Some Music Is Bad For You, Say Scientists

[premo]

I have just come acros this in the Feedback section of New Scientist magazine. It is part of an article on the alternative Nobel prizes - the IgNobel prizes

 

(http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opfeedback.jsp;jsessionid=MDOHFJDFLOEH?id=ns246899

 

We know that music can induce a wide range of emotions. But that is intuition, and the mission of science is to quantify. Which is what Steven Stack of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and Jim Gundlach of Auburn University in Alabama did for the impact of listening to American country music, famed for telling in mournful tones tales of life gone wrong in all ways imaginable and some not. They earned the Ig Nobel prize in medicine for reporting that listening to country music tends to push the suicide-prone over the brink, accounting for 51 per cent of the variation in urban white suicide rates (Social Forces, vol 71, p 311).

 

[Frank Edgley]

My wife had a similar reaction when listening to the All-Ireland slow air whistle competition all the way through a few years back. Each of thirteen competitors playing four slow airs over twice. Thankfully, a glass of Chardonnay brought her back from the brink!

[bellowbelle]

...'listening to country music tends to push the suicide-prone over the brink,'

I know that I have found it harder and harder to listen to most lyrics of country and pop and whatever's 'on.'

 

I think that if you're really steeped in country/sad music, and it's your life, it's less depressing...just kind of sets a background for riding along those long, deserted gravel roads out in cow-country. It didn't seem to bother me much, when I lived out in Middle America (though, I was younger then, too), to hear a lot of country music.

 

BUT...

 

if you're living more of a...hmm, maybe more of an ascetic, laid-back, quiet life in an only semi-rural New England area, like I do (and taking migraine medicine at times), and your day is dotted with little blasts of depressing country songs -- that's worse. The intrusion seems more pronounced.

 

I find that, lately, as I dig through my pile of songs looking for things to sing and play, I get irritated/depressed if the lyrics are 'downers.' I don't want to bother with them anymore. Not sure if that's because I'm older and less sensitive, or, because I'm older and MORE sensitive!

[Aquarussell]

I know that this is anecdotal, but in my experiance, bad science is bad for you too. Science results interperted by reporters are lethal.

 

Russell Hedges

 

P.S. Is there any Tom Lehrer music for Concertina?

[ragtimer]

I know that this is anecdotal, but in my experiance, bad science is bad for you too.

 

Science results interperted by reporters are lethal.

 

P.S. Is there any Tom Lehrer music for Concertina?

I was intending to say something like "And musicians find some science to be bad for you." You beat me to it!

 

As for reporters interpreting science (bad!), how about music critics' reviews?

 

About Tom Lehrer: I used to really love playing "So Long Mom, I'm Off to Drop the Bomb" on a big old Mason-Hamlin reed organ. With the sub-bass stop on, it sounded just like a carousel band organ.

 

More suited to concertinas is "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", with its sweet, lyrica melodies that just cry out for a "wet-tuned" accordion. That reed organ had such a stop, too.

 

I have two of Tom's songbooks. Your posting reminds me to look thru them. Since I just bought my first 'tina (a Stagi Hayden Duet), I'm crusing all my sheet music for sight-reading and chord practice.

--Mike K.

[David Barnert]

P.S. Is there any Tom Lehrer music for Concertina?

For those of you Irish/Anglo players, of course, there's the Irish Ballad:

 

About a maid I'll sing this song sing rickety tickety tin...

[spindizzy]

I know that this is anecdotal, but in my experiance, bad science is bad for you too.

 

Science results interperted by reporters are lethal.

 

But in this case the report was from New Scientist (the UK equivalent to Scientific American)

- not that they don't occasionally lose the plot - but generally a mag. written for the science community to read at coffee time.

[JimLucas]

They earned the Ig Nobel prize in medicine for reporting that listening to country music tends to push the suicide-prone over the brink,...

So the joke about the just-deceased classical musician, jazz musician, and country musician isn't entirely a joke?

[Robert Booth]

"...Are there any Tom Lehrer songs for concertina?"

 

Yes! "Rickety-tickety-Tin", AKA "The Irish Lament" seems just made for the instrument, as does "Poisonong Pigeons in the Park".

A group of enthusiastic singers, each armed with a well charged pint are considered a best case scenario.

[Henk van Aalten]

I have just come acros this in the Feedback section of New Scientist magazine. It is part of an article on the alternative Nobel prizes - the IgNobel prizes

 

(http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opfeedback.jsp;jsessionid=MDOHFJDFLOEH?id=ns246899

The Scientific American just published another interesting article on music and the brain.