˗ˏˋ ChristineDinata ˎˊ˗

One of the terms I learned during the Art x Tech Canada @ SG seminar was Brainwave Arts . It is a type of art that uses human's brainwave as a key player on an art installation. And I think it fits the description of the project/topic I'm choosing. When you google brainwave art, there are several well-known projects made by artists. However, brainwave arts are still not as common as other types of arts. This is because: to do brainwave arts, the artists need to have an interest or knowledge or the urge to learn some part of science as well. Mostly, brainwave arts lean towards types of arts that plays with human's emotions or thinking, since the brain is where we control everything. Brainwave arts are considered more fluid and indefinite as well since everyone's mind will think differently, even when presented the same object. One of the coolest brainwave arts I came across is: Making a song with repurposed brainwaves , by the creator of the show Sense8 on Netflix....

One question that stumbled to me while I was researching for my paper about music and emotion is: How do the deaf listen to music? And upon searching on Google, I found out that the deaf 'listens' to music by feeling the vibration a sound produces. First, let's start off with the misconception that being deaf means you cannot hear anything at all – there are varying levels of deafness. Secondly, deaf people can feel the vibrations produced by the music being played and consume those vibrations through their body. The humming sound produced by picking a bass string or the boom of the drums can be felt very easily by them. The lyrics evoke different types of feelings, and the combination of vibrations and lyrics is how deaf people enjoy music. Someone who wears hearing aids or Cochrane implants may have some enhanced levels of hearings, but for those who don’t, they turn up the volume so they can feel the vibrations from beats and bass more strongly as they read the lyr...

Thus far, we've have concluded that music affects people's emotions. How different types/genres of music can change one's current feelings just by listening to them. We also have learned a little about how our brain process music, and how fascinating it is that listening to music is not processed like other auditory stimuli. Even the Oxford dictionary defines music as 'vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.'. In the definition, the term music itself is said to represent vocal, instrumental sounds or even both combined. Music that has lyrics is more understandable to influence someone's emotions because the words chosen by the lyricist backed up by the rhythm and melody made by the producer can easily affect people who are listening to it. But what if the songs are non-lyrical? What if you have to depend on your own interpretation on how you perceive the music and its infl...

In today's post about music therapy, I actually got the chance to interview (via email) a friend of mine; Novelyne Faustine B.A., who is a music therapist and piano instructor from Indonesia. I reached out to her to ask about what she took for her degree and if she has anyone she knew that could help me with my research topic because I knew she was learning music. But when I found out she was actually taking Music Therapy, I was beyond lucky and I had to do this interview with her instead. She was really kind to agree to help me and patient enough to answer my list of questions. So I prepared several questions to ask her more about her knowledge on the topic.  I asked her why she picked Music Therapy as her preferred studies.  She said, "As cliché as this may sound, growing up, I have always enjoyed playing and listening to music. It was a very natural process for me to choose music as my professional field but music therapy ... was something I discovered just a year be...

So I set a view questions for my interview for my Research and Development subject about Music and Emotions . These questions are for someone who has knowledge about Music Therapy since I talked about music therapy as one of my updates to my lecturers. So my target interviewee would be a music therapist. 1. Why did you take music therapy as your preferred study? This question is to open up the topic of music therapy for the interviewee and to understand more about the subject's personal reasons to his/her interest in the subject. 2. What is music therapy all about? This question is more direct, it asks the interviewee about her definition of Music Therapy and what can it do. 3. How can music therapy help people and their emotions? The objective of this question is to know and understand a little better about how music therapy works for clients/patients/people that are prescribed with it. 4. In what cases are music therapy usually used? The intention of this question is ...

Have you ever feel really tired and depressed after a hard day of work and you just want to go home, when your phone's Bluetooth connects with your car and your favorite song starts to play, and you suddenly you feel as though your mood has been lifted and you become less tired or let's face it, downright sad. At this point, we can all attest to the power of music. Did you know that music therapy is itself an evidence-based therapy? Music Therapy is defined as 'an interpersonal process in which the therapist uses music and all of its facets to help patients to improve, restore or maintain health' (Maratos, Gold, Wang & Crawford, 2008) and later was given an alternative definition as 'a systematic process of intervention wherein the therapist helps the client to promote health, using musical experiences and the relationships that develop through them as dynamic forces of change' (Gerestegger, Elefant, Mössler & Gold, 2014). Not to be c...

Have you ever notice the feeling when you're listening to a certain song, your emotions might change according to that? When you're listening to a sad song , you might feel that your mood becomes slower and sadder, and you felt as if your life is from a music video. Or when you're listening to a happy song , you started to feel that you want to tap your feet, sing along, dance around, or even join a flash mob? Music is really powerful in that sense it can alter a person's emotions just by listening to a certain type of music. A video by neuroscientist and musician, Alan Harvey, sharing his believes and studies in an interactive storytelling narrative in his TEDxPerth talk youtube video. A part of the video which really stood out to me; and I even used it as a study case presentation in my class, was the part where he showed the audience how different type of music with the same shark video clip, can change how a person perceives said clip. Going into the video,...