The Whole Music Experience

Try this experiment. Next time you hear music coming from a passing car while you're out walking, pay attention to your body's reaction. Pay attention to how your body rearranges itself to match the rhythm and tempo of the song coming from the passing car. I've noticed this with myself. I'm walking on a city street at my own pace and cadence. Then a car passes by with rap music pouring out of the speakers. I notice that my step picks up, my heart races, and I end up walking to the rap rhythms against my will. Alternately, if I'm walking into a shop and a Bach prelude pours from a speaker, I pay attention to my body's rhythms as they slow down and my mind travels from worries of the day to contemplation. Or I stop thinking obsessive thoughts and I remember music history lessons about the Baroque Era--Bach's music. Right now, I'm listening to Marvin Gaye's greatest hits on YouTube as I type this post. I'm feeling my heart swelling with compas...

Photo by Patricia Herlevi Music resonating within you Psychoacoustic researcher Joshua Leeds introduced me to resonance and rhythmic entrainment in 2008 when I interviewed him for my radio show.   At the time, we were discussing how a sonic environment affects our canine companions, but we also spoke about how a sonic environment affects humans through rhythmic entrainment and resonance. I will give you a non-musical example of resonance.   Imagine a time when you walked into a party or a gathering of some kind.   How were you feeling before you walked into this gathering? And did your feelings change as you spent time in the room with the other people? Did someone walk in with dark cloud emotions and change the vibration or feeling in the space? How did this person resonate with you? Did this person resonate with your subconscious in such a way that he or she brought up your matching core issues? My focus in this essay revolves around musical resonan...