Effects on muscles in the body through listening to music and emotional responses

Dalgarno, Gordon (2009) Effects on muscles in the body through listening to music and emotional responses. In: Research FEST 2009, July 2009, University of Cumbria.

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Abstract

This work arose form my research to find people’s personal frequencies and to improve the effectiveness of therapy with music by tuning prominent notes in the music to match these frequencies. These are early results and must be considered tentative, until confirmed with more subjects and under better controlled conditions. In my work in Attune to Health, applying music in a high tech way for therapy, I originally used the methods of Applied Kinesiology to assess relative muscle tone, in response to music to assess whether the music seemed to be suitable therapeutically. Then almost accidentally, and to my surprise I found that, muscle tone was very strong at certain narrowly defined frequencies, and conversely very weak at slightly off these frequencies. In fact the frequency had to be correct to within 0.1% which corresponds to about 1/60 th of a semitone. This tiny difference of pitch cannot be heard – it would need to be about 10 times that to be easily discernable under ordinary conditions – and yet certain muscles in the body have this large response. I then found there is not just one frequency for a person but at least 11 and that these are spaced in a regular geometric pattern which is not related in any way to (at least Western) musical intervals. Some very different pieces of music appear to show the same frequencies for a person, however, when correctly “tuned in” the relative strength of other muscles, e.g. individual fingers, appear to vary with the emotional affect of the music. There is also a time dependent effect. If one applies a slightly “wrong” frequency, 1/60th of a semitone too low, for say 2 minutes, the relevant muscle shows weak and it remains weak for perhaps 20 seconds after the “correct” frequency is applied. However if one instead of applying the ‘correct’ frequency, one applies one 1/60th of a semitone too high, the muscle goes strong within about 2 seconds; Naturally one must not leave this “wrong frequency” on for more than 10 seconds or so because it would cause the muscles to go weak.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Journal / Publication Title:	N/A
Departments:	Academic Departments > Health, Psychology & Social Studies (HPSS) > Rehabilitation
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2010 10:30
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 08:31
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/422

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