I read an article in a recent issue of the Music Perception Journal about music and the muscles.
Usually when we associate music with body movement, we think about how music influences the way we move our bodies. During a happy song, we tend to smile and during a sad song we tend make a very serious expression. When a song has a lively beat to it we tend to nod our heads to the music and when a piece is emotionally powerful we tend to shake our heads subtly as the music intensifies.
Now let's think about all of this a different way. Results of recent experimentation reveal that perhaps muscle movement affects and informs how we listen to music (not just the other way around). In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to listen to French baroque music while holding pens between their teeth (activating 'smiling muscles'), nodding their heads, and exerting pressure from their hand to the underside of a table (a positive movement). The other half listened to French baroque music while holding pens between their lips (activating 'frowning muscles', shaking their heads, and pushing down on a table surface (a negative movement).
Sure enough when asked how they liked the same music, the group which was activating positive "happy" muscle groups yielded stronger reports of enjoying the music than did the group using negative "sad" muscles. Nobody reported being familiar with the music in advance.
So I guess next time you're at a concert that you think is boring, try smiling and maybe you'll like it more : )
