Introduction
Music accompanies us everywhere in life. In spite of cultural diversities, religions, family manners and lifestyles music is essential to every human being. We listen to music on celebrations just like birthday parties or Christmas, or when we are home and we feel like doing some meditation while listening to mantras. Another great example would be – which I am sure many people can relate to – is when we are late from work or school and we just want to give an extra boost to ourselves by listening to our favourite rock music, rap music, pop music, or something else. The point is, when we listen during these happenings, it connects us with emotions and it helps us open our feelings. When we feel sad, happy, angry, or we just want to get hyper it helps us to express them in a more intensive way.
But how does music accompany us exactly? How does it connect our emotions with the audio we listen to? What exactly is the relationship between music and the emotions it expresses?
These were some of the questions we asked ourselves when writing this article. But is music happy or sad in virtue of arousing those emotions in listeners? The evidence so far suggests that this answer is too simplistic. Other theories suggest that a connection between music and the movements of the human body, such as sad music for instance, mimics the posture and actions of a sad person. While this seems evident, the relations between the two – music and movement — is still a blank space and it is still waiting for an answer.
In this week’s blog post you can read about the following:
- Music connects us with emotions
- The methodological use of music
- Collaborative Artist
Music connects us with emotions.
A research group at Dartmouth College recently set about to explore the connections between music, movement and motion, beginning with the idea that music and movement share a dynamic structure.
The research group began with recruiting 50 college students to test a computer program they had created, and which was able to both generate music (with the usage of simple piano melodies), but at the same time, could also represent movement (with the support of an animated bouncing ball). Half of the recruiters were given the music version, while the other half were given the movement version. The goal for each student was to express five different emotions with the help of the program. These emotions were: anger, happiness, sadness, fear, and peacefulness. Users could move a slider to compose music or to animate the bouncing ball, and the output was updated in real time so that they could see and hear the results of the changes as they made them. The main question mark was if the participants will place the sliders in similar places for the same emotions, regardless of whether they were doing the music or the movement version.
The answer was yes. The results strongly suggest the presence of a common structure in emotionally expressive music and movements. After redoing the experiments in other places, including a small, isolated Kreung village in Cambodia, the results were quite similar of the Kreung villagers with the western patterns.
Although it should still be done numerous times in different parts of the world, experiments like these bring us closer to understanding the relationship between our emotions and the songs we listen to. Although leaving many questions behind us, they give us evidence that the dynamic features of emotional expression may be culturally universal, and that emotional expressions have similar dynamic contours in music and movement.
Instruments accompanying each other for the sake of an exceptional performance.
The methodological use of music.
One thing is feeling connected with listening to music, which can indeed have therapeutic benefits, another aspect is to use music with the intention to explore our inner world, to use it in a methodological way that could gain self-growth. This kind of therapeutic use of music is when we use music with a method. We differentiate the natural tendency of relating to music, and the usage of a piece of music with the intention to provide a therapeutic effect to the people just like we accord it on our workshops.
Music can be the expression of spirituality. It is essential to us in the context of Creative Accompaniment, because it gives us the possibility to deeply interconnect with our emotions, and to find the real meaning of our work.
Music is a fundamental part of our educational programmes. We select each piece to work with a variety of subjects such as unfinished businesses, fear of death, compassion, forgiveness, tenderness, and self-love.
During our experiential workshops we invite talented musicians who provide live music that helps us to connect with our inner world.
Collaborative Artist
Using the metaphor of music, we introduce you to the matter of Creative Accompaniment:
Imagine a band where there is the singer as the main character and is supported by other instrumentals, such as the drummer, the guitar players, etc. In order to give a good performance they have to be synchronised, they have to be connected. The instrumentals support the singer by giving rhythm and space.
When we help children who are going through grief, we imagine ourselves as the guitar players to add rhythm, and to give space for the child to express whatever is inside him, but also at some point encourage him to get out of despair by doing something that he enjoys. The melody and the composition are made together. That is what gives the essentiality of the music and that is what we practise in our workshops.
Creative Accompaniment is the art of staying and uniting. It is a collaborative artist that fully contributes to the harmonic background. It is something that fills the part of the instruments that add the rhythm for the song. The instruments that ease the soloist’s situation, by giving a moment – even if it is only for the hint of a second – to breathe up.
Although music has a creative side, it requires dedication and tons of practice, so that we can make it work and it can connect with the audience. In our experiential training, music is a fundamental part to go inside and discover our healing power and capacity to make deeper connections to ourselves and others. These can be music and dancing that goes to movement and fun, and at the same time connecting with your body; spiritual music which connects with the universe, that frees you from the burden of your history and that calls your intuition and creativity. And last, but not least music that helps to say goodbye and welcomes the new.
From Insecurity to Self-Esteem (Bratislava)
Thank you for your reading,
Ivan Gomez Garcia
Director of Creative Accompaniment
Psychologist expert in Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care
Gestalt Psychotherapist (AETG-FEAP)
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. In effect, the people who change our lives the most begin to sing to us while we are still in darkness. If we listen to their song, we will see the dawning of a new part of ourselves.” Rabindranath Tagore
