♫ music ♫
one 2 five

Music can be heard and seen

We perceive music through our senses. We hear it, we see it. SEE it? Yes, indeed. A musical experience is also a visual one.

Of two musicians who play equally well the one who shows involvement by means of facial expression or body language, gets more attention.

Of old visual components are united with music. Think of ballet, opera and musical.

During pop concerts visual effects are used. In music videos the pictures have an impact on how the music is perceived.

Music can be felt

Sound is vibration. Vibration you can feel. Our personal resonance box is our body.

Thanks to that ability (besides the visual one) also hearing impaired and deaf persons can experience music. They can do that for example by having direct contact with the instrument and by means of resonance.

Evelyn Glennie, one of the world’s best percussionists, is deaf since she was 12 years old.

"We do not only listen with our ears, but with our whole body", she says.

Music makes you move

Kinesthetic perception is perception through movement. Music makes us move. Dance and music are so closely related to each other, that in some cultures there is just one word for the both.

During a classical concert people usually think it is inappropriate to live it up. The public sits quietly and coughs only during the interval. But if you would look closely you could see that people around make small movements. A foot is silently tapping, a hand is moving and a head is nodding.

When we listen to music there is always some muscle contracting somewhere in our body, even if we are sitting perfectly still.

Music gives balance

The organ of equilibrium is also involved in musical experience. It reacts on movements. It sends signals to the brain that influence our muscles of the eye and our posture, so that we do not tumble while dancing for example.

Goose bumps and tears of emotion

The autonomic nervous system controls functions like breathing, hart rate, constricting and dilating of blood vessels and many more. It causes bodily reactions that we can't control deliberately.

Music can provoke these reactions. We get goose bumps when we hear a certain piece of music, tears of emotion start to our eyes, our heart rate goes up.