Can Music Really Change the World?

Can Music Really Change the World?

by Craig Anderton

It may sound hopelessly idealistic, but all of us at HC truly believe that music can change the world. During a time when society seems to be filled with complicated environmental, social, religious, and political problems, we believe music can provide the healing mojo that helps bring joy, and reduces the stress of everyday life.

But can music really change the world, or is this all a naive pipe dream? The answer is both more complex, and more simple, than you might think.

Plenty of studies show that music affects individuals. A paper in the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing describes how listening to music is useful for pain relief and treating depression. Music also decreases post-operative pain. Playing certain types of music can help decrease blood pressure, and reduce heart and breathing rates. Taiwanese researchers have found that listening to Mozart K 448 had an antiepileptic effect in children. And according to a paper published by the National Institutes of Health US National Library of Medicine, music can help in stroke recovery.

But the “money quote” from that paper addresses music in general: “Music is a highly complex and versatile stimulus for the brain…Regular musical activities have been shown to effectively enhance the structure and function of many brain areas, making music a potential tool also in neurological rehabilitation.”

Or translated into English: Music creates physical changes, too. According to a paper in Neuropsychologia, the corpus callosum—the nervous system highway between the two brain hemispheres—is significantly larger in musicians. Plenty of studies show music is good for your brain.

That’s fine, but can music change the world? In some ways, it already has: Music was the soundtrack of the 60s, and musicians like Bob Dylan and the Beatles affected society. And I can’t help but wonder if the “tribal” nature of EDM has something to do with everyone synching to the same beat. If music changes the individual for the better, then hopeful those individuals will also help change the world for the better.

But if music is food for the brain, do we want to feed it the junk food of data-compressed files, or quality audio that delivers a more pristine experience? I’d vote for the latter. So maybe while we think about improving the world, maybe we should think about improving music’s delivery medium as well. —Craig Anderton

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 Craig Anderton is Editorial Director of Harmony Central. He has played on, mixed, or produced over 20 major label releases (as well as mastered over a hundred tracks for various musicians), and written over a thousand articles for magazines like Guitar Player, Keyboard, Sound on Sound (UK), and Sound + Recording (Germany). He has also lectured on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and three languages.