# Music enhances the mind?



## Nulli Secundus (Sep 2, 2004)

It's always been around that playing a musical instrument enhances the mind both intellectually and sprititully. In your opinion why do you think this is?


Nulli Secundus


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## Nox (Jul 22, 2004)

Music exites and stimulates neural networks in your brain...for all intents and purposes the more cells you can keep stimulated the faster they react ...

Spiritually? I don't want to argue since it's such a personal state of being, but I think that if your brain is working to capacity...you are also thinking and feeling more about all things in general...you become more sensitive to the emotive value of sound...and perhaps more willing to 'give' into it...


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## Quaverion (Jul 20, 2004)

I agree fully with Nox. Anytime you see something with a complex pattern like classical music, or just looking and thinking very deeply about patterns, from clouds to life to trees to ripples in water, the mind creates new pathways for electrical signals to go through, thus making one smarter. This doesn't effect what one knows as much as it does how well one is capable of understanding things. Sort of leading to "enlightenment." That is one of very few religious aspects I believe in, because I think one can become enlightened without the existence of any spiritual things.


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## Gustav (Aug 29, 2005)

I agree with the above, Althoguh I do not know to what extend music can enhance the mind, I know that anyone will be better off playing a instrument than doing drugs, or getting into trouble.
THe arguement that the complexities of classical music enhances the brain is a valid one, because I have been listening to the music for a long time, but it was only recently that I started to look at scores, whether for piano or orchestra, I was amazed about how complex the Music theory of Classical music, it is almost like physics, instead of having atoms, you have different notes, instead of having dimansions, you have stalves.


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## karlhenning (Aug 22, 2005)

Gustav said:


> ... anyone will be better off playing a instrument than doing drugs ....


No argument there


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## LiLi (Aug 19, 2005)

I agree. I'm a big dork: I love theory 
I think it also has to do with music encompassing so many fields. you need to be very good at math to be successful in music. But music is also art; the musician needs to continually delve deep into their own thoughts and emotions and convey them through the instrument. I think sitting back and just thinking about the score and music, physically feeling the emotions just from a sheet of paper, that makes your mind work. you need to be imaginitive


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## music teacher (Oct 2, 2005)

""you need to be very good at math to be successful in music."" no, you don't, and in fact, except in very rare exceptions, good musicians and good music students are good at English, unmechanical, and poor at Math and sports.
The degree of Math involved in learning Music is tiny, and is limited to beats and rests.


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## Music_Junkie (Sep 1, 2005)

music teacher said:


> ""you need to be very good at math to be successful in music."" no, you don't, and in fact, except in very rare exceptions, good musicians and good music students are good at English, unmechanical, and poor at Math and sports.
> The degree of Math involved in learning Music is tiny, and is limited to beats and rests.


Yes, whoever said that musicians are good at math (or have to be good at math) is lying. I am not horrible at math but I'm not the greatest at it. I overall am not the most academically inclined but I do really enjoy English and have taken advanced placement English and English literature simultaneously at school.

If you are supposed to be good at math or school in general why is it that so often kids with challenges like asperger's excell at music (or another area) where the rest of their skills are extremely elementry?

Music is a way to express yourself and you don't have to be a wiz at anything to express yourself be it verbally or musically.


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## soul_syringe (Apr 18, 2006)

personally, i think the math + music equation is cliche. music is both a SCIENCE AND AN ART. it employs both the left and right brain processing so you can't really say this discipline goes with music or that discipline goes best with music. just wanna recommend these reading "frames of mind" and multiple intelligences. i think it would much clear the wide divide on music as a science vis-a-vis music as an art...

Are You Musician Material?


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## Tinaj0669 (Sep 20, 2020)

When we listen to music different areas of our brains get stimulated. Then when we listen to multiple musical pieces more connections (dendrites) are physically formed in our brains. Hormones also play a role. All of these various activities in our brain coalesce into enhanced listening experiences. Daniel Levitan wrote an interesting book titled This Is Your Brain on Music. Read it a few years ago & found it really intriguing.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The primary benefit of music when using or creating a score is it teaches the brain new forms of problem and conflict resolution.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

I was 16 years younger when this thread was made. Have you people forgotten that during your school days, what music you listened to was a kind of personal statement? Some people grow up and give up the statement after gaining jobs and families to feed. But some like me who grow from personal statements into the musical world. Music is no longer a personal statement for me, it is music by its own right at its totality, when at its totality, it becomes a magic for me. It does a lot of things I can not describe here without overturning the whole forum. Up to everyones discovery.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

During my career in educational administration I worked alongside educational psychologists a lot, and more than one of them told me there is scientific research which shows that listening to and/or playing music helps to coordinate the functioning of the two sides of the brain. So yes, music does enhance the mind.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I seem to recall reading more than once that even for people with extreme dementia and alzheimer's among the last memories to go are those related to music. That must say something about the connection.


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## musichal (Oct 17, 2020)

I believe life consists both in spiritual and natural elements - that we are indeed _spirits in a material world_ - and that music touches both.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Apparently, the areas of the brain made active in performing and appreciating music are very close to those sections ofthe brain connected with sex (or possibly sexual fantasy - I'm not sure). I have found personally that partners who are active in the area of music to be very creative in terms of their carnal sensibilities - much to our mutual pleasure(s).

Has any one else found this to be the case, I wonder?


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## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

"It&#39:s always been around that playing a musical instrument enhances the mind both intellectually and sprititully."

I fully agree. And I would add that composing music probably likewise enhances the mind both intellectually and _sprititully_.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

IME, only classical and some ''trippy'' Ambient...Other musick is just...Regular.


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