Why Does Music Affect Mood?

Music is a powerful medium. I’ve often wondered how music can have such a profound ability to create and amplify moods and emotions. It has the power to help inspire, motivate, heal, love, anger and to fill us full of adrenaline. Different styles of music tends to have very different effects. For me, personally, certain music touches something deep in my soul that cannot be expressed or even described in words. It is a part of me and who I am. It isn’t even so much a style of music as the instruments that are used. There is just something about listening to a piano or saxophone alone with no accompaniment that has a resonating and deep meaning for me. I cannot say or even begin to explain why. All I know is that when I hear piano, it stirs the deepest of my emotions. It is interesting also that for moments of time in our life how a song can best represent where and when that time period was as well as what happened during that time.

A 2008 study done at BYU has shown that even infants as early as 5 months old could differentiate between happy and sad tunes, perhaps suggesting that music is a universal language. All I know is that it definitely has the power to evoke emotions and memories.

Cheers!
~ Peter West