Musical Lyrics and Our Behavior
The career field I am interested in working in is music production. More specifically, I would like to come alongside talented Christian artists to help them produce high quality electronic indie music. There is not a wide variety of quality Christian music. Because of this, people tend to listen to secular music instead, because it often sounds better and has higher quality production value. In light of this, I would like to explore the issue of how listening to some secular songs may effect your mood, behavior, and in effect your walk with Christ. Music in itself is not inherently bad. But the effect it has on its listener can be either a good or bad one. For example, if I were to listen to a song that glorifies revenge, it may give me a sense of entitlement and encourage me to pay someone back for a wrong committed against me. A common argument against this is that one can simply ignore the lyrics and enjoy the music with out any effect. It was stated in the article “The effect of auditory versus visual violent media exposure on aggressive behavior: The role of song lyrics, video clips and musical tone.” by Heidi I. Brummert Lennings and Wayne A. Warburton “In a study that controlled for aggressive musical tone, used stimuli from multiple genres, and used a behavioral measure of …show more content…
Interestingly in an article by Brattico, Elvira et al “A Functional MRI Study of Happy and Sad Emotions in Music with and without Lyrics.” it was found that “Lyrics appear to be crucial for defining the sadness of a musical piece, as reflected in the activation of limbic system areas of the brain, whereas acoustic cues have a stronger role in determining the experience of happiness in music, as shown by activity in auditory cortical regions.” (12). This shows the powerful effect of lyrics. Lyrics can evoke a variety of emotions and often the presence of more sadness in your life is not
The career field I am interested in working in is music production. More specifically, I would like to come alongside talented Christian artists to help them produce high quality electronic indie music. There is not a wide variety of quality Christian music. Because of this, people tend to listen to secular music instead, because it often sounds better and has higher quality production value. In light of this, I would like to explore the issue of how listening to some secular songs may effect your mood, behavior, and in effect your walk with Christ. Music in itself is not inherently bad. But the effect it has on its listener can be either a good or bad one. For example, if I were to listen to a song that glorifies revenge, it may give me a sense of entitlement and encourage me to pay someone back for a wrong committed against me. A common argument against this is that one can simply ignore the lyrics and enjoy the music with out any effect. It was stated in the article “The effect of auditory versus visual violent media exposure on aggressive behavior: The role of song lyrics, video clips and musical tone.” by Heidi I. Brummert Lennings and Wayne A. Warburton “In a study that controlled for aggressive musical tone, used stimuli from multiple genres, and used a behavioral measure of …show more content…
Interestingly in an article by Brattico, Elvira et al “A Functional MRI Study of Happy and Sad Emotions in Music with and without Lyrics.” it was found that “Lyrics appear to be crucial for defining the sadness of a musical piece, as reflected in the activation of limbic system areas of the brain, whereas acoustic cues have a stronger role in determining the experience of happiness in music, as shown by activity in auditory cortical regions.” (12). This shows the powerful effect of lyrics. Lyrics can evoke a variety of emotions and often the presence of more sadness in your life is not