A Study On Music, Health, & Intelligence

Music is everywhere in our life. It accompanies us wherever we go. Factually music is closely linked with our health, which is recorded in many ancient Chinese books. In Records of the Historian Book of Music, Sima Qian says that music can vibrate blood circulation, clear minds and straighten ideas. Xun Zi believes music influences people's moods. In On Music, he states that as soon as music is popular among the people, their wills are purified, courtesy and self-possession are formed, understanding is bettered, spirits are pacified, traditions are transformed, the country is at peace, the good and the beautiful prevail. Different influences exerted by different music can be traced back to Record of Music Words of Shiyi. The article asserts that those who are proficient in the music of Shang, namely the brave, can make decisions; those who are proficient in the music of Qi, namely the righteous, can offer benefits to others. Only music can stimulate and maintain the bravery and the righteousness. In brief, Chinese literature sings highly of music.It is reported that ancient Egyptian wizards employed praying and singing to reduce the pain of the women who were giving birth to their babies. The modern medicine proves its effects. Melody can indeed help people remain pleasant and resist the harm done by the morbid state of mind. Recent researches find out music is particularly effective against certain diseases. For example: the blood pressure of sufferers of hypertension reduces 10-20mmHg after they listen to some musicl. Music can even replace anaesthetic in exodentia and retard the decline of human brain. Music first stimulates the receptors in human ears in the form of sound waves, then goes through afferent nerves into the central nervous system, where it adjusts the nervous system, tissues, organs and the other systems, and in this way improve people's physical and mental health.Music can also tap intellectual resources. The first Chinese violin sonnet The difficulty of Marching is composed by Li Siguang, "father of geology"; the book Scientific Art and Artistic Science is written by Qian Xuesen, "father of space, nuclear missiles and hydrogen bombs". Yuan Longping, "father of hybrid rice", plays the violin well and once performed in public; Greenspan, chairman of the U.S.A. Federal Reserves Committee, majored in clarinet in university and played the saxophone in a jazz band in his youth. All of the facts reveal the importance of musical training. The effects of music on intelligence are worth studying in both fields of music education and medicine science. More and more achievements have been made with the development of education science, psychology science, medicine science and other relevant sciences.This thesis studies the effects of music upon people's physical and mental health from various perspectives. It analyses in detail the acting mechanisms in the light of traditional and modern medical theories, psychological and anatomical findings. The author observes and researches her students' mentality while playing the violin for a long term. She puts forward her suggestions about how to protect people's physical and mental health by music on the basis of theories of musical physiology and musical psychology. This study adopts the methods of observation, records, sample survey, track survey and questionnaires. It focuses on the issues of the physical and mental effects of music, the therapeutic functions of music and the relationship between playing musical instruments and tapping intellectual resources. The author herself is open to suggestions.