheimer’s but who awakens each morning whistling a favorite tune, still knows the baritone part to nearly every song he has ever sung, and even occasionally performs with his barbershop group, a relationship that has occupied forty years of his life.  The men have a buddy system so Woody can be guided to his place on stage.  He doesn’t usually remember afterwards what he just did.  But after hearing one or two notes at the beginning of each number Woody knows exactly what to sing and sings with smiling confidence.  Remembering that he can sing, and can sing in chorus with others, is deeply reassuring for Woody, and, very simply, makes him happy.

In my last blog I wrote about the “symphony” within the brain, the combined, almost rhythmic firing of brain cells as they work together.  That rhythm permeates our lives as human beings, both individually and collectively, in the seen and the unseen.  Brain scientist Oliver Sacks writes: “Just as rapid neuronal oscillation binds together different functional parts within the brain and nervous system, so rhythm binds together the individual nervous systems of a human community.”

As Woody demonstrates, a chorus is a wonderful embodiment of this idea.

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside

A few hours after posting the above blog an MCE member sent me the following Youtube link.  It’s quite touching.  It’s about 6 minutes long, but it’s worth watching.

For Woody’s story, see Mary Ellen Geist’s Measure of the Heart, and Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music

                and the Brain.

For the full article, see The Voice of Chorus America, Winter 2009-10.