It’s Amazing How Music Works
Today, individuals are being confronted by a situation where one is forced to listen to music whether by choice or without. Music is played in nearly all department stores and super markets. Even whilst walking in the streets, we find cars blaring with music. In July 2008 the Guardian published an article in which an eye surgeon in Hawaii reported the results of a study where live music was played to patients in the “preoperative holding area”. Their heart rates, blood pressure and respiratory rates were measured against a control group of patients that were not played any music. The results were compelling – those in the non-music group showed an increase in heart rate and other signs of anxiety while patients exposed to music exhibited beneficial decreases. For many people, a doctor or dentist’s waiting-room can be an anxious and uncomfortable experience often compounded by tedium. Some postpone the appointment for as long as possible to avoid the discomfort.
We’re so used to having music in our lives that we may not always notice how it affects us. In this lilting tribute, Lloyd Moss and Philippe Petit-Roulet lead us to think about how different the world would be if we didn’t have music. A recent study was conducted in a restaurant in order to know wether background music affects the buying behaviour of the customers. The study results that the sort of music you play does affect people’s mood. It is quite amazing how much it sets and creates an atmosphere in restaurants. Sometimes you play what you personally like rather than what the clients like. The restaurant owner said: “I think this research will definitely affect what we play in the future.”
Does music could help pain? Well, while music can not eradicate pain it can help alleviate it by creating a secondary stimulus that diverts attention away from the discomfort. Music is our laughter that makes us cry. It is our happiness and we always feel in side. As head of Brunel University’s music in sport research department and the head coach of the British students athletics team, Mr Karageorghis has authored more than 100 academic papers on the subject of sport research. Karageorghis states that carefully selected music can make you more efficient by reducing your oxygen uptake by as much as 7 per cent for the same performance,” he says, before stating several other benefits, from banishing pre-race nerves to erasing the pain of exercise.
Even, museums usually incorporate some form of background music into their cultural displays, making them that much more powerful. It’s impossible not to feel something as you gaze at Genghis Khan’s armor in a museum display and hear the same sort of music that he would have heard, or view a Hindu funeral pyre while listening to Indian music.
