Music And Writing: The Key To Evoking Emotion

1. Music And Writing: The Key To Evoking Emotion By Tyler Morris

2. Exercise • Open a blank Microsoft Word Document • Listen to this 6-minute song (Title TBA) • Write about anything you want • Have Fun!

3. Creative Writing And Music • Study performed by Abraham H. Lass • Manual Training High School, NYC • Addresses that desire is key to writing • Claims that students won’t be inspired to express themselves unless required to do so • Affirms that like artists, writers work best from innovation, through having an experience worth expressing

4. The Experiment • Purpose: “to note the efficacy of music in arousing the pupils to a pitch of feeling, definite and potent enough to evoke whatever literary capacities were present” (Lass 318) • Lass had high-school sophomores stay after class to write their reactions while listening to music • Songs were all played on piano; only brief segments were played

5. The Songs • “La Cinquantaine” by Gabriel Marie • Opening of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony • “The Ride Of The Valkyrie” by Wagner • “Amaryllis” by Louis XIII • “Minuet” by Gossec • “In A Persian Market Place” by Keteldey • “The Loom Of Omphale” by Saint-Saens • “Song Of India” by Rimsky-Korsakoff • “Solvejg Song” by Grieg • “Meditation” by Bach

6. The Results • “Whatever purpose the music served lay in its capacity to act as a stimulus to thought and feeling” (318) • Students tended to have more emotional prose and more detailed writing • “It brought a sense of breathlessness , of suffocation--I was alone--It was twilight. The sun had just sunk behind the horizon, but its rays still filtered through the branches.” • “A great cliff, and at the bottom, a quiet sea. The only living being was a gull, soaring near the brink of precipice, now and then uttering a hoarse, discordant shriek.” (318)

7. Overall Findings • Music has the ability to motivate emotional and detailed writing • “This experiment thus contained the three most vital elements necessary to good writing: the aroused organic state, the desire to communicate, and the joy in communicating.” (318)

8. Stanford University Research of Music and Brain • Stanford University scientists conducted an experiment to discover music’s effect on brain activity • The group used fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging to see the amount of brain activity during a given activity • Had 10 men and 8 women undergo MRI while listening to music from 18th century composer William Boyce • Scientists studied brain activity while music played and during the 10 second gaps between songs

9. Results • Peak brain activity occurred during 10 second gaps • Changes in music causes the opening of different ventral regions of the brain • “Music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory” • Right side of brain more active than left side

10. Works Cited • Stanford University Medical Center. "Music Moves Brain To Pay Attention, Study Finds." ScienceDaily 5 August 2007. 20 April 2008 <http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm> • Lass, Abraham H. "Creative Writing and Music." The English Journal 21 (1932): 316-318. JSTOR. 18 Apr. 2008.