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Music and how it affects the brain

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Music and how it affects the brain
To: Hester L. Furey
From: Derrick Chin
Date: May 3 2014
Re: Concept Statement for Issues That Concern You: Music and how it affects the brain
“Without music, life would be a mistake” - Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer. When we listen to music, it is processed in many different areas of or brain. The extent of the brain’s involvement was scarcely imagined until the earlier nineties, when functional brain imaging becomes possible. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music. Ambient noise can improve creativity: It turns out that a moderate noise level is the sweet spot for creativity. Happy/sad music affects how we see neutral faces: We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn’t just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. Even more than low noise levels, ambient noise apparently gets our creative juices flowing, and doesn’t put us off the way high levels of noise do. Our music choices can predict our personality. In a study of couples who spent time getting to know each other, looking at each other’s top ten favorite songs actually provided fairly reliable predictions as to the listener’s personality traits. In conclusion Music can significantly distract us while driving (contrary to common belief), Music training can significantly improve our motor and reasoning skills and Classical music can improve visual attention. So in the same way that exercising makes us happier, it’s not surprising that music adds significantly to our workout success.
Organizing/Chapter questions:

What have you noticed about how music affects you?
Does one genre of music have a greater affect of your mood than others?
Does music have the same affect on children as it does adults?
How would life be if there were no music?

Work cited Page
"8 Surprising Ways Music Affects and Benefits Our Brains - - The Buffer

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