By Nisah Allauddin

The University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Photo credit: Corey Seeman via flickr.

Albert Einstein said, “Life without playing music is inconceivable to me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life from music.” Einstein was correct to think music enhanced his life; many studies show how music benefits the mind. Music helps people on a daily basis, whether people notice it or not. The songs playing in a restaurant bathroom might help someone release stress hormones and improve their attitude. Joggers seen running every day with headphones are most likely listening to music to set their pace, motivate them, and cope with the issues bothering them. Music, whether it be rap, classical, k-pop, musicals, or jazz, is a source of relief for people. Performing and listening to music allows people to feel organized, focused, and motivated in their day-to-day lives.

In an article from John Hopkins Medicine, one of the top schools in America for education and medicine, the authors break down how music connects to people’s brains. A stereo or an instrument sends out vibrations that travel through the air and go inside the ear canal. These vibrations reach the eardrum and are transmitted into an electric signal that makes their way to the auditory nerve of the brain stem. As musicians practice their instrument over years, they develop a stronger memory and abstract reasoning skills, which are essential for math and science. The article states, “Music is structural, mathematical and architectural. It’s based on relationships between one note and the next. You may not be aware of it, but your brain has to do a lot of computing to make sense of it.” Music benefits the brain in the long run, but what effect does it have on humans in the moment?

Learning and practicing an instrument allows people to exercise their brain by keeping them concentrated on mastering the different components of a piece. Accomplished musicians repetitively practice the same breathing techniques, hand positions, measures, and counts. Musicians who have been playing for years are often reliant on practicing simple scales and hand exercises daily. For some musicians and music listeners, music is their safe place, and they must revisit their musical pieces often. After a long day of work or school, playing an instrument can be the best part of a musician’s day, and simply experimenting new technical skills with their instrument can instantly change their mood. Violin and viola player Marla Van Deusen (‘24) feels significantly less stressed when playing her instrument. Van Deusen feels prompted to play an instrument “when I really just want to decompress.”

Although playing an instrument and learning new pieces can be tedious at times, it helps most musicians to cope with stress in their lives. Whether listening to music or performing, music takes the mind away from the fast pace of the rest of the world. Often, repetitive exercises allow people to focus on just their music, and their brain calms down in the process. Listening or playing an instrument is used as a distraction to divert people from any distracting thoughts in their lives, and help them to calmly connect with their emotions.

The emotional influence of music on human lives is easy to see through Collegiate School’s band director, Karl von Klein. Von Klein is an enthusiastic teacher, and I have been playing violin in the Collegiate Orchestra under his direction for three years. He always convinces his students to practice music through fun exercises, like clapping and stomping. In addition to his outstanding teaching style, he always wears a smile and has a bit of a witty sense of humor.

Von Klein started his career as a musician in his adolescence, when he tried to be a drummer in Middle School. Unfortunately, von Klein did not make the cut to be the drummer for his band, and he learned how to play the clarinet instead. Even though drumming got him invested in music, he says that his voice was the first instrument he ever learned how to use. Eventually, von Klein learned to play clarinet, saxophone, flute, piano, percussion, guitar, trumpet, and trombone. In college at University of Richmond, von Klein was a clarinet major before he took up teaching. He taught at the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for 11 years, worked as private saxophone teacher at Collegiate for a few years, and taught summer classes at Trinity Episcopal School. Von Klein interacts with his students by giving advice and providing motivation that encourages students to work harder. He is extremely patient with the band and orchestra, despite the mistakes we sometimes make.

When asked how playing an instrument makes him feel, von Klein said, “it is a creative outlet and therapy for me. It lets me see what I am feeling at that moment.” Von Klein usually practices by dissecting everything he is playing, taking each note at a time. By dissecting written pieces, music helps von Klein center his attention on music and ignore his thoughts about the rest of the world. Von Klein feels that he is better able to connect with all his emotions when he is playing an instrument. He said, “It works with all different feelings.”

Music is also helpful for von Klein when he favors a new piece, and it excites him everytime he practices it. He said, “in other words, if you feeling upbeat and you’re feeling something snappy and happy, and you revisit that, it doesn’t mean that you are necessarily feeling snappy and happy in that moment, but it means that there was something that I thought was of merit in that piece that pleased me or helped me get that feeling out.” As a knowledgeable musician, von Klein is able to find pleasure in amusing new pieces and wants to revisit them to find the same emotions again.

Music is beneficial, and it can also help develop lifelong skills. One effect of intensely practicing an instrument is working to master the instrument and accepting failure. Von Klein says, “Part of it also is controlling the instrument, even if it’s your voice. In some ways, it can be like a video game. An exercise that is just pure technique, and you just do it over and over. Sometimes you just gotta’ put it down before you smash it.” Musicians get more invested in the instrument they want to master, but growth can be a frustrating and lengthy process. There are times when musicians don’t want to play their instrument at all because it can become a burden. Figuring out how to play difficult passages of a piece is a task dreaded by some musicians and can be painful to the ears and mind. However, any hard-working musician will figure out how to play their music by being patient with the process of dissecting their pieces.

