Music activates our emotion

It has been well known that music evokes profound emotion. In our experiences, there are so many examples that music caused emotion which made it to be remebered easier. I still have such memories which I got in young days. Matthews Passion by Stuttgart Bach ensemble conducted by Helmut Rilling at NHK Hall in Tokyo in my student days. Chamber musics by Mari Iwamoto String Quartet at Ueno Tokyo in their last years. At a hall in a shrine in Ueno, I listened to Clarinet Trio by Brahms again in my student days. I remember very clearly those performances together with own emotion and thoughts. It is as if I listened them yesterday.   

 

Such an observation is becoming proved by a number of neuroscientific studies. This article reviews it.

 

Morse code could be a music to real CW lovers. There might be the same kind of activation in the brain when one listens to musical Morse code. Examples? W6ULS, K6NB or K7UQH in '60s. Later on, in '80s, WA6IVN, W6CYX, K6DC or W4BW. So many others. They surely sounded like music to me. Of course, Bob, W6CYX is still sending music with his old Brown Bro paddle now. Treasury memories. 

 

Are you sending music with your key?

 

quote: 

Nat Rev Neurosci. 2014 Mar;15(3):170-80. doi: 10.1038/nrn3666.

Brain correlates of music-evoked emotions.

Koelsch S.

Author information

• Cluster: Languages of Emotion, Freie Universität, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Music is a universal feature of human societies, partly owing to its power to evoke strong emotions and influence moods. During the past decade, the investigation of the neural correlates of music-evoked emotions has been invaluable for the understanding of human emotion. Functional neuroimaging studies on music and emotion show that music can modulate activity in brain structures that are known to be crucially involved in emotion, such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, hippocampus, insula, cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. The potential of music to modulate activity in these structures has important implications for the use of music in the treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders.