The Universalism of Music

I was reading a chapter of my Psychology book today about the human brain, when I came across an interesting little anecdote. The authors were elaborating on a friend, Asha, who had suffered a stroke--after the stroke Asha had trouble making sense of everyday speech and finding the right words for things. When asked to identify simple objects such as a cup, she knew what it was, she just couldn't find the right word for it. However, when the authors brought a recording of music (I believe it was Indian flutes or something equally complex/exotic), she was able to appreciate it and it calmed her down. This was due to the basic difference in the left and right sides of the brain: the left is used for complicated activities such as mathematics, speech, and solving jigsaw puzzles and the right is used for "nonlanguage sounds" such as instrumental music, though I would imagine that music containing lyrics would use both sides, the left to understand the lyris and the right to take in the music). This all has a point, amazingly, and that is that I was somewhat amazed to find serious studies of music-related subjects in my Psychology book. It got me ruminating on the different ways that music can be applied and the universal applicability of it. Just basic subjects in math all have uses related to music, look!

• Mathematics: This one is rather obvious, but nevertheless... music theory and math are closely related, in that one needs to be able to understand the beats, counting, measures, and the different time signatures to truly understand serious musical theory. If you really want to understand this, scan this for all the mathematical references. There are a plethora!


• English: This mainly applies to lyrical music, but with all the focus on lyrics in modern pop music, English (or, to be less enthnocentric, language) classes should be a must for potential musicians. The fact is that songs are simply a different type of poetry, and the best songs tell some kind of story. Some of the best songs in history tell stories: "Ziggy Stardust," the rock star who "really sang, screwed up eyes" and could "lick 'em by smiling (David Bowie);" Lucy, the girl with kaledoscope eyes with sun in them (The Beatles); Tommy, "that deaf dumb and blind kid" who "sure played a mean pinball, (The Who)" and so many other examples.
  
• History: So many songs have their roots in the time they were created, especially in times of war. Would John and Yoko's famous bed-in and monumental performance of "Give Peace a Chance" have ever occurred were it not for the Vietnam War and the vocal dissident that arose from it? Also consider how certain songs have been forever linked to the events surrounding them. Again, "Give Peace a Chance" is a good example, as it will forever be connected with the words "bed-in" and the famous photograph.
  
• Science: I more or less started with an anecdote regarding science and how it relates to music, but there is still more. There are entire therapies based around scientific theories that music can have soothing effects on the brain and possibly be, if not the cure, than at least an alleviation many of humankind's problems: substance abuse, depression, Alzheimer's disease, and even mental illnesses like Down's Syndrome.
  

Anyway, besides allowing me to waste more time which I could be using studying, I wanted to really underline something I've been saying for a while, and that is that music is a unifying and universal artform. It has so many applications (despite that "all art is quite useless" [Oscar Wilde]), even though it's a conundrum. All art is indeed "quite useless," yes, however it also CAN have unintended uses.