Building A Brain with Music – Part XIX

Building A Brain with Music – Part XIX

The First 1000 Days of Life – Part 19

“Everything in the world has a spirit that can be released through its sound.” (Oskar Fischinger, German-American musician, pioneer of ‘Visual Music’). What Fischinger had in mind was perhaps the ’Soul Expression’.

Different sounds represent different moods or emotions. Talking about moods & emotions, what spontaneously pops up on a neuroscientist’s mind screen is the pioneering research of Prof. Paul Ekman (1934 - ), professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco. Ekman’s worldwide research, spanning over several decades, had discovered 6 (six) macro (and associated several micro) -expressions of the face accompanying 6 (six) different universal moods. These are: Joy (Happiness), Anger, Fear, Sadness, Surprise & Disgust.

The great Indian sage Bharata had written his ‘Natya Shastra’ (The Treatise on Drama) in the 1st millennium BCE where he had described 8 (eight) ‘Rasas’ or ‘Moods/Emotional States’ such as: Hasyam (Laughter, Joy, Happiness), Roudram (Anger), Karuna (Compassion), Shringaram (Romance), Bibhatsam (Disgust, Aversion), Bhayanakam (Horror, Terror), Veeram (Courage, Valour), and Adbhutam (Wonder, Amazement). Shantam (Peace, Tranquility), a ninth ‘Rasa’, had not been originally proposed by Bharata but added on by his disciples later.

Before any language evolved for the first time, 50,000 to 1,50,000 years ago, our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors used to express only NON-VERBALLY (through postures, gestures, body movements, voice modulation & intonations). (Read Robin Dunbar, locally cited). So, the sound-based ‘SONIC’ mode played a very important role in their lives.

Sage Bharata’s each ‘Rasa’ has its own characteristic sound. Now, most interestingly, which sound would be considered ‘positive’ and which ones ‘negative’ is indeed a relative matter, and the perception of ‘pleasantness’ and ‘unpleasantness’ varies from one individual to another. John Cage was very much conscious about the sounds accompanying the NAVARASAs and he had tried to incorporate them in his compositions (a striking example is his ‘Water Walk’). I’d never had the opportunity of meeting & interacting with Cage in his lifetime. What I’m doing now is limited to post-mortem speculation only. I’ve a feeling that Cage wanted each individual to be aware about the existence & importance of all types of sound and not to categorise them into ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’ groups.

Taking a cue from Cage, I’d suggest that the parents (particularly the mother) & other care-givers must familiarise the infant with all kinds of sounds during the first 1000 days of its life so that its ‘Zone of Comfort & Convenience (ZCC)’ and ‘Zone of Tolerance (ZT)’ develop on a much broader basis than what happens in the typical human context now. This will help to provide the child with a stronger stress-tolerance threshold as every day, as it grows up, it gets subjected to micro-stresses (like silent strokes that take place inadvertently inside our brain in response to externally as well as internally generated adverse stimuli – which, we brain scientists are trained to figure out from the individual’s ‘muscular armouring’ features) at home as well as outside in institutions which it attends for curricular as well as extra-curricular development.

The first 1000 days of life is the ideal period for building a ‘Zone of Happiness (ZH)’ in a child’s brain. If a ZH is built in the manner that I’ve discussed, then there is a chance for the child to taste ‘Sustained Happiness’ when it grows up. Time & again, I’m stressing on the fact that music & sound have healing power, music can offer you ‘Smart Happiness’ (momentary, temporary, passing) as well as ‘Short-lived’ or ‘Short Happiness’ (the trace of happiness remains for some time before fading out or getting stored in memory, retrievable later as suitable), but it cannot provide long-lasting ‘Sustained Happiness’ unless your ZH is broad enough not to be sensitive to ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’ sounds. Later on in life, the brain decides on your choice of music – which music you like and which you dislike; and, that like-dislike discrimination power gets impregnated in the brain’s ‘Error Neurons (ER)’ (located in the human brain’s ‘Medial Frontal Cortex’) during the first 1,000 days of life.

Link has been provided to John Cage’s experimental music ‘Water Walk’.

https://youtu.be/gXOIkT1-QWY

[References:

1. Oskar Fischinger, “Wikipedia”

2. Paul Ekman, “Emotions Revealed, Second Edition: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life”, New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007.

3. “Rasa (aesthetics)” – Wikipedia.

4. Robin Dunbar, “Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language”, London: Faber & Faber, 1996.

5. Casey Edwards, “John Cage + the Rasa Aesthetic: Prepared Piano at BMCM + AC”, Black Mountain College Arts Center.]