Phenomena researches sonic enigmas and collaborates with experts in pursuit of an overlapping art + science.

Vibrations travel from a source through the air and into our ear. The outer ear catches the vibrations, which then travel through the ear canal, where they meet the ear drum. These vibrations tickle the eardrum, which in turn tickles 3 tiny bones which amplify, or increase the vibrations. These amplified vibrations travel on to the fluid-filled cochlea, causing the fluid to ripple which makes waves. The waves tickle microscopic hair cells, and the movements of these tiny hair bundles creates an electrical signal that travels through the auditory nerve to the brain stem, where it is reassembled into something we perceive as a sound.

For this installment of phenomena, I was inspired by an episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast, titled “Good Vibes”, which dives into the surprising ways in which music can affect our brains and bodies.

Listening to music stimulates all four of the brain’s major lobes, but fascinatingly it doesn’t stimulate the brain in any fixed way.

According to Jessica Grahn, cognitive neuroscientist of music at Western University in Ontario, Canada:

“We can't close our ears. When music is playing, we tend to process it automatically. That means that we have responses in various brain areas. So, sound processing areas immediately light up. If this is music that might be familiar to us, we'll have memory related areas. We also have reward system areas, so the areas that respond to drugs, and other things that really stimulate dopamine production in certain parts of the brain.”

Rhythm is often a key element in music, and many argue that rhythm is at the core of what guides our physiological responses to music listening.

As the brain internalizes the rhythm and tempo of a song,the cerebellum begins reacting every time the song produces tension. As this is an area normally associated with physical movement, it’s believed that the cerebellum is actually responding to the brain’s predictions of where the song was going to go.

Grahn states, “If the music happens to be fast and up tempo, up beat, and loud, that is arousing. That stimulates our sympathetic nervous system, so our heart rate tends to go up, our respiratory rate tends to go up.” And interestingly, studies have also found that changes in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems actually mirrored musical tempo.

There is a fundamental attraction we have to repeating rhythms/beats, which some scientists believe has a deeper, more primal association because as humans, we inherently all have a heartbeat.

Pretty cool, huh?