When practicing the instrument gets hard, von Klein feels the desire to stay with the instrument and keep practicing it, even when “the instrument just squeaks back at you.” He said, “It can make you scream, but we just need to do it a few more times.” The reason von Klein is so persistent is because failure makes him want to come back stronger. He explained, “In that exhaustion, you want to keep going. You just want to redeem yourself.” For some musicians, there is never a point where they feel like they are not going to get it, and they just practice furiously until they get it.

First violins performing with Collegiate’s Viridaur in the Fall Concert. Photo credit: William Dabney.

Marla Van Deusen is also a member of the Collegiate Viridaur, a smaller string orchestra, and she loves playing the violin. In her free time, she practices violin and spends about an hour, playing every day in her music room for her whole family to hear. Van Deusen also listens to classical, chamber, and symphonic music. In fact, every day on her way to school, Van Deusen plays intense symphony music while driving.

Music with a slower tempo has also shown to help people physiologically. In an article for the website Healthline written by Suzanne Boothby, a writer and speaker focused on happiness and health, she says that “This type of music (classical) can have a beneficial effect on our physiological functions, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels of stress hormones.” So even though Van Deusen’s morning classical jamming is something rare among most teenagers, it is an advantage for her.

When asked when she felt drawn to play the violin, Van Deusen responded with, “I play my violin in between doing my homework. When I just need to focus, I play the piano or some other instrument.” What draws Van Deusen to the violin is her desire to avoid her present for a short period of time. When she’s practicing, “I really just want to decompress and take my mind away from sports, my phone, and school.”

She loves the piano because she’s motivated to do something new and because there’s less competition. One stressful aspect of playing an instrument is the pressure of competition, or the pressure to learn at the same pace as the other musicians around. Often high school students feel pressured by their peers and strive to do their very best, and this sometimes leads to stress in the music world; however, in the end, music always pays off.

Van Deusen enjoys “being consumed” by the violin and playing the same scales over and over for hours, if she can. For Van Deusen, playing violin and performing instruments is the only time she ever feels fully focused. Practicing her violin becomes a meditative state for her. When she practices her scales, she walks around with her eyes closed, and her hearing is enhanced as she listens to find the perfect pitch.

Collegiate’s Orchestra. Photo credit: Taylor Dabney.

Van Deusen appreciated playing with the experienced senior musicians in the orchestra last year. Playing with other people can also help, because it gives younger musicians people to look up to. Van Deusen especially looked up to fellow violin players William Bullock (‘22) and Donovan Williams (‘22), with whom she played in the orchestra for two years.

In an article published by the Liverpool Academy of Music, author Steve Flack writes about the ways music relieves stress for people. Flack is an Academy Director specialized in guitar, a member of the Australian Music Examination Board, and has a diploma from Licentiate Trinity College London for classical guitar. Flack argues that music helps humans practice mindfulness. When mindfulness is practiced, humans are fully aware of the current moment and are not worried about the future or past. Flack argues that playing an instrument is valuable because people become fully aware of the instrument the moment they are playing. The idea is that when people play an instrument, they neglect the past and future and are therefore in a meditative state by only thinking of the task they are completing in the present. Van Deusen’s practice of scales is a perfect example of what people do in order to calm themselves down, as she is fully calm and her senses are enhanced.

Flack continues by arguing that playing an instrument is useful because it is an activity that does not require screens. Working with hands is a much more interactive activity and relaxing than screen-related tasks like using a phone or computer. Watching movies and scrolling through Tik-Tok can be fun, but they make people relax too much, until laying and watching a screen is all they want to do. Playing an instrument or listening to music is a more valuable activity, in the sense that it will make the musician feel uplifted, not tired.

In Healthline, Boothby mentions that music helps to increase the performance of both endurance tasks and short power tasks. For example, when someone is holding a weight, an endurance task, they would be able to hold the weight for longer with music. According to Boothby, this theory of music increasing performance also applies to short power tasks, in the sense that music can help people complete a task faster. An example of a short task, when people do rowing, music can be a motive for people to move faster and synchronous music is also helpful too.

Boothby mentions how listening to music is helpful to us, whether it is fast-paced or slow. When humans show an increase in anger or frustration, slow music has proven to calm them down. When people are upset, upbeat and happy music can help to motivate them. Boothby states that “when music is playing we are more likely to divert our attention away from the pain or discomfort we may be experiencing and onto the external music.” As Van Deusen always says, “Music is me just battling with myself to become better.”

Featured image credit: stockvault user semutimut.