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Take yourself back to one of your favorite musical experiences with a group of people.
Pause for a second to capture the moment, the sights, sounds, and emotions.
You’re in arms with a person who was a stranger 20 minutes ago. There are thousands of voices singing the same lyrics. The faces around you are illuminated by the stage lights. The rhythm of the music trembles at your feet. The music surrounds you, creating an expansive zone you never want to leave.
No one knows what’s happening, and no one questions it because doing so might steal from the fleeting moment. It’s a tacit agreement among a thousand strangers to just ‘let it be,’ and so an invisible bond is formed.
You fall short when you try to describe the night to someone else. “The feeling was euphoric, electrifying, communal…. it’s just ineffable.” It becomes a “you had to be there” moment, and you quickly abandon trying to explain it to others.
For an outsider looking in, they would describe a night of possession, a gathering of strangers on drugs; and in some ways, they’re right.
We can’t help you describe it, but we can give you an idea of what possibly happened and why.
Musical
Contagion
It’s 1937 in New York City’s Paramount Theater, and the young crowd has gathered to see the King of Swing, Benny Goodman.
The show begins, and the infectious beats overtake your body. There’s no dance floor in the seated arena, but the aisles are free. Soon enough, the aisles filled with rejoicing fans jitterbugging. “What started out as just a stage show had turned into a kind of celebration of the spirit, a love feast of communal frenzy.”
VIDEO 46sec – The Benny Goodman show and performance from the documentary ‘Jazz: A Film By Ken Burns’.
Watch the full video posted by GBCbrad.
The following day critics were shocked by the behavior, including “exhibitionists dancing in the aisles, clawing their way upon the stage, or swaying animalistically.” This was the common consensus among critics during the swing era. The fanbase of ‘swingo’s’, term used to describe young fans of swing music, were uncontrolled addicts. “The rhythmic sound pleases savages and children alike and acts as a narcotic that makes them forget reality… it’s like taking a drug.” At times, dancing was banned in certain parts of America.1 What’s the possible force people are surrendering to?
Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons are a relatively new discovery, and the extent of their function has been a source of endless fodder on the news. Still, most scientists agree these neurons create networks in the brain that relate to the movements you make with other people. The kicker is that they’re also activated even if you’re only observing someone make those movements without you having to move an inch.
In other words, they fire when you move or when you observe movement performed by another person. They help facilitate actions you haven’t made before.
What Moves Us
Mirror neurons may be part of the reason why music moves us mentally and physically. It could provide the force that keeps you active when everyone else is moving or when you move in rhythm with someone else.
Evidence shows that mirror neuron systems even activate while watching a musician perform. Parts of your brain begin to mirror the performer’s brain as you wonder what it would be like to be in their shoes. This happens even more so if you’re a musician. They can also fire to help us determine how the sounds are created as it prepares to echo them as part of a signaling system.
The mirror neuron system, along with Von Economo cells, cells associated with a sense of self and awareness, might play essential roles in our ability to cooperate. Together, they help us understand the intent, beliefs, and experiences of ourselves and others.2
Strangers
Become
Friends
You’re at a concert in Montreal. The musician begins to sing “Who Says,” a song with a meaningful message she gifted her fans. The chorus poses the question, “Who says you’re not worth it?” It serves as a reminder of your self-worth and that no one has the right to question it.
The audience sings along from the beginning of the song. But as the chorus approaches, their voices crescendo to a roar and overwhelm the artist to the point where she pauses in amazement. She laughs and tears up, but the show must go on. She gathers her composure and sings a few more words, but the fans overpower her once again. She tries to go on but eventually surrenders to the audience’s voices. The musician on stage with a microphone to project to thousands of fans is now speechless.
VIDEO 1m 23s – Selena Gomez is overwhelmed by the audience the 1st time and she gives up on the 2nd attempt.
Watch the full video posted by Ishrar Hussain.
The song’s inspirational message plays a role, but something larger is at play. There’s a palpable atmosphere of unity, love, and appreciation among thousands of strangers. What can cause this?
Bonding
Oxytocin, the “bonding/love hormone,” plays a role in social bonding, building relationships, and creating trust and intimacy. It increases when you show affection to others and is present in men and women during orgasms. The hormone is also an antidote for depressive feelings.
Singing Increases Bonding
Some studies show that singing in a group can nearly double the amount of oxytocin compared to just talking with friends. Maybe you should try singing a high note with your partner during an orgasm.
Other studies show the bonding effects of group singing are due to lower cortisol levels, otherwise known as the ‘stress hormone.’
