The psychology of music.

Hey guys,

Today, I have chosen to talk about how music can have many deeper effects on us then just being nice to hear...

 First of all, music has many effects on our perception:

- It can influence our perception of effort and lead us to forget the state of fatigue thanks to the dopamine it releases in the brain.

- It can help improve deep sleep because of its hypnotic qualities.

- It can aid creativity, give us a helping hand to find ideas because of its memory boosting effect.

- It can improve concentration, by giving us something stable to focus on.

 Next, music can help with our performance at school by:

- Helping with self-confidence

- Helping us learn new languages in the future

- Increasing the duration and intensity of concentration.

Many tests were done to prove these ideas.

For example, one test was done with multiple pupils divided into three groups. One listening to rather fast-tempo Mozart, one listening to relaxing music, and one in silence.

The results showed that the group that had been listening to Mozart scored two times higher than the other groups.

Now, let's focus on the physical side of the matter. When listening to music we can immediately detect the rhythm, we can reproduce it. Also, often if we listen to music that we like, we move on the rhythm, maybe even without noticing. But this is indeed more than just memory. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans on people that were told to lay still and listen show that music activates not only the lobe responsible for interpretation, but also the lobe responsible for commanding movement.

 After finding this, many researchers deducted that music could possibly be used to help people with neuromuscular deceases. It has very positive effects on certain people and none for others.  Finally it has been found that music-therapy has changed the lives of some for whom it works, for example people with Parkinson’s disease.

- Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading! -

Ted Talk

Hi Charlie !

So these days I like to watch Ted Talks and  I came upon this video :

Sal Khan has created a website you may know : Khan academy, that offers courses and exercises on a lot of subjects (mostly maths but not only)- in English but also in French, and it's free.
I thought that this video was interesting and very inspiring, because we are taught that school is only for learning, not for the grades but in the end it often ends up in stress because of grades, and the concept of "mastery" is completely lost.

What do you think of this video ? If you could change something in the educational system what would you do ?