The Awesome Power of Music
“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe” — Lao Tzu
Humor me for a moment. Open Spotify. Apple Music. Tidal. Pandora. However you listen to music. Search for “Polaris” by Deadmau5 and give it a listen while you read this piece.
Have you ever been lost in a moment? Where you are fully present, living completely in the here and now? It’s a feeling unlike any other. Colors brighten. Sounds intensify. We lose our place in time. We’re blessed with singular focus — momentarily putting aside our fears, our insecurities, and our life’s worries.
For one fleeting instant, we are truly at peace.
Music is a cheat code for facilitating these moments. It is an elevation of the human experience. Music can take you places you never thought you’d go, to far away lands you never thought you’d see.
Music sets us free.
M-U-S-I-C, find out what it means to me
I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. Jamming to Tom Petty and Creedence Clearwater Revival with my dad are some of my earliest memories. It’s a large part of my history.
I listen to music pretty much all the time, sticking mostly to the electronic genre these days, the sub-genres changing slightly depending on my current activity. I’m currently listening to Alan Walker as I write.
I especially love music when I run. Running is my great love in life. It takes me here, there, and everywhere. It’s therapy. It’s peace. It strengthens my spiritual connection to the world around me.
What’s always along for the ride? My music. As I push forward, step by step, music is there to enhance my running experience. To heighten my sense of awareness. To put a smile on my face as I press on, as one mile turns into two, turns into three, turns into ten.
Music reminds me that I am truly living.
So what is music really? Why does it make us feel so good?
It’s science… they think
According to a study out of McGill University in Montreal, music has the same effect on our brains as sex, drugs, and food. Neuroscientists Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre demonstrated that people listening to music display increased activity in the limbic and paralimbic areas of the brain, which, when activated in such a way, result in a flood of dopamine, a powerful “feel-good” neurotransmitter.
Basically, music saturates our brain with “feel-good” chemicals which, in turn, make us feel, well, good. Pretty straightforward.
But is that it? Is that the entirety of the otherworldly, almost godlike power of music? Is it really only about how chemical impulses are interpreted by the brain?
Our euphoric responses to sex and food are understandable; those are directly related to survival and species propagation. And with drugs you’re literally force-feeding your brain the chemicals it craves.
But why music? Why would a sequence of sounds with no obvious survival value elicit the same response? Is there a hidden biological meaning to music that we’re missing? Does music play some sort of essential cultural role?
Or is it something more?
Where science ends and spirituality begins
Some psychologists suggest music is the result of pattern recognition and expectation in the brain. Music establishes sonic patterns and regularities, and we make unconscious predictions about what’s coming next. If we guess correctly, we receive a reward — in this case, dopamine.
To that end, the opposite is also true— the “wrong” sonic pattern can bring about feelings of disdain and disgust. Which explains why when you hear music you don’t enjoy, you really don’t enjoy it.
Others postulate that yes, music is tied to survival. Long ago, on the plains of Africa, our ancestors needed to distinguish between a predator, say a lion, and a potential meal, say a zebra. Auditory cues were essential to finding a meal or becoming one. As humanity evolved, as we became less and less worried about the lion, these auditory cues expanded into the pleasure centers of the brain. Thus, music naturally arose from a primitive, extraneous instinct.
Perhaps both are true, perhaps neither are true. It’s a bit uncertain. But one thing is undeniably true — music makes us feel somethin’ fierce.
Why is that?
The answer, my friends, requires a leap of faith.
Consider the last time you heard a great song, a truly great song. How did you react? You sang along, bobbed your head, moved in your chair, pumped your fist, tapped your foot, something like that. You couldn’t help but move and gesticulate. You became lost in the feelings. Every ounce of your being — mind, body, and soul — was thoroughly consumed by the music.
Consider the last time you saw your favorite artist live in concert. You danced. You laughed. You cried. You jumped for joy. You closed your eyes and did your best to take it all in, to fully immerse yourself in the experience. Your favorite songs, seeing them performed live, became even more part of your being than they already were.
You felt a rising pit in your stomach. No matter how loud the volume, no matter how hard you “rocked”, the pit persisted. In fact, it probably grew fat with strength. You felt like you were going to explode, felt like fireworks were going off inside your body. You were ready to transcend this world.
I believe our physical bodies are incapable of fully comprehending music’s tremendous power.
It is this incomprehension, this inability for our physical selves to fully manifest music’s magnitude, that leads me to believe that music is, in part, a divine expression.
I believe there is a spark of the divine inside us all. A spark that is unquantifiable, unidentifiable, but inexorably real. You may know it as the soul, the light, or the spirit. It’s what makes you, you, and me, me. It is the essence of who we are. It connects us with a world outside this one.
I believe music is a vessel to communicate with this inner divinity. Music allows us to tap into the deep reservoir of ourselves, to see what makes us tick. To see what drives us. What motivates us. What brings us hope. What conquers despair. What brings us peace and prosperity.
What gives us our humanity.
When we listen to music, our hearts burst from our chests. When we listen to music, our minds are opened.
When we listen to music, our souls come alive.
You should be about 4–5 minutes into Polaris. Smooth melodies and consistent kicks lead to transcendent musicality. Celestial tones have been sent from above to bless our souls. Polaris, the North Star, lights up the darkness and shows us the way.
Scott Mayer is a runner, thinker, curious observer and certified personal trainer. Visit the In Fitness And In Health website for training plans, consulting options and additional content.
How true. On my way driving home from track practice my reward is playing the music from the 60’s and it transports me back to high school each time.