A new ballet debuted in Paris on the evening of May 29, 1913. The ballet, The Rite of Spring, depicted a ritual pagan suicide, a peasant girl’s dance of death, as an offering to the god of spring. The work opened with a deeply affecting bassoon solo played in a register atypical for the instrument. With the second section, Adoration of the Earth – II, a series of strident, heavy, tension-producing chords assailed the audience and continued throughout the entire ballet. Catcalls and loud booing gave way to pushing, jostling, and eventually fist-fighting (Glass 1998). Audience members began fighting with one another, some calling the work genius, others decrying it as an assault against traditional ballet. Differences of opinion might have been expected with the debut of an avant-garde work, but could the music itself have played a role in exacerbating the strength of the disagreement between the two groups? If so, what possible biological or cognitive mechanisms might have been at work?
Some experts advocate a neurophysiological view of the effect of music on emotional arousal. In a program on music and the brain (Abumrad 2006), neuroscientist Jan Fishman states, “We find that chords, musical chords that are typically judged to be dissonant, elicit these wild fluctuations in brain activity.” In this view, a sub-population of neurons in auditory cortex sensitive to novel sounds is tasked with giving “sense” to the sound, in finding underlying patterns to the sound, and relating the patterns to innate or learned experience. One explanation of the audience’s behavior is that the continued dissonance of Stravinsky’s work made it difficult for these neurons to find patterns in the music and to relate the music to past musical experiences. The overwhelmed neurons may have released dopamine in excess quantities, which contributed to a transitory effect on brain chemistry akin to a kind of temporary schizophrenia. Frustration, confusion, and violent behavior ensued, regardless of whether the individual liked or disliked the work.
Ball (2008) describes cognitive views regarding music and emotional arousal. One view is that emotional content is inherent in elements of music such as major or minor mode, tempo, timbre and melody. These elements provide aural cues that humans have learned to interpret, which switch on emotional mechanisms of the brain and activate the sympathetic nervous system for action, or the parasympathetic system for inaction, depending on the cue presented. A scene in Hitchcock’s thriller, Psycho, may provide an example of this mechanism at work.
Recall that the leading up to the shower scene in Psycho, Janet Leigh has embezzled money from her boss, and after a tension-filled day of dodging the law, she has decided to spend the night in the Bates Motel. To unwind after the harrowing day, she takes a hot shower. As she relaxes in the steam’s heat, the shower curtain is abruptly thrown back, and Anthony Perkins attacks her with a large kitchen knife. Accompanying the attack are repeated, dissonant, high-pitched, intense staccato chords. If the chords evoke the auditory memory pattern of the sounds made when sharpening a knife for slicing and cutting, then the music could amplify the viewer’s fear by recollection of that memory pattern as Jane Leigh is sliced and cut by the butcher knife in the hand of Anthony Perkins.
Despite the mechanism advocated, there is agreement among physiologists and cognitive behaviorists that music can move us emotionally, regardless of culture, gender, or age. Music has the ability to intensify joy or sadness, memories or hopes, despair or ecstasy. If the manipulation is too extreme vis-à-vis our expectations, the emotions evoked may cause individuals to lose control, and in the case of the premier of The Rite of Spring, to become riotous.
References
Abumrad J. (Abumrad J. (Host) & Krulwich R. (Co-Host)), & Krulwich R. (Co-Host). (2006). Radiolab. Musical language: Sound as touch. Podcast retrieved fromhttp://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21.
Ball, P. (2008). Facing the music. Nature, 453(8 May 2008), 160-162. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/pdf/453160a.pdf.
Glass, P. (1998). The time 100: Igor Stravinsky. Time, 1-3. Retrieved fromhttp://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/stravinsky.html.
