Music For Emotional Health

Started by SueC, July 28, 2019, 16:21:03

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BiscuityBoyle

My "self-care" music is The Fall



SueC

I've been meaning to post some Paul Kelly songs here for a while.  He's an excellent storyteller, and always concerns himself with life, whether in the personal sphere or being part of the wider world.

Here's one about what you can and cannot live with:



His song for the Bicentenary - saying it how it is:



One about the death of love:



A life cycle song:



Stuffing up, and regret:



David and Goliath, AKA Australia's first people versus the white elite:



Know your friends...



...and a new one, about public apathy while the world goes to hell in a handbasket:


SueC is time travelling

SueC

For everyone who is feeling down. ♥

SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Found this today, fits in here:
https://www.britishacademyofsoundtherapy.com/musical-daily-allowance/

A few quotes:
QuoteThe best music for relaxation had a slow tempo, simple melody and no lyrics. The optimum time for listening was 13 minutes.

We discovered that you only need 9 minutes of music to feed the soul and make you feel uplifted. The type of music which worked best had a driving rhythm, fast tempo and happy lyrical content.

Music to process or release sadness
For sadness, we found most people chose music with lyrics that they connect with. 13 minutes was the optimum time to process their feelings.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: Ulrich on April 14, 2020, 15:52:14Found this today, fits in here:
https://www.britishacademyofsoundtherapy.com/musical-daily-allowance/

A few quotes:
Quote from: undefinedThe best music for relaxation had a slow tempo, simple melody and no lyrics. The optimum time for listening was 13 minutes.

We discovered that you only need 9 minutes of music to feed the soul and make you feel uplifted. The type of music which worked best had a driving rhythm, fast tempo and happy lyrical content.

Music to process or release sadness
For sadness, we found most people chose music with lyrics that they connect with. 13 minutes was the optimum time to process their feelings.


I deeply dislike this kind of thing. Everything has to be quantified, put into pie charts and infographics, group-tested, packaged for optimum consumption and fed to the appropriate target demographic via an app-shaped, or "appified", tube. You could use labels like "dystopian" and "Black Mirror", but it's just neoliberalism, in the sense of the penetration of the market logic into every human interaction and thought. Shoot me now.

SueC

I think both of those posts were well worth making in this thread.  Research into music and the brain is generally very interesting, even if we can (and should) be critical of the methods used in the studies, the conclusions that are drawn, and the wording people are using.  :cool


Quote from: undefinedThe best music for relaxation had a slow tempo, simple melody and no lyrics.

Presumably they quantified how they were defining "best" for this study, plus what is "best" for an individual often diverges from what is "best" statistically for a group.  So I imagine what they are trying to say here is that on average, music with a slow tempo, simple melody and no lyrics was most effective at producing relaxation in their test group.  They probably quantified relaxation by measuring heart rate / blood pressure etc, and/or asking their subjects to rate how relaxed they were afterwards on a scale.

And yes, turning that into the generalisation above is something I find annoying, just like I find dumbed-down-to-reading-age-of-eight journalism annoying.  I've always believed that instead of sinking to the lowest common denominator, we should lift people up, educate them, challenge them; whether that's to do with vocabulary or logic or scientific method or anything else important like that.  So, instead of making a "digestible plop" for the general public, people communicating stuff like this should make an accurate statement which isn't overly convoluted and therefore reachable with a little effort - and people ought to be making a little effort mentally when they are reading something, so their brains don't turn into custard for lack of use.

That generalisation is not an accurate statement, and lamentably reinforces the existing lack of public understanding of the scientific method, and what scientific studies can and cannot conclude.  On average, music with a slow tempo, simple melody and no lyrics was most effective at producing relaxation in their test group would be more accurate, and more educational; it's still referring to the process used etc.


Quote from: undefinedThe optimum time for listening was 13 minutes.

Optimum for what? And how do you figure that? ...again, reference to the method and the maths is lacking, and shouldn't be.  I used to do "critique this science reporting" with my students, of things like this kind of study summary, and of cosmetics advertisements etc - to help them develop and apply critical thinking (and this was lamentably not on the curriculum, so I did it as warmups and extras, but did it consistently, because science is so often abused in order to sell people a notion or product, and I wanted my students to have a little immunity to that when they went out into the world).


Quote from: undefinedWe discovered that you only need 9 minutes of music to feed the soul and make you feel uplifted. The type of music which worked best had a driving rhythm, fast tempo and happy lyrical content.

Same comments as above apply here, blah blah. I find the "feeding the soul" comment jarring - how did they figure that?  It's a subjective thing... maybe they asked for subjective ratings?


Quote from: undefinedMusic to process or release sadness
For sadness, we found most people chose music with lyrics that they connect with. 13 minutes was the optimum time to process their feelings.

A live version of Watching Me Fall ought to be able to make that magic 13-minute target!  :yum:   And then The Cure can go home, apparently, having optimised audience processing.  :winking_tongue


Would you still like to be shot, @BiscuityBoyle:angel  If so, might I recommend a flu shot? :)

As a soothing balm to the everyday annoyance of these sorts of encounters, we would like to heartily recommend one of our favourite books to you.  It's like an antidote...

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/death-sentence-9780143790983

Quote"Part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, Don Watson's Death Sentence is scathing, funny and brilliant.

' ... in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.'

Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell's day brimmed with life and truth. Today's corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians – speak to each other and to us in cliched, impenetrable, lifeless sludge.

Don Watson can bear it no longer. In Death Sentence, part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, he takes a blowtorch to the words – and their users – who kill joy, imagination and clarity. Scathing, funny and brilliant, Death Sentence is a small book of profound weight – and timeliness."



And here's a little musical number for promoting one's emotional health in the face of such stuff.


DUMBING DOWN THE WORLD

I'm dumbing down the world
Yes, I'm dumbing down the world
And my head is held high
And the glint in my eye
And my arrogance rumbles before me!

I'm dumbing down the world!
I'm dumbing down the world!
I'm dumbing down, I'm dumbing down the world!
I'm dumbing down the world!

And my thoughts are banal, like a stagnant canal
and my sycophants shamble behind me

I'm dumbing down the world
Yeah, I'm dumbing down the world
I'm dumbing down, I'm dumbing down the world
Yeah, I'm dumbing down the world!

And my power is come around, is come around
Yes! My hour is come around, is come around - look around!

I'm dumbing down the world
Yes, I'm dumbing down the world

And my works are designed to suck blood from your mind
for you energy feeds and sustains me!

I'm dumbing down the world!
Yes, I'm dumbing down the world
I'm dumbing down the world (and I love it!)
I'm dumbing down the world!
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

ROFL  :lol:

On a serious note, I think all three categories referenced in that study you cited, @Ulrich, are important for emotional health:  Relaxation, increasing energy / motivation / inspiration etc, and processing difficult emotions.  And broadly, the characteristics of music outlined for each category do fit, I think.  I do think there's more categories than that - where do we put the delight-inducing parody, for instance?  Also that not everything fits neat categories, although a lot of songs on the radio suit shovelling into those three (not that they tend to play much of the third type on most radio stations people play at work; I guess the neoliberalist machine thinks we should do therapy in our own time :angel)...

Classify this one:  ;)

SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

I have fond memories of the song "Nothing ever happens" - it was playing in a pub in Camden Town when I was around in the late 90's and as I drunkenly walked out of the pub, the song kept playing on and on in my head...

Quote from: SueC on April 15, 2020, 00:55:14I think both of those posts were well worth making in this thread.  Research into music and the brain is generally very interesting...

Yeah, that's why I thought it kinda fits into this topic (without going into detail or saying it was THE perfect article).
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Quote from: Ulrich on April 15, 2020, 11:27:13Yeah, that's why I thought it kinda fits into this topic (without going into detail or saying it was THE perfect article).

Your posting that link and quote is appreciated, and a great basis for thought and discussion.  We're not personally responsible for the shortcomings of other people's studies, or obliged to comment on that when posting a link.  If we did that every time, we'd all be here a hundred years... :)

What's perfect anyway?  Hmmm.  The song of a bird.  The taste of an apple fresh off a tree.  A walk by moonlight.  Not Homo "sapiens" I think. ;)

And I can't think of a song for this right now.  :1f62e:
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on April 15, 2020, 12:20:58And I can't think of a song for this right now.  :1f62e:

This maybe?  ;)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

SueC is time travelling

SueC

Because my iPod also has a huge selection from Brett's collection on it, when I listen randomly (or in alphabetical order of songs) I still get "surprises" after all this time (that music collection is so huge I don't think I'll be through it before I die...).

So this is a real gem which I'd never, ever heard before and which has me jumping up and down with enthusiasm... and anyone who's ever had to leave anyone else (significant other, friend, family) because of persistent disrespectful and / or unpleasant treatment should be able to relate to this big time.  It's a breakup song, but a breakup song for all the right reasons, and delivered with huge panache. :cool




SueC is time travelling

SueC

Here's a link to an interesting page on music and catharsis of negative feelings - including suggested playlists:  https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/songs-to-make-you-cry/12417192
SueC is time travelling

SueC

I can't remember if I've got Making Plans For Nigel on here yet, which is a fabulous song - but I certainly didn't post the official clip of it so far, and it's quite an effective clip - unfortunately subject to aspect ratio distortion, but still worth catching I think:


This came out of a discussion on dysfunctional parenting, here - and if anyone on this forum wants to talk about stuff like this, because it's hit a nerve or whatever, feel free to post to this thread, or even the Ranting Thread, or to make your own.  There's people here who care, and you won't be alone.

I do get that it's difficult to talk about this kind of stuff, especially when you're in the real thick of it.  I'd never have made posts about this in public back when I really needed to talk about it, I was way too traumatised - it's sort of like having to look at your own leg that's just been chopped off while the blood is pooling on the ground - and I was so ashamed at the state I was in, which is also a common feature of stuff like this.  So when all of this came to a head in me six years ago, I was most comforted by reading other people's accounts of their experiences, and I slowly realised that I was not a leper, and very slowly started to be able to talk about it, first anonymously on websites dedicated to recovery from childhood abuse, and to my GP (but I was terribly afraid at first that I was going to cry all over her - I'd never been able to cry about this stuff before and suddenly it was like I couldn't stop), and my husband and friends obviously (they were great).  None of this is fun.  If you are hurting, please reach out - and reach out to someone safe - if all else isn't an option, ring a helpline, but talk to another human being - there are many people in this world who care, even if you've not met many yourself yet.  Find the people who care, and be a person who cares - it makes a world of difference.  ♥
SueC is time travelling