CHAPTER 3

1 “… Log Blues.”

Another famous Ren and Stimpy song is the “Happy Happy Joy Joy Song.” It is just as ebullient, but I reprinted the Log song because it’s sillier and connects to the Slinky song a few lines down.

2 “… the ancient Greeks … used harp music to ease the outbursts of people with mental illnesses.”

Shapiro, A. (1969). A pi lot program in music therapy with residents of a home for the aged. The Gerontologist 9(2): 128–133.

3 “… the brain has been shaped by evolution and adaptations that arose independently of one another to solve specific problems.”

Marcus, G. (2008). Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. New York: Houghton-Mifflin.

4 “… adaptations such as the ability to anticipate the future, solve puzzles, distinguish animate from inanimate objects, identify friends and enemies, and avoid being manipulated or deceived.”

Huron, D. (2005). The plural pleasures of music. In Proceedings of the 2004 Music and Music Science Conference, edited by J. Sundberg and W. Brunson. Stockholm: Kungliga Musikhögskolan & KTH, pp. 1–13.

5 “Recall Daniel Dennett’s argument that we don’t find babies cute because they are intrinsically cute …”

See Chapter 1.

6 “When we find something pleasurable or displeasurable, it is often because tens of thousands of years of brain evolution have selected for those emotions ….”

Jamshed Bharucha, a music cognition professor at Tufts University and former editor of the journal Music Perception, adds: “Many experiences of plea sure and dis plea sure, including disgust, outrage, liking, pleasantness, are the result of cultural familiarity or violation thereof. In some cultures, grasshoppers and dogs are considered delicious; in other cultures, the idea of eating them would be considered revolting. People familiar with the operatic voice love it. Others hate it. I have come across teachers of Western classical voice who find the Karnatic classical voice to be nasal and ugly—it goes against everything they teach. Many highly trained classical musicians have a hard time appreciating the classical musics of other cultures. I have found some of the most skilled Indian classical musicians (of older generations, who have not had early exposure to Western music) just don’t get the big deal about Beethoven. Ditto in reverse. I always have been amazed at how indifferent so many skilled musicians are to other forms of music. This is not true of all musicians, but certainly of many.”

7 “… ‘Suspicious Minds’ …”

James, M. (1956). Suspicious minds [Recorded by Elvis Presley]. On Suspicious Minds [45rpm record]. RCA. (1969).

“Suspicious Minds” has also been recorded by Fine Young Cannibals, Dwight Yoakam, Robbie Williams, the punk band Avail, and many others.

8 “Nature doesn’t build mental devices whose purpose isn’t related to adaptive fitness.”

Huron, D. (2005). The plural pleasures of music. Proceedings of the 2004 Music and Music Science Conference, edited by J. Sundberg and W. Brunson. Stockholm: Kungliga Musikhögskolan & KTH, p. 2.

9 “Although there do exist discrete ‘plea sure centers’ in the brain, dozens of neurotransmitters and brain regions contribute to feelings of pleasure.”

These two sentences are nearly direct quotes from: Huron, D. (2005). The plural pleasures of music. Proceedings of the 2004 Music and Music Science Conference, edited by J. Sundberg and W. Brunson. Stockholm: Kungliga Musikhögskolan & KTH, p. 2.

10 “In one published study on music therapy, a group of Korean researchers took stroke survivors and gave them an eight-week program of physical therapy that involved synchronized movements to music.”

Jeong, S. and M. T. Kim. (2007). Effects of a theory-driven music and movement program for stroke survivors in a community setting. Applied Nursing Research 20(3): 125–31.

11 “In fact, in the long run, she will tend to get 25 percent of them [the cards] right.”

This is because for any given “trial” (that is, each time your friend tries to guess the suit of a card) there are four possibilities: hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. On Trial 1 you might be looking at a spade and your friend might guess heart. On Trial 2 you might be looking at a heart and your friend might guess diamond. But on the average, your friend’s guesses will align with yours one out of four times; if she is truly guessing at random, that is, if she has no idea. For that matter, if you friend tries to be stubborn and just says “hearts” on every single trial, even though they can’t all be hearts, she will still be right on 25 percent of the trials.

12 “… oxytocin …”

C43H66N12O12S2. It is produced in the hypothalamus.

13 “Serum concentrations of oxytocin increased significantly [in people who had been given singing lessons].”

Grape, C., M. Sandgren, L. O. Hansson, M. Ericson, and T. Theorell. (2003). Does singing promote well-being? Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science 38(1): 65–74.

14 “… oxytocin has just been found to increase trust between people.”

Kosfeld M., M. Heinrichs, P. Zak, U. Fischbacher, and E. Fehr. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature 435: 673–676.

