The Human Experience is a collective of idiosyncrasies that make each of us who we are. Music with its rhythm, melody, and harmony blend each of us individually and together. Singing, therefore, is the factor that makes our subconscious feel good and promotes a greater feeling of contentment outwardly.

Gary (Papa G) Alexander (November 2018)

The twenty years that I was a Science teacher were some of the most rewarding years I had as an educator. I enjoyed the interaction my students and I had on a variety of subjects and it troubled me that so many were terrified of Science. Also, my students felt that, me choosing Science meant I could not choose other subjects to teach or work on. Many were surprised at my musical experience. What was interesting to me though was the number of famous Scientists who played instruments. Was there a relationship to their love of music and their love of science? I believe the answer was, yes, and I tried to reference that connection to my students.

We, as humans, all have a relationship to music because it is part of us. Plato said, “Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” Throughout most of the world and most of human history, music was a natural activity as breathing and walking, and everyone participated. Understanding why we like music and what draws us to it; is a window on the essence of human nature.

Music at its simplest form is vibration. In physics, we say everything moves and movement creates sound. This concept taken to the subatomic level is the essence of Quantum Theory and the primary structure of space fabric; specifically, string theory and its cohort theories of primary structure. Strings produce quarks, quarks produce protons and neutrons, and matter is created. We vibrate according to this subatomic makeup. Are we predisposed to certain vibrations in our brains? New studies show music listening, performance, and composition engages nearly every area of the brain and involves nearly every neural subsystem. The power of music to evoke emotions therefore can be used in every aspect of our daily lives. Mothers throughout the world, and as far back in time as we can imagine have used soft singing to soothe their babies to sleep, or to distract them from something that has made them cry. By better understanding what music is and where it comes from, we may be able to better understand our motives, fears, desires, memories, and even communication in the broadest sense. This  essay does not permit me to cover all the fundamental building blocks of music, and how when organized they give rise to music. I will discuss three and their relationship to our lives.

We are born into a rhythmic sound. There in the Mother’s womb we feel secure to the rhythm of our mother’s heart. As a baby we felt comfort when held and could hear that rhythmic beat; when we felt discomfort that beat soothed our emotional distress. Virtually every culture and civilization consider movement to be an integral part of music making and listening. Rhythm is what we dance to, sway our babies to, and tap our feet to. The relationship between the length of one note and another is what we call rhythm, and it is a crucial part of what turns sounds into music. Rhythm gives music its foundation. Rhythm therefore represents our family and friends. They give structure to us and the foundation of security. Changing our rhythm can be difficult because of all the elements that go into that sound.

“If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?” We have all heard this philosophical question. Sound is a mental image created by the brain in response to vibrating molecules. The product is called pitch. Pitch is one of the primary means by which musical emotion is conveyed. Melodies are defined by the pattern or relation of successive pitches across time. Melodies just float freely in space, starting anywhere. Different instruments use different parts of the range of available pitches. A scale is just a subset of the theoretically infinite number of pitches. Every culture selects these. Melodies then convey special meaning to you. It elicits mood, excitement, calm, romance, or danger. We relate to these pitches in many ways and therefore in essence have our own melody inside us. Our day then can be determined by how our melody is playing within. A wrong series of pitches can give us a day where we just want to go home and climb in bed or want to be left alone. Dealing with stress is dealing with the wrong series of pitches that are confronting us. We need to learn how to get our melody back in sync. For me, a timeout with my favorite music artist or songs seems to work.

In music harmony considers the process by which the composition of individual sounds or superpositions of sounds are analyzed. Usually this means simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches, or chords. The term derives from the Greek language meaning, “to fit together or to join.” Consider this; Harmony is the relationship between different notes. If the notes are played together, the gap between them is called a harmonic interval. If they are played one after the other it is a melodic interval. Our auditory system exploits the harmonic series in grouping sounds together. Our brains coevolved in a world in which many of the sounds that our species encountered over tens of thousands of years of evolutionary history; shared certain acoustical properties with one another, including the harmonic series as we now understand it. Harmony, therefore, are all the sounds around us during the day. And our brain can pick up this symphony as a collective or individually, if a specify sound is louder. We enjoy the harmony of nature but can pick up the sound of a particular bird, as well. This polyphonic choir occurs around us daily with all our friends and family injecting their independent melody by yet all harmonizing to your brain.

The relationship between you, your brain, and the outside world maybe complicated and all the questions have not been answered as to the why with music. Some in science state that we cannot answer a why question. That may be true. But my contention is, if you ever feel lost, stop and listen to your melody. Our world creates stress and anxiety. How we deal with those cursors could be in our relationship to music soothing our soul. Let us say that maybe your relationship to music depends on how your strings are vibrating that day and the answer is to stop and listen.