"Harmony, the music of the seven levels of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit communication. Music, such as Urantia mortals understand, attains its highest expression in the schools of Jerusem, "(500).

The revelators value music. They use some interesting musical metaphors (364;2080). The term "attunement", their desire for us with our Thought Adjuster, is a musical term.  Jesus' voice from adolescence onwards is referred to as "musical." Music is important!

And yet we know so little about music and its impact on the individual. There has been no research into how a composer creates his music, and many of the famous composers describe the process simply as 'hearing" the melody in their head.  Researchers have studied the difference between skilled musicians and rank amateurs, the findings being mainly in the nature of enhancement of our understanding of mental processing and mind/body co-ordination.

Perhaps of more interest are the findings on the impact of music on the listener. Music can influence emotions and muscular activity. Dependent upon the particular melody, listeners may have difficulty in either resisting tapping their toes to the beat or going into reverie. Music can take a person into a hallucinatory stupor (by subjection to  prolonged periods of reduced or featureless sensory experience, i.e., a monotonous drum beat). Alternatively it can induce a state of calmness bordering on rapture, or spur an exhausted soldier to stand straight and march onwards to battle. And it is not known how!

Is there a sector for musical intellect in the brain?

Music is allocated its own area in the brain. The cortical centre housing musical intellect appears to be in the right hemisphere (in a sector of the temporal lobe), with the left hemisphere appearing to have a minor  function in musical intellectual activities.

This area appears to be particularly resilient to cortical death or injury. Case studies are documented of individuals who have had brain trauma, resulting in  inability to access old memories, who will deny ever having played a musical instrument, and yet when presented with an instrument they once were proficient in, play magnificently, but continue to deny any knowledge of same. There have also been case studies of severely aphasic (speech production damage) patients who can carry a tune and even sing the words to previously learned songs.

Music is powerful! We can hear a tune once and be able to hum it perfectly. But if we tried to recall even one of the beautiful sentences of The Urantia Book after a single reading, most of us would fail. It is also remarkable that, on hearing a tune for the first time, our senses may be jarred by a note played off key.

What do we call music?

It is hypothesized that what is recognized as music is ultimately a function of the physiological or biological nature of man. It appears innate, which The Urantia Book would confirm perhaps as spiritual responsivity.

Music is decidedly culture bound, and hence although Eastern music might not appeal to a Western ear, it is still regarded as music by the latter. Although we cannot define it, we are all certain as to what constitutes music. For example, the sounds of nature, although regarded by some to be musical, are not held to be music. In examining the difference between the sounds of nature and the sounds of music, the latter are "constantly changing from instant to instant in the frequencies present and in the amplitudes of the frequencies." (Beament, 1977, p.7). In contrast, Beament notes that music primarily involves sounds with sustained constant frequencies (heard as fixed pitches) without which melodic and harmonic music could not exist. He maintains that fixed pitches "are virtually an artifact of man". The Urantia Book differs. Music is in reality a gift from the gods!

When is musical appreciation formed?

It is recognized that the earliest form  of intelligence to emerge in humans is musical - the appreciation of melody, rhythm, timbre, and the quality of tones.   In the normal course of development, children at two months have been observed to match the pitch, loudness and melody of their mother's songs, and at four months can match rhythm as well. At about the age of one and a half, children begin to sound out their own patterns of tones - seconds, minor and major thirds, and fourths - and they sing spontaneous little songs. Individual children differ markedly in their musical abilities, the range of these differences being even greater than that which occurs in the development of linguistic ability. Outstanding examples of the latter are Albert Einstein who did not talk until he was three and, in contrast,  Jean-Paul Satre who was writing books at the age of seven.

Pre-verbal communication between mother and child initiates ego development, the sense of reality separate from self. Also during this pre-verbal stage, the child develops a capacity to understand moods expressed in the mother's voice, conveyed by such musical qualities as cadence, timbre and pace rather than by the words she speaks (of which she is probably more aware). The child actually becomes quite expert in the interpretation of paralingual cues. Because all of this meaningful musical experience by children precedes their comprehension of language,  psychoanalysts believe this may explain why music resists definition in purely logical terms, as well as why it has a heavy impact on our emotions.

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Unfortunately, except for those with exceptional ability, children's musical intelligence rarely develops significantly beyond the early school years, mainly due, it is believed to lack of use. With language acquisition, the whole family, including the child, becomes so enthralled at their new found skill that music is relegated to a very poor second place relative to development of the spoken word.

Music and Emotions.

Only once in a thousand mortal lives is there any great appreciation of harmonics. But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, "melody has power a whole world to transform." (500)

For a long time humans have been aware of the power of music to transform the individual to a "higher" self.  Plato believed that "rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul". He regarded the study of harmony as conducive to the "liberation of the soul from the tyranny of  the senses", which implies a similar psychological distinction between mere perception (directly dependent on sense organs) and an inbuilt, inherent response to harmonious rhythms. Plato believed that this response could lead to a state of being whereby negative emotions are dissolved and actually changed to peace and harmony with the environment.

Research findings have conclusively confirmed Plato's beliefs, and show that the emotions of the individual can be altered by music. Hence music is a commonly used therapeutic tool with individuals who have difficulty in controlling aggressive behaviour, stress, anxiety and fear. Even more fascinating is the recent research of the psychology of music into the impact of the social environment, the person's emotional level, music as a mediator, and its feedback effects through the environment and individuals, in order to produce an altered state of group emotions. There is a very real possibility that not only the listener's state of emotions but also their social behaviour and their treatment of others in numerous everyday social micro-episodes may be perceptibly and differentially affected by listening to music. The  type of social change - increased irritation, aggression, calm, or pro-social behaviour - is dependent upon the quality of music heard.

Such studies show that there is a tendency for the arousing complex melodies, when they are played at a very high listening level, to incline people towards aggression. In situations in which people have been aroused by high, complex music, overreactions  are likely to occur in response to relatively slight additional provocations that, ordinarily, would be brushed aside.

Conversely, simple, soft melodies may reduce the level of arousal and reaction more so than would be the case with aroused individuals who heard no music. Interestingly people who were exposed to soft, simple melodies and whose anger subsided whilst listening, subsequently chose to listen to this same kind of music when their anger was again aroused. Hence they had learned to actively seek  melodies having those properties that tend to alleviate negative emotional states.

The one universal code of spirit communication.

It is interesting to deliberate whether music might hold the key to a generalized human disorder - global amnesia for the events of the first two years of life. This is the critical period in which the child learns trust, and establishes ego-identity. The memory of this period is there, but cannot be assessed because it is in some form of pre-language coding. Since the recognition of meaningful musical sounds precedes the acquisition of language, part of this memory must be retained in a form symbolizing musical sounds.

Whatever the truth may be, it is certain that our Thought Adjuster has the necessary means to interpret all events that occurred prior to His indwelling in a way which may be useful for the enhancement of our spiritual growth. One possibility is that events, emotions, beliefs and attitudes of the infantile pre-language phase of our existence, those critical first years of our life, are interpreted through the symbolism of what the book refers to as "good" music.

Ann Bendall, Australia

References:

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. ( Ed. S. Sadie)
D. Deutsch. "The Psychology of Music."
A. Clarke-Stewart et al. "Child Development Psychology."
R. Radocy & J. Boyle. "Psychological Foundations of Music Behaviour."