As a singer, and more importantly, as an avid music listener, the concept of how the mind reacts to music interests me greatly. Music is something that we all ‘consume’ pretty much all the time – we listen to music during daily activities such as driving or studying or just hanging around (I am listening to music even as I write this!). The need for music can be quite strong in some people – I can safely say that I qualify for an addict in this case and my iPod is one of the lifelines of my existence.
Keeping an ear open or accessing the Zamorin portal gives me a good idea of the widely varying music tastes of people even at IIMK. There are those are majorly into rock, those who love trance, those who can’t get enough of dance tracks, those who study classical music, those who listen only to Hindi soundtracks (or Tamil or whatever other language soundtracks for that matter)... and then there are those like me, who have a hotch-potch of songs and listen to whatever they want to when the mood takes them. The understanding of music also varies from person to person – whatever appeals to me need not appeal to the next person. I might be able to tell an ‘off-key’ or ‘off-beat’ note better than the next person, and that might make my discernment of music more thorough than him or her, which means that my preferences in music will also be very different from that other person.
So in this kind of varying ‘market’, how can one really determine what kind of music a person would like to listen to at any given point of time? What does this music really represent? How can we tell? How do we react to certain kinds of music?
Interestingly enough, there is a field called music psychology that actually tries to study these aspects, to see how we perceive music and how it affects us, how the actual process of music creation takes place, how the social and cultural environment around us affects our musical preferences and so on. It also tries to study how we as musicians perceive musical structures like melody, harmony, tempo, tone, pitch etc. It goes on to see how the musical behaviour and musical experience differs for people.
However the most interesting thing that I find about music psychology in today’s day and age is that, with the use of brain mapping technology and other such research techniques, it may be actually possible to identify and control the effects of music on the brain. The implications of this, especially for marketing, can be substantial. During our Consumer Behaviour class, we have already discussed how retailers use music to stimulate people in different ways – how the tempo of music in the shop at the time of purchase can make a difference in the moods of people. We have also seen how companies like Muzak are able to cash in on creating the right ‘music experience’ by providing customised music for organisations to improve employee performance and keep them ‘fresh’ throughout the day. Further to this, music could be used in sensory marketing, as part of products to give consumers the right ‘auditory’ experience, just like Kansei Engineering is able to do for the right ‘touch’ experience. And then we see the implications for something like music creation. The ability to string together the right combination of notes, beats, harmony and melody is something that we leave at the moment to the experts, to people who have the musical ‘ear’ and are able to create something original (or ‘inspired’!). In the future this need not be a domain restricted to just a few select people. Instead we could have special software or even musical instruments designed to help everyone create music.
But the biggest use that is foreseen for music psychology is that we could actually gauge the use of music as a healing method as some cultures already have suggested before. We usually listen to music when we are down, and the subsequent lifting of mood could be tailor-made and customised to suit our peculiar requirements at any point based on our peculiar brain patterns. Doctors might actually prescribe certain music for us to get well soon – so who knows! – we might have our own individualised Muzak, wired up to our iPods, personalised for our own needs! Maybe... some day...
Footnote: Some information has been taken from Wikipedia and a couple of other interesting sites which gave some basics of music psychology. And sorry for making the post so long!
No comments:
Post a Comment