15 “Why oxytocin is released when people sing together is probably related evolutionarily to the social bonding function of music …”

Freeman, W. J. (1995). Societies of Brains: A Study in the Neuroscience of Love and Hate. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

16 “Several recent studies show that IgA levels increased following various forms of music therapy.”

Charnetski, C. J., G. C. Strand, M. L. Olexa, L. J. Turoczi, and J. M. Rinehart. (1989). The effect of music modality on immunoglobulin A (IgA). Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science 63: 73–76.

Kuhn, D. (2002). The effects of active and passive participation in musical activity on the immune system as measured by salivary immunoglobulin A (SIgA). Journal of Music Therapy 39(1): 30–39.

McCraty, R., M. Atkinson, G. Rein, and A. D. Watkins. (1996). Music enhances the effect of positive emotional states on salivary IgA. Stress Medicine 12(3): 167–175.

McKinney, C. H., M. H. Antoni, M. Kumar, F. C. Tims, and P. McCabe. (1997). Effects of guided imagery and music (GIM) therapy on mood and cortisol in healthy adults. Health Psychology 16(4): 390–400.

McKinney, C. H., F. C. Tims, A. M. Kumar, M. Kumar. (1997). The effect of selected classical music and spontaneous imagery on plasma beta-endorphin. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 20(1): 85–99.

Rider, M. S., and J. Achterberg. (1989). Effect of music-assisted imagery on neutrophils and lymphocytes. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback 14(3): 247–257.

Tsao, J., T. F. Gordon, C. Dileo, and C. Lerman. (1999). The effects of music and biological imagery on immune response. Frontier Perspectives 8: 26–37.

17 “In another study, levels of melatonin, norepinephrine, and epinephrine increased during a four-week course of music therapy …”

Kumar, A. M., F. Tims, D. G. Cruess, M. J. Mintzer, G. Ironson, D. Loewenstein, et al. (1999). Music therapy increases serum melatonin levels in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 5(6): 49–57.

18 “Melatonin …”

C13H16N2O2.

19 “… some researchers believe that it [melatonin] increases cytokine production, which in turn signals T-cells to travel to the site of an infection.”

Carrillo-Vico, A., R. J. Reiter, P. J. Lardone, J. L. Herrera. R. Fernández-Montesinos, J. M. Guerrero, et al. (2006). The modulatory role of melatonin on immune responsiveness. Current Opinion in Investigating Drugs 7(5): 423–431.

20 “Serotonin levels were shown to increase in real time during listening to pleasant, but not unpleasant music.”

Evers, S., and B. Suhr. (2000). Changes of the neurotransmitter serotonin but not of hormones during short time music perception. Europe an Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 250(3): 144–147.

21 “Techno music increased levels of plasma norepinephrine (NE), growth hormone (GH) …”

Gerra, G., A. Zaimovic, D. Franchini, M. Palladino, G. Giucastro, N. Reali, et al. (1998). Neuroendocrine responses of healthy volunteers to “techno-music”: Relationships with personality traits and emotional state. International Journal of Psychophysiology 28(1): 99–111.

22 “… rock music was shown to cause decreases in prolactin … a hormone associated with feeling good.”

Möckel, M., L. Röcker, T. Stork, J. Vollert, O. Danne, H. Eichstädt, et al. (1994). Immediate physiological responses of healthy volunteers to different types of music: Cardiovascular, hormonal and mental changes. European Journal of Applied Physiology 68(6): 451–459.

23 “… Sweet Anticipation …”

Huron, D. (2006). Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

See also the excellent book review:

Stevens, C., and T. Byron. (2007). Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of expectation. [Review of the book Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation]. Music Perception 24(5): 511–514.

24 “In a paper published a few years ago in the journal Music Perception …”

Vines, B. W., R. L. Nuzzo, and D. J. Levitin. (2005). Analyzing temporal dynamics in music: Differential calculus, physics, and functional data analysis techniques. Music Perception 23(2): 137–152.

25 “… tension tends to build up during music to a peak, after which the tension is released and subsides, often rapidly.”

It is true that composers sometimes flout these conventions and write pieces with no tension, pieces that end on tension rather than resolving, and so on. But these are relatively uncommon compared to what typically occurs; indeed, their relative rarity is what gives them their power to surprise.

26 “In performances of Indian classical music …”

The wording for this section comes from Jamshed Bharucha.

27 “… ‘Over the Rainbow’ …”

Arlen, H., and E. Y. Harburg. (1939). Over the rainbow [Recorded by Judy Garland]. On Over the Rainbow [LP]. Pickwick Records.

28 “… ‘She Loves You’ …”

Lennon, J., and P. McCartney. (1963). She loves you [Recorded by The Beatles]. On She Loves You [45rpm record]. London: Parlophone Records.

29 “‘I define joy … as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace …’”

Oprah Winfrey. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2008, from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey, accessed March 7, 2008.