Music’s Impact: Emotions, Brain, and Culture

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By Klaus Döring

Music is an important part of our lives as it is a way of expressing our feelings and emotions. No matter where you live, some people consider music a way to escape from life’s pain. It provides relief and helps reduce stress. Music plays a more significant role in our lives than merely being a source of entertainment.

Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we tend to feel a decline in mood. When we listen to happy songs, we feel uplifted. Upbeat songs with energetic riffs and fast-paced rhythms (such as those heard at sporting events) tend to make us feel excited and pumped up.

Music means the world to me. It makes me think about how it relates to life, and I love the beats. Music is a way to express yourself, keep you company when you’re alone, and always give you something to do. Music is a way of expressing myself and relating to other people.

It won’t surprise most that music can affect the human brain emotionally. Happy, upbeat music causes our brains to produce chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which evoke feelings of joy, whereas calming music relaxes the mind and body.

Music is a form of art, an expression of emotions through harmonic frequencies. Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments such as the piano, guitar, drums, or violin. The word music comes from the Greek word “mousike,” which means “(art) of the Muses.”

David Crosby sang a wonderful song in 1971, “Music Is Love.” Everybody’s saying music is love. Music tells stories. Composers and musicians use music to tell stories from all over the world. Music can depict characters, places, actions, and even emotions. It is often used to heighten a mood or express a thought or feeling when mere words are insufficient.

Music can propel a narrative swiftly forward or slow it down. It often lifts dialogue into the realm of poetry. It serves as a communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience. The best stories engage all the senses.

One of the great things about music, particularly concert music, is that playing it opens up a new world of experience that enhances the mind, physical coordination, and expression. Music lovers who are also amateur performers may choose to play in community ensembles (orchestra, band, choir), take lessons, perform with others, compose, and do nearly anything a professional musician might do, while maintaining their regular lives. This involves intense physical coordination in performing an instrument alone or with others, reading musical notation, and adding nuanced changes to the music that only a performer can bring. To an amateur musician, music can provide an escape from everyday life or an alternative means of expressing one’s capabilities. It is an important part of their lives and fills a need or urge to create music.

I have been a music lover since my fourth birthday. Living as a German expat in the Philippines, I found that Filipinos and Germans are music lovers. Among indigenous Filipinos, music often celebrates or commemorates important events in the human life cycle. Fortunately, these rich indigenous musical traditions live on today, reminding us of the Filipinos’ long history of musical talent and ingenuity.

Philippine music is regarded as a unique blending of two great musical traditions—the East and the West. The majority of Philippine music revolves around cultural influences from the West, primarily due to Spanish and American rule for over three centuries.

As a German expatriate in the Philippines since 1999, I have attended many music events and fallen in love with Filipino classical music. So what does music mean to Filipinos? It tells them where they’ve been and where they could go. It tells a story everyone can appreciate and relate to, which is why it’s a big part of Filipino culture.

Music of the Philippines (Filipino: Himig ng Pilipinas) includes musical performance arts in the Philippines or by Filipinos composed in various genres and styles. The compositions often mix different Asian, Spanish, Latin American, American, and indigenous influences.

Notable folk song composers include National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro, who composed the famous “Sa Ugoy ng Duyan,” which recalls the loving touch of a mother to her child. Another composer, National Artist for Music Antonino Buenaventura, is notable for notating folk songs and dances. Buenaventura composed the music for “Pandanggo sa Ilaw.” (To be continued)