Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

The Power of the Creative Arts

May 24, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Music, art, and dance therapy may relieve anxiety and similar symptoms among people with cancer, according to a new analysis of past studies. Researchers who analyzed results from trials conducted between 1989 and 2011 said the benefits tied to creative arts therapies were small, but similar to those of other complementary techniques such as yoga and acupuncture. "People with cancer very often feel like their body has been taken over by the cancer. They feel overwhelmed," said Joke Bradt, a music therapist from Drexel University in Philadelphia. "To be able to engage in a creative ... Read More

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How to Entice People to Buy Symphony Tickets

May 21, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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These are very tough times for America’s orchestras. Symphonies in some cities are facing bankruptcy, while others are contending with nasty labor disputes. Subscriptions—which once provided a reliable funding stream—are declining, with more and more concertgoers opting to buy single tickets. Given those realities, a new analysis of what types of pieces lure people to a concert is of keen interest. In the June issue of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Wagner Kamakura of Duke University and Carl Schimmel of Illinois State University use a sophisticated model to ... Read More

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The Mating Advantage of Male Musicians

May 6, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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For women, it seems, there’s something about a man holding an instrument. That’s the conclusion of a just-published study from France, which found a man is more attractive to the opposite sex if there’s a guitar in his hand. Its results confirm the findings of a similar study from Israel published last year. Across cultures, the research would suggest, male musicians are viewed as promising mating material. The more recent study, in France, was conducted by a team of researchers led by Nicolas Guéguen of the Universite de Bretagne-Sud, and published in the journal Psychology of ... Read More

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Background Music Reduces Playground Bullying

April 24, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Can music soothe the savage sixth grader? Perhaps, according to a first-of-its-kind study from Israel, which finds that gentle melodies may help deter schoolyard bullying. “If the findings of this pilot study are replicated and can be generalized," researchers Naomi Ziv and Einat Dolev write in the journal Children and Schools, "they point to a very simple, inexpensive method of reducing aggressive behavior.” The three-week experiment featured 56 students—32 boys and 24 girls—at a local elementary school in the north of Israel. All were either 11 or 12 years old. For the ... Read More

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Anxiety, Depression High Among Young Heavy Metal Fans

April 16, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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How would you characterize adolescents who listen to heavy metal music? Angry? Perhaps prone to violence? Newly published research suggests “anxious” and “depressed” are more accurate adjectives. An analysis of 551 college students found “significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression among listeners of heavy metal/hard rock music, as compared with non-listeners.” Furthermore, their underlying level of anger was not significantly different from their peers who prefer other musical genres. The study, conducted by psychologists Gavin Ryan Shafron of Columbia ... Read More

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It Gets Better, Y’all

April 8, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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A man in a cowboy hat stands in a field, next to a tractor, guitar in hand. The hat is white and the man is white and the tractor is red. This is the music video for one of the most popular songs in America right now, a song that name-checks Billy Graham, sweet tea, NASCAR, and biscuits with gravy. For good measure, the hit single also quotes generously from "Dixie," the unofficial Confederate anthem once performed by blackface minstrels, in which a freed slave sings longingly about the plantation of his birth. For pop-country listeners, this song has been on heavy rotation during a ... Read More

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Music of Vivaldi Boosts Mental Vitality

March 13, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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The Mozart Effect—the notion that listening to certain pieces of classical music can boost one’s brainpower—was initially embraced, widely popularized, and then largely debunked. But like an operatic character who keeps singing robustly on her deathbed, it refuses to go quietly. Now, new research from the U.K. has found cognitive benefits from listening to one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. In an experiment, the work’s evocative Spring section, “particularly the well-recognized, vibrant, emotive and uplifting first movement, had the ... Read More

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Why Did Bach Go Blind?

February 26, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment

Among medical mysteries involving master musicians, it doesn’t quite match the still-mysterious death of Mozart at age 35. But precisely why Johann Sebastian Bach went totally blind less than four months before his death in 1750 remains an open question—as well as the portal to a poignant story. More than two-and-a-half centuries after the fact, a prominent Finnish ophthalmologist is offering what he calls a “plausible diagnosis” of the great composer: intractable secondary glaucoma, brought on by a botched eye operation. In a paper published in the journal Acta Ophthalmologica, ... Read More

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Positive Intentions, Joyful Music Key to Happiness

February 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: LDM/SHUTTERSTOCK)

Can you will yourself into feeling happier? Adding evidence to a centuries-old philosophical debate, newly published research suggests that indeed you can—with a little help from Aaron Copland. “Listening to positive music may be an effective way to improve happiness, particularly when it is combined with an intention to become happier,” write psychologists Yuna Ferguson and Kennon Sheldon. Their study suggests neither a determination to be happy nor uplifting music are sufficient alone: It’s the combination that seems to do the trick. Writing in the Journal of Positive ... Read More

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Your Preteen Hip-Hop Fan May Be Headed for Trouble

January 22, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Concerned that your 12-year-old is on the road to delinquency? Newly published research suggests an easy way to either assuage or confirm your fears: Check what’s on their iPod. “Music choice is a strong marker of later problem behavior,” a research team from Utrecht University in the Netherlands writes in the journal Pediatrics. Specifically, the scholars report, kids “with a strong early preference for music types that have been labeled as deviant—hip-hop, heavy metal, gothic, punk, and techno/hardhouse—were more engaged in minor delinquency in late adolescence” than ... Read More

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