Recently in Studies Category

CHECK out this video of "The Police: The Early Years Live in Boston" where Boston Phoenix archivist David Bieber narrates the history of the Police's early shows.

EVER heard that phrase? I guess so. If not, you wouldn't be reading this blog anymore, heh. How many times has music saved your "life." In my case, I guess countless times. We have different tastes for music. They could be the neck-breaking heavy metal sounds you play loud. They could be the cool Indie Emo you have around when you're feeling sentimental. They could be the old and new Brit rock or similarly influenced music you listen to while typing an entry in your blog. You listen to music usually based on your moods; thus you would sometimes see people arranging their playlists based on certain emotions. Feeling-a-lot-of-love. Chill out. Morning dose. Cool down. Angry music. Or whatnot. I checked how "violent music" affects our emotions, and here's what I stumbled upon.

Violent music lyrics increase aggressive thoughts and feelings, according to new study

Well, that made me smile. Just a disclaimer: that piece of news is actually a press release from the Americal Psychological Association. It involves an experiment on over 500 college students.

Results of the five experiments show that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. nonaggressive words, and increased the proportion of word fragments (such as h_t) that were filled in to make aggressive words (such as hit). The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the authors, and this effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs. Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts.

Such studies will surely create debates among us. But as the study admits, longterm experiments should be done to really determine if violent music does lead to aggressive behavior. What gets me in this study is the point that "[r]epeated exposure to violent lyrics may contribute to the development of an aggressive personality and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment..." Hmmm. Let's pause there for a moment. Okay, breathe. Now, laugh! To end, I found this interesting news from BBC News, titled Organ music 'instils religious feelings'. It somehow links organ music to feelings of spirituality. Yes I do agree that music can lead to certain emotions. But music's impact on human beings should consider the context or the environment. Here's an interesting experiment that Guy Kawasaki found and wrote about in his blog, titled "Violin Monday." Excerpt:

Basically, the Washington Post convinced a world-class violinist named Joshua Bell to act like a street musician to see how many people would stop to listen to him play and how many would donate money. He would play his $3.5 million violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1713. It must be a helluva of violin because it has a name: “Gibson ex Huberman.” The Violin Maker is filled with stories of how violins come to be named, by the way.

Moral of the story: Don’t pass by life much less let life pass you by. (That's from Guy's blog too) . Rock on!