Music And Writing: The Key To Evoking Emotion

By Tyler Morris

Exercise

Open a blank Microsoft Word Document

Listen to this 6-minute song (Title TBA)Write about anything you want Have Fun!

Creative Writing And Music

Study performed by Abraham H. LassManual Training High School, NYCAddresses that desire is key to writing Claims that students won’t be inspired

to express themselves unless required to do so

Affirms that like artists, writers work best from innovation, through having an experience worth expressing

The Experiment

Purpose: “to note the efficacy of music in arousing the pupils to a pitch of feeling, definite and potent enough to evoke whatever literary capacities were present” (Lass 318)

Lass had high-school sophomores stay after class to write their reactions while listening to music

Songs were all played on piano; only brief segments were played

The Songs “La Cinquantaine” by Gabriel Marie Opening of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony “The Ride Of The Valkyrie” by Wagner “Amaryllis” by Louis XIII “Minuet” by Gossec “In A Persian Market Place” by Keteldey “The Loom Of Omphale” by Saint-Saens “Song Of India” by Rimsky-Korsakoff “Solvejg Song” by Grieg “Meditation” by Bach

The Results “Whatever purpose the music served lay in its

capacity to act as a stimulus to thought and feeling” (318)

Students tended to have more emotional prose and more detailed writing

“It brought a sense of breathlessness , of suffocation--I was alone--It was twilight. The sun had just sunk behind the horizon, but its rays still filtered through the branches.”

“A great cliff, and at the bottom, a quiet sea. The only living being was a gull, soaring near the brink of precipice, now and then uttering a hoarse, discordant shriek.” (318)

Overall Findings

Music has the ability to motivate emotional and detailed writing

“This experiment thus contained the three most vital elements necessary to good writing: the aroused organic state, the desire to communicate, and the joy in communicating.” (318)

Stanford University Research of Music and Brain Stanford University scientists conducted an

experiment to discover music’s effect on brain activity

The group used fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging to see the amount of brain activity during a given activity

Had 10 men and 8 women undergo MRI while listening to music from 18th century composer William Boyce

Scientists studied brain activity while music played and during the 10 second gaps between songs

Results Peak brain activity

occurred during 10 second gaps

Changes in music causes the opening of different ventral regions of the brain

“Music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory”

Right side of brain more active than left side

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Works Cited

Stanford University Medical Center. "Music Moves Brain To Pay Attention, Study Finds." ScienceDaily 5 August 2007. 20 April 2008 <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm>

Lass, Abraham H. "Creative Writing and Music." The English Journal 21 (1932): 316-318. JSTOR. 18 Apr. 2008.