Why Music Will Always Cure the Weary and the Broken
An evolution of emotional healing.
Music affects many parts of our brain in tandem. So much so, that one has to wonder if it is a hallmark of our species. Maybe a rename to Homo Sapiens Musica would be a completely legitimate distinction. But what evolutionary purpose does it have?
I submit that it is a natural painkiller to the problem of consciousness. It is a salve on a species burdened by self-awareness, sadness, joy, stress — any and all emotions in the human condition.
From generations so far back, they hug the foggy hills and valleys of time — music has been with us. Our species, and probably other hominids, have been making it since at least 40,000 years ago.
In 1995, a bone flute was discovered, lying undisturbed for millennia in a Slovenian cave. It was the femur of a two-year-old cave bear, with four holes drilled equidistantly from each other down the stretch of bone.
It’s amazing to think that one night — one cool summer night when a father was smiling at his son, when the fire had died down just enough to feel the coaxing sleep settle in, when the fragrant scent of cedar carried on the breeze — that a mother, a daughter, a brother, a friend, someone, claimed the emotions in their soul and blew into the flute.
What those notes did. Where they transported our possible family, we don’t know.
We just don’t know how this early music affected these ancient artists, these first lovers of the sublime.
Did they feel goosebumps, did they feel a stirring in the heart, did it for one minute distract them from the pain of a predator wound, did it melt away the stress of a long day?
Down the dizzying dance of ages, music has had the most profound impact on human consciousness. The dulcet tones of an Athenian lyre to the moving symphonies of Beethoven or Mozart to the swirling beats of a modern pop song — all fundamentally change the way we perceive the world.
But how and more importantly, why?
What is going on in our brains, that is causing this happy disruption? What do our brains look like on music?
A fireworks show, that’s what. A veritable burst of electrical activity in the brain. Let’s take a look under the hood, shall we?
- From enhancing the frontal lobe — domain of logic and the conceiving of plans to utilizing the hardware of our temporal lobes, music moves into our grey matter, shaping it like conscious clay.
- In the hypothalamus, the hormone palace that regulates appetite, thirst, sleep, heart rate, body temperature, you get the picture — music calms and lowers stress. And as we all know, chronic stress is not just the mind-killer but one that helps along many dreaded diseases.
- In the nucleus accumbens for example, that little place in the brain that forms part of the highway of our brain’s reward system, regulating those wonderful little neurotransmitters we all love, Dopamine and Serotonin — music pumps out the pleasure in such force it can be indistinguishable, at least in an MRI, from cocaine.
And even a sad song will act in the same way. Triggering catharsis and allowing your brain to work through the emotional pain of a moment or the years of buried feelings. So go ahead, let the tears fall in the joy of healing.
Emotional beings moving through an emotional landscape need coordinates. Atoms of clarity in the chaos of life. Music and its associated feelings are often these points. Something that enhances the textures of experiences, brings a person to tears despite any best efforts, elevates a walk into a journey through space and time.
When the first glassy notes of Clair De Lune vibrates against the heart of a moment, when that old song immediately takes you back to the very minute — the very second — that special person was in your life, memories cascade and fall around you.
Just know your brain is doing what it was always meant to do. Giving you a feeling.
A reason to go on.
