I don’t know why this song fits this occasion, it just does
I don’t know how this music is saving me, it just is
I don’t know the perfect melody, nor should I
I don’t know how this applies to me, I’m over thinking it.
I don’t know what I’m listening to
I don’t know if I should speed up or slow down
I don’t know the price of all this, because it seems priceless.
I don’t know if the guitarist will ever stop
I don’t know if the music ever died
Or ever could die
Because music is in time but it doesn’t know time

And more to my purposes right now
I don’t know how to blog about music
I don’t know how to describe music
not in words I don’t.

As we work more and more to grow Chords for Change, we are blessed to meet many people who each bring their own unique perspective and anecdotes about how music has either affected themselves or the ones they love.  However, there is one particular insight that I have been thinking about that I feel is worthy of sharing and exploring further as it relates to the demographic of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) survivors.

So often when one is in crisis, one only thinks of his or her immediate needs as it relates to survival.  This is also true, by and large, of the community of caring people helping those in crisis.  Physiologically speaking, this is known as the Fight or Flight Response – and in turn catering to and nurturing the reaction of that natural response is both an important and critical component of the government agencies, non-profit communities, and personal support networks of IPV victims fleeing their situation.

Take a look at this illustration of the human brain:

Among other things, it shows that the Fight or Flight Response occurs in the lower brain (most notably the Amygdala and Hypothalamus), the part of the brain we share with animals that are constantly fighting for survival in nature.

However, what is often overlooked when one is in crisis is dealing with the many complex emotions and coping mechanisms which exist outside of the lower brain and make up our human experience.  Areas of the human brain in the Frontal Lobe govern emotional evaluation, and memory formation and interpretation.  Interestingly enough both the Amygdala and Frontal Lobe are the same regions of the brain that are affected most commonly by listening to and emotionally reacting to music.

This illustration shows that the sound waves created by music travel first through the brain stem, through the mid-brain and eventually to the frontal lobe, thus affecting the whole brain and its functions:

What is more alarming is the connection between a prolonged experience of Fight or Flight and the onset and severity of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a common problem plaguing IPV survivors.  Various levels of PTSD are found in nearly all IPV survivors, however the resources available to help cope with these negative side effects are typically not integrated into the structure of the support networks available in emergency shelters and support communities.

This diagram shows the areas of the brain affected by PTSD (again, the Amygdala [emotions], the Hippocampus [memories] and the Frontal Lobe [evaluation]):

The many benefits of music therapy on PTSD suffers have been widely studied and are well documented.  You can read about them more here in this Fact Sheet published by the American Music Therapy Association.  Or here, here or here.

Now, I do not claim to be an expert (by any means) on the human brain and its functions, but I find these connections to be both compelling and intriguing.  It also provides a useful scientific foundation to support the mission of Chords for Change.  However, the lack of direct research on the subject also points out a startling lack of support from both the scientific community and the various government agencies that provide funding to support the creative arts therapies within the support network for IPV survivors.  I would be interested to hear any comments on the subject as they exist from casual readers, to researchers, to testimonials from those who have experienced these physiological reactions for themselves.

Sometimes I wonder if we ever really create the great songs? Or are we just the stenographer for them? In a way, it’s like the songs write themselves. And thus great song writers, are the ones who let that process happen, they don’t try to direct the songs into any preconceived alleyway. The songwriter may have in mind a subject or a tone, but they aren’t constrained by them. They just write, without paying much service to traditional norms of structure and meaning. They write from a place that is not filtered by thoughts or egos or laments. They write from a universal place that we all relate to by virtue of our beating hearts, and the undercurrent of humanity of which the songs themselves strengthen. So then ultimately the song is less a reflection of the song writer, as it is of the human experience.

Of course not all songs come from this place I have just spoken of. Many amazing and wonderful songs arise from months of re-edits, and multiple visits to an online rhyming dictionary, rather than that 20 minute flash of lightening. Many songs are directly recounting our lives as we perceive them. These songs are important, and let us see who we are, like a mirror lets us see what we look like.

Bob Dylan once wrote, “People think they know me from my songs. But my repertoire of songs is so wide-ranging that you’d have to be a madman to figure out the characteristics of the person who wrote all these songs”. I think that is because even Bob Dylan doesn’t know the person who wrote all those songs, that many of them came from the place I thus described, a place he was in the right mind to tap into, and let it take him where it needed to go.

So I’m sitting at Café Azul, it’s a Tuesday night, and I’m reading An Omnivore’s Dilemma.  All around me people are playing chess, some are playing so rapidly I’m reminded of a card game called ‘Speed’ I used to play when I was a kid, and was never any good at.  They are intensely focused and I feel almost invisible to them.  But it’s not a harsh, cold focus, rather it’s an inspiring, ‘I love what I’m doing’ focus.  Plus after each move, they seem to find time to break a smile and share a laugh, leaving me unable to know who I should be routing for.  I overhear some one behind me say “That must have been a brilliant move”, and then I as begin to listen into their conversation like some oversized fly on the wall, I learn that they were reminiscing about some player who they used to challenge.  Apparently this player never lost, or rarely lost, except this one time when he was on the losing side of some brilliant move that’s become the stuff of legend.  Over at the coffee counter, there are three young girls waiting for their drinks and one laughs and says “we can’t all get married at 22”.  Over at the cushioned chairs a guy puts his feet up.  Behind the counter the barista steams milk for a cappuccino.  Outside it’s dark and cold, but this is downtown Santa Rosa and there are still white lights in the trees.  The clock on my computer says 8:21pm.

The only reason I mention this situation is because of the music that was playing.   It was perfect for the occasion, as if the whole scene was intentionally and perfectly choreographed for these exact songs.   So my question for you:  What was the type of music they were playing?