If Music Be The Food of Love...

Mirror Neuron System (MNS)

The molecular biologist, neurobiologist and medical doctor Joachim Bauer explains the mirror neurons system of the brain and its significance to the ability of humans to engage in interpersonal relationships, to understand what others do, and to experience phenomena such as emotional contagion. He addresses the contrast between aggression and cooperation and the obsolete evolutionary neo-Darwinian views on this topic, and

highlights the social role of our biological

ability to cooperate.

Music-making as “cultural participation”

Cultural participation in the form of individual music-making has a distinct value because:

The performance of music is imperative as it is more than mere passive reception and consumption,

Music-making facilitates the experience of resonance.

In addition, it facilitates the reduction of what Christian Kaden calls “one-way-communication”, towards more “interaction music”.

“Sociology of the good life”

In the sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s exposition of “a sociology of the good life” the experience of “resonance” is central. This assumes that individuals always regard their relations to their world, life, agency or social relations as successful or fulfilling when they experience resonance. Through such experiences, they attempt to assure themselves of a harmony between themselves and “the world” (social relations, things, natural world,

own body, feelings).

Compassionate Love

Feeling 'felt'

‘sense that our internal world is shared’ with another (Siegel 2011, p.10)

Attachment Theory

(Bowlby 1969; Bowlby 1973; Bowlby 1980)

‘our adult romantic and other intimate relationships develop out of, or are scaffolded by, our early experience of mother–infant relationships’ (Dunbar 2013, p.16).

Singing and HRV

'Coupling of heart rate variability (HRV) to respiration is called Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). This coupling has a subjective as well as a biologically soothing effect, and it is beneficial for cardiovascular function. Song structure, respiration and HR are connected. Unison singing of regular song structures makes the hearts of the singers accelerate and decelerate simultaneously'

(Vickhoff et al 2013)

Communicative Musicality

'Human infants demonstrate an interest in, and sensitivity to, the rhythms, tempos and melodies of speech long before they are able to understand the meanings of words. In essence, the usual melodic and rhythmic features of spoken language – prosody – are highly exaggerated so that our utterances adopt an explicitly musical character.'

(Mithen 2007, p.74)

Simultaneous Dialogue

‘In a spoken dialogue between two human beings, one waits until the other has finished what [they have] to say before replying or commenting on it. In music, two voices are in dialogue simultaneously, each one expressing itself to the fullest while at the same time listening to the other.'

(Barenboim 2009, p.20)

Love-as-Action

Vocal Grooming Hypothesis

'musical communication in the form of ‘enhanced vocalization’ may have evolved among our hominid ancestors as ‘an expression of mutual interest and commitment that could be simultaneously shared with more than one individual’ (Aiello & Dunbar 1993, p.187).

Acts of

Micro-kindness

Romantic Love

'Maternal love and romantic love are actually two different things: they involve some of the same bits of the brain, but, importantly, they also involve some very different bits of the brain’ (Dunbar 2013 p.17).

Dialogue = Love

"Dialogue is the encounter between [people], mediated by the world, in order to name the world. If it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which they achieve significance as human beings.

"The naming of the world, which is an act of creation and re-creation, is not possible if it is not infused with love. Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself." (Freire 1970, pp.60–70).

Hierarchy of Needs

Love is the context within which the ‘basic needs’ of food, water, warmth, rest, security and safety can be met when we are too helpless to help ourselves, but also the ‘secure base from which to explore’ (Bowlby 1969) the higher levels of self-esteem and self-actualisation.

Unconditional Positive Regard

‘an outgoing positive feeling without reservations, without evaluations’

(Rogers 1961, p.62)

Resonance Circuitry

'The “resonance circuitry” includes the mirror neuron system (MNS), the superior temporal cortex, the insula cortex, and the middle prefrontal cortex. This is how we can come to resonate physiologically with others—how even our respiration, blood pressure, and heart rate can rise and fall in sync with another’s internal state. This is the pathway that connects us to one another’

(Siegel 2011, p.61)

Loving Across Difference

Limbic Brain

‘The limbic regions help create the “e-motions” that “evoke motion,” that motivate us to act in response to the meaning we assign to whatever is happening to us in that moment. The limbic area is also crucial for how we form relationships and become emotionally attached to one another.’ (Siegel 2012, p.16)

Interview with Dan Siegel

'Heartrate variability would be one thing to look for in an EEG within the person - that they’re showing more ‘coherence’. Even more than that, you’d be looking at electrical waves of the brain. You could show mathematically that they had now become what’s called ‘entrained’.

Then, I think what you would find is that people would somehow realise that their state is being shared with another person’s state, and in that recognition of the resonance, there’s this ‘feeling felt’ process that happens.

(Siegel 2015)

The human experience of both music and love are universal, and the connection between the two has been well-documented throughout history; in Literature, in Art and in Music itself. Some see music as ‘a communication system specialising in the expression of emotion’ (Mithen 2006, p.286) while some highlight music’s evolutionary value as a medium for facilitating trust and cooperation (Dunbar 2012, Hallam 2015). However we view music, its relational aspects - especially in Community Music (CM) settings - can be as significant as any musical outcomes (Bartleet, in press).

In this symposium, we consider some of these relational aspects from a number of practical situations, including intercultural perspectives in working alongside Australian First Peoples, Palestinian refugees, the German music education system and UK ‘natural voice’ (Anon n.d.) choirs. We will explore and discuss these situations through the lenses of a range of critical perspectives including Evolutionary Biology, Bioresonance, Communicative Musicality, Musicking and Interpersonal Neurobiology, and consider how a critical understanding of CM situations might help contribute to a deeper understanding of these relational aspects of music.

Limbic Regulation

‘Because human physiology is (at least in part) an open-loop arrangement, an individual does not direct all of their own functions. A second person transmits regulatory information that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms, immune function, and more – inside the body of the first. The reciprocal process occurs simultaneously: the first person regulates the physiology of the second, even as he himself is regulated.’

(Lewis et al. 2001, p.85)