The results are mixed. More research is needed to determine whether it’s increased oxytocin, lower cortisol, or a combination of both. But what’s not in question is the powerful bonding effects of group singing.3 4
Commanding
Euphoria
Now we’re at the Defqon.1 festival with 90,000+ raving fans. The music stops, and someone grabs the mic on stage and instructs the audience to put their arms around the person next to them. When the song tells you to move to the right, you move eight steps to the right. When it tells you to move to the left, you move eight steps to the left.
An attempt to control this many people may seem impossible. But when the DJ hits play and the music starts, 90k+ people swing back and forth in synchrony. From a bird’s eye view, the ground looks alive as it oscillates back and forth with a sea of people.
VIDEO 51sec – The crowd at Defqon.1
Watch the full video posted by Mr. Cool | This channel is about cool awesome and random videos
After the choreography, they pause the song. Fans rejoice, laugh, kiss, and hug. There’s an undeniable kinship that brings forth a sense of pleasure. What can be responsible for the euphoria?
Endorphins
Endorphins are hormones the brain fires in response to pain and stress and help alleviate anxiety and depression with feelings of well-being. They are responsible for the euphoria after exercise, such as a ‘runner’s high.’ Endorphins also play a central role in maintaining non-sexual, non-kinship social bonds.
Executive Rhythmic Activities
Research shows endorphins are present during executive rhythmic activities, including singing, dancing, laughter, and synchronized sports. They have also been argued to mediate the pleasure experienced when listening to music.5a
Unity
blesh noun
a coming together of extraordinary people with strange powers who can mesh their abilities together and act as one organism.
Phil Lesh, the bass guitarist of the Grateful Dead, uses this term to describe the chemistry the band had on stage. 6
Blesh, we achieve this on a musical level…
When we’re on stage, we’re manifesting this togetherness, this unity, and this single organism…
Self-Other Merging
Phil Lesh and Theodore Sturgeon’s description of unity isn’t far from the truth, and there’s even a name for it. The bonding effect of “self-other-blurring” or “self-merging” can occur when we’re rhythmically synchronizing to a common beat.
Studies show that after a period of synchrony, the brain’s neural action-perception network begins to think of you and the other person as a part of a larger system, making it difficult to distinguish between the self and perceived others. This effect promotes a sense of emotion and psychological connection.5b 7a
Captivation
On
Repeat
You’ve heard the song enough times to be sick of it. But when you listen to it live with thousands of screaming fans, it’s a whole new experience. It’s now the fifth time Travis Scott has played “Goosebumps” in a row, yet it’s not nearly enough. People continue to ask for more every time it ends, and Travis doesn’t fight the request. Now we’re approaching the 14th time, and we’ve set a record for the most consecutive plays at a live show ever.
VIDEO 55sec – Travis Scott broke the record for most times performing a song in one show when on Friday, May 12, 2017 he performed “goosebumps” 14 times in Oklahoma City.
Watch the full video posted by Travis Scott.
Fans have an insatiable hunger for the song that never loses its potency. What gives?
Singing in Groups
Brain scans reveal that singing along with a partner stimulates more activity in areas involved in phrasing and coordination, along with cognitive and emotional interactions, than singing alone.8
Coda 1
All these effects occur simultaneously and at all different times, but music’s rhythm allows us to ride the wave together. We reach ultimate cohesion by aligning our brains. Combine that with all the pleasures listening to the music itself provides, and what we have is a flood of neural firing, a marriage of the nervous system among thousands of strangers. We feel a sense of something larger, barriers drop, and we all have a common goal. Some describe it as a state of trance, euphoria, team-flow, or simply a #mitamoment.
But
Why?
We covered some of the neurological effects of listening to music in groups, but aren’t you curious why our brain rewards a communal music experience?
The Music and Social Bonding Hypothesis (MSB) explains how making music with others may have been a mechanism to help bond members of early human groups. Cooperation was necessary for human survival, and it would be impossible to achieve without proper communication.7b 9a
Communication
Mimicry
Before the advent of language, it is said we were a mimetic culture. We communicated emotions, ideas, and events through body gestures and sounds. Members of groups would imitate facial expressions of one another to understand each other’s feelings. One would mirror the rhythm of another member’s body movements to show acceptance. Mimicry was a way to understand each other’s experiences; it enhanced communication, therefore fortifying cooperation.
This may explain why we unconsciously mimic someone’s pose, gestures, facial expressions, and emotions in conversations. We can see the physiological effects in how contagious laughing and yawning can be.
Studies also show mimicry improves rapport between two individuals, resulting in more mimicry, which creates a positive feedback loop.10 11
Synchrony (Mimicry 2.0)
Later, we realized mimicking someone else had more profound effects when done in perfect timing, in other words, in synchrony. When achieved, the brain begins to blur lines among one another. Learning and teaching are optimized when we go from mimicking one another to moving in unison. This method allows stories, practices, and pieces of culture to be readily remembered and passed down from generation to generation. Synchrony also improves compassion and empathy, among others.5c 7c 9b
As we’ve seen in previous examples, one way to get thousands of strangers to synchronize is through music. The rhythm provides an external, predictive scaffold for synchrony that puts us on a path to becoming more psychologically connected. We’re enforcing communication, which improves cooperation.
