Topic Result

By His Lordship on 02/07/2008

I need someone who is studying full time at a University to read this and see if:

a) It makes sense
b) The argument is strong
c) It sounds proffessional

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QUOTE

In his book Musicophilia, Dr Oliver Sacks remarks that music occupies more areas of the brain than language, and states that humans are a musical species as much as we are a linguistic one. Music’s effect on the mind has been recognized by every culture in human history. One subset of the human race is particularly influenced by music. Musicians possess a distinctly unique relationship with music. Another book, The Musical Temperament by Dr Anthony Kemp reveals that there are specific personality traits that are more common amongst musicians than non-musicians. Musical creativity demands refined motor control and complex cognitive skills, and as a result, musicians direct their energy inward, ultimately leading to personality traits such as introversion, independence, sensitivity and anxiety.

This begs the question, “If personality is influenced by musical training, can the opposite be true? Can a musician’s personality influence his or her response to music?” And leading on, to what extent does their response to a musical stimulus differ from that of non-musicians? The benefits of such information are numerous. If a parallel can be drawn between the unique personality of the musician and certain mental processes that occur in their listening to music, this can lead onto further research regarding other correlations between personality and musical stimulation. If it can be proven that different personalities resonate better or worse with different types of music, this would be of advantage in the fields of education, both musical and non-musical, and music therapy, as well as several other disciplines.
An experiment was designed to ascertain whether or not musicians respond to a musical stimulus differently to non-musicians. Twelve musicians and twelve non-musicians all between the age of 18 and 21 of both sexes were selected randomly from the student body at the University of Western Australia. It was ensured that the general moods of each participant were similar. All the volunteers had mild to medium levels of stress due to upcoming exams, and none reported any substantial feelings of anger or sadness, or any other emotion that could significantly cause their response to musical stimuli to deviate from that of the other participants. Musicians were asked for the extent of their musical training, and all participants provided a brief description of what they perceived as their overall personality.
After providing such information, the participants were placed in a quiet environment and asked to write down their conscious thoughts on paper for the duration of 10 minutes. Their instructions were to write continuously, and not filter out any thoughts. After the 10 minutes had expired, they could elect to omit any thoughts they did not wish to share. While writing, music would be playing in the background except for the control group. Those participants for whom music was playing were informed of this beforehand. They were instructed to regard the music as background music, and were not required to actively listen to it, but instead simply allow their thoughts to flow naturally.

The group of twelve musicians and twelve non-musicians was sub-divided into four groups of three. The first group would act as the control group, where no music would play. A second group would be exposed to music from the Naxos album Chill with Bach. The third group would be listening to Stockhausen’s Spiral for solo flute and electronics, and the fourth group would be listening to the Linkin Park album Underground 4.0. By using three vary disparate types of music, it could be ensured that the emergence of any unifying trait amongst the musicians and non-musicians was not limited to a single musical style.

After all 24 writing samples were collected, an analysis would be made to find any similarities and differences between the musicians and the non-musicians, and also between the different types of music. Such an analysis involved a word count, a reading of the content, and graphology.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary describes personality as the totality of behavioral and emotional characteristics that distinguishes an individual or group. If the analyses show that the musicians possess a significantly higher count of any behavioral or emotional trait than the non-musicians, it will be assumed that this is a direct result of their personality.

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