Empathetic neurons-they make it work

I'm going to quote David Byrne again. I just finished reading his book, "How Music Works." Great book. He talks about a study by neurologists that found that " visual and auditory clues trigger empathetic neurons". When we see someone smile, our facial muscle neurons fire and so do our happy neurons. It's an essential part of communication.

I learned about that when I studied Linguistics too. Its part of why it's easier to hear when we're wearing our glasses, and harder to communicate by telephone. Language isn't just sounds put together to make words. We get information about what is being said from watching faces. We spend a lot of time looking at people's mouths instead of looking them in the eye when they're talking.

Here's the quote about empathetic neurons and music:

"These emotional connections might help explain why music has such a profound effect on our psychological well-being. We can use music (or, for better or worse others can use it) to regulate our emotions. We can pump ourselves (or others) up or calm others (or ourselves) down."

This also explains why we play air guitar, pretend to play the piano or trumpet, or conduct when we hear some music. It's a mirroring thing.

There's more, and I encourage you to check out the book. It's full of interesting ideas about how and why people create the kinds of music they do, and how it gets distributed too. There's a fair bit of biographical stuff as well.

In the meantime, let's listen for music that pumps us up and calms us down. Maybe you'll want to make a couple new playlists for yourself. Maybe you've already got a calming music playlist?