The effects of synchronization also go beyond the context of music. Research shows that synchronization between people can influence their subsequent positive social feelings toward one another. These effects occur with different methods, ages, and across all cultures, which suggests a strong link between synchronized rhythmic movement and prosocial behavior.
Larger Groups And Complex Actions
As early human groups became larger and goals more intricate, music could have helped members accomplish these tasks. Neurologist Oliver Sacks postulates, “In the beginnings of agriculture, rhythmic songs that probably arose when tilling the soil, hoeing, and threshing all required the combined and synchronized efforts of a group of people.”
Fast forward to now, and we see the evidence of entrainment in how musical chants unify troops in synchronous marches.
It shouldn’t be surprising that churches incorporate synchronous singing, clapping, and chanting. We can imagine the feelings and connections among members that arise from following each other.
In music festivals, ravers lose themselves within a larger organism to high levels of individual well-being.
It can help explain Freddy Mercury’s masterful command of the audience at the Farm Aid benefit concert. He makes hundreds of thousands of people sing along to a pattern of vocal notes.
VIDEO 47sec – The audience repeats the ‘alrightt’ at the end too lol
Watch the full video posted by uploader.JP8.
It’s possible that in some of these cases, we experience something scientists call ‘team flow.’ In this state, a group can reach peak harmony and break performance limits. Studies suggest team flow can enable enhanced positive experiences compared to individual flow or regular socializing.12
Coda 2
In a sense, the primary role of music is to build community. Music appears in every culture and has the same effects on both genders and all ages. For most of human existence, music was celebrated as a community. In today’s world, technology allows us to enjoy music by ourselves. We have to attend concerts, churches, and festivals to experience music as a cohesive bonding experience. It is essential to seek communal experiences in a world often divided.
References:
- ^ a) Jazz: A Film By Ken Burns, Episode 5. Swing–Pure Pleasure. PBS Studio, 2004
b) Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing. Directed by Oren Jacoby. The Orchard, 2000. - ^ a) Levitin, Daniel. This Is Your Brain on Music. Plume/Penguin in 2007.
b) Viskontas, Indre. Brain Myths Exploded Lessons from Neuroscience, Lecture 22, Do Special Neurons Enable Social Life? The Teaching Company, 2017 - ^ a) Grape, C., Sandgren, M., Hansson, L. O., Ericson, M., & Theorell, T. (2002). “Does singing promote well-being?: An empirical study of professional and amateur singers during a singing lesson.” Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science, 38(1), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734261
b) Kreutz, G. (2014). “Does singing facilitate social bonding?” Music and Medicine, 6(2), 51- 60. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02734261 - ^ a) T. M. Schladt, G. C. Nordmann, R. Emilius, B. M. Kudielka. “Choir versus Solo Singing: Effects on Mood, and Salivary Oxytocin and Cortisol Concentrations” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14 September 2017. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00430
b) J. R. Keeler, E. A. Roth, B. L. Neuser, J. M. Spitsbergen “The neurochemistry and social flow of singing: bonding and oxytocin” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 23 September 2015. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00518 - a b c B. Tarr, J. Launay, R. M. Dunbar “Music and social bonding: “self-other” merging and neurohormonal mechanisms” Frontiers in Psychology, 30 September 2014. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01096
- ^ The Grateful Dead – Anthem To Beauty (Classic Album). Directed by Jeremy Marre. Eagle Rock Entertainment, 1997.
- a b c Patel, D. Aniruddh. Music and the Brain, Lecture 3: Testing Theories of Music’s Origins. The Teaching Company, 2015
- ^ The Music Instinct: Science and Song. Brain scans by Lawrence Parson. Directed by Elena Mannes. PBS Studios, 2009.
- a b Savage, P., Loui, P., Tarr, B., Schachner, A., Glowacki, L., Mithen, S., & Fitch, W. “Music as a coevolved system for social bonding” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X20000333
- ^ Donald, Merlin. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Harvard University Press; Reprint, 1993
- ^ R. Baaren, L. Janssen, T. L. Chartrand, Ap Dijksterhuis. “Where is the love? The social aspects of mimicry” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 27 August 2009. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0057
- ^ M. Shehata, M. Cheng, A. Leung, N. Tsuchiya, D. Wu, C. Tseng, S. Nakauchi, S. Shimojo “Team Flow Is a Unique Brain State Associated with Enhanced Information Integration and Interbrain Synchrony” eNeuro, 4 October 2021. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0133-21.2021
