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Have you ever thought to yourself why your favorite song makes you feel happy? Is it because of the genre? How did that particular genre come about? What other genres of music do you like? The first signs or inventions of music date all the way back to 800 BCE where the first recovered piece of recorded music was found. It was written in cuneiform and was a religious hymn. Although cuneiform is not considered a type of musical notation – but by y 700 BCE there are records of songs that include vocals with instrumentals. Want to know more? Keep reading to find out about more cool facts about music that you may have never heard of!
Using magnetic resonance imaging it has been shown that people listening to pleasurable music had activated brain regions called the limbic and paralimbic areas, which are connected to euphoric reward responses, like those we experience from sex, good food, and even addictive drugs.
Research has consistently shown that the synchronization of music with repetitive exercise provides enhanced physical performance, helping people both work out for longer and train more efficiently. In one study, participants who cycled in time to music found that they required 7 percent less oxygen compared to cycling with background (asynchronous) music. In other words, music provides temporal cues that have the potential to make more efficient use of physical energy.
One study, conducted by a University of Sydney professor, titled “Stairway to H*ll: Life and Death in the Pop Music Industry,” examined the deaths of artists that took place between 1950 and June 2014. The study specifically looked at longevity and the proportion of suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths. Longevity was determined by calculating the average age of death for each musician by sex and decade of their death. These averages were then compared with averages by sex and decade for the general U.S. population. The results? Musicians’ lifespans are 25 years shorter.
Students who have experience with music performance or taking music appreciation courses score higher on the SAT. One report indicated that they score, on average, 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math. Music students also tend to show higher self-confidence, are responsible risk-takers, good team players, have increased coordination, are more creative and emotionally developed, and have a healthy sense of achievement.
In 2015, a Canadian astronaut named Chris Hadfield released his first album, which was entirely recorded while he was in orbit. Not only was he the first Canadian to walk in space, but he’s also a talented musician who went viral with a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Hadfield spent 144 days at the International Space Station recording his 11 original songs for his appropriately titled album, Space Sessions: Songs for a Tin Can.
In 2014, a group of researchers from The Museum of Science and Industry in England released an online test called “Hooked on Music.” It contained one thousand quips from pop hits, going all the way back to the 1940s, and it asked 12,000 participants to identify songs as fast as possible. They found that “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls was the catchiest song: people were able to recognize it in about 2.3 seconds, which was way below the 5-second average of identifying other popular songs.
A study conducted by South Korean scientists from the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology found that plants grow faster when music is played around them. The study used 14 different classical pieces, including Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” in rice fields. Findings were that the music helped the crops grow at a faster pace and pointed to evidence that plants have genes that enable them to “hear.”
