Effect of Music on Stress Parameters in Dogs during a Mock Veterinary Visit

Veterinary visits can be stressful for dogs, but how their wellbeing changes during a visit is not well understood. Music therapy has been successfully used in clinical practice to alleviate stress and anxiety in people. The present study aimed to understand how canine stress changes during a veterinary visit, establish the effect of music, and highlight measures which may be of practical use. In a randomized crossover design, dogs were exposed to no music and a bespoke piece of classical music at a tempo designed to match their resting heart rate during a mock veterinary visit. Dogs were scored as more “afraid” during the physical examination compared to when they were in the hospital kennel (p < 0.001). Salivary cortisol, IgA, and infrared temperature all increased significantly (p < 0.05) from baseline to post-kennel and post-examination, with no effect of music treatment. Core body temperature (p = 0.010) and the odds of ‘relaxed’ lips (p = 0.020) were lower when dogs were exposed to music compared to control visits. Overall, dogs experienced changes in physiology and behavior, indicative of increased stress, over the course of the visit. Additional research is required to further understand the effect that bespoke music may have in alleviating canine stress during veterinary visits.

Prenatal Exposure to Classical Music Improves Learning and Memory in Adult Rats

Background: Exposure to music during pregnancy enhances brain development and improves learning in neonatal rats. Methods: In these experiments, we examined the effects of exposure to silence, hard rock, classical, and rap music in utero plus 60 days postpartum on learning and memory in adult Wistar rats. Passive avoidance learning (PAL) was assessed at age 60 days, and a retention test was done 24 hours after training. Elevated plus maze (EPM) was also used as a standard behavioral task for assessing the effects of music therapy on anxiety. Furthermore, we measured serum corticosterone levels and adrenal weight at the end of experiments to show the possible effect of stress on the rats’ behavior. Results: Hard rock music impaired acquisition, increasing the number of trials to acquisition in PAL task. Hard rock music also impaired the retrieval process by decreasing step-through latency and increasing time spent in the dark compartment during the retention trial. Further, in the hard rock group, there were increases in serum corticosterone and adrenal weight of rats. Classical music, in turn, improved acquisition learning and retention memory and decreased serum corticosterone levels compared to the silence group. Rats’ exposure to rap music did not show any significant change in acquisition and retrieval processes compared to the silence group. In the EPM task, classical music exposure had anxiolytic-like effects revealed in an increase in the number of entries into open arms and time spent in the open arms. However, in this task, hard rock music induced an anxiogenic effect. Conclusions: Prenatal and postnatal exposure to music improves PAL and memory in adult rats. The effects of music therapy with classical music might be related to stress reduction by lowering corticosterone as a stress biomarker or anxiolytic effects; this deserves further examination.

Impact of Music Intervention (Listening to Indian Classical Music) on Mental Wellbeing during COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Reports show that mental wellbeing may be negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ragas of Indian classical music are believed to have therapeutic effects. This study was done to investigate the impact of an Indian raga on mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: It was a one-group before-after design study. A total of 45 adult subjects of Kolkata, recruited online, using convenience sampling during the lockdown, underwent a pre-test via Google forms using Warwick-Edinburg Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) to evaluate mental wellbeing before the administration of music intervention. After two weeks of music intervention, that consisted of passively listening to raga Hamsadhwani, a post-test using the same scale and the same medium was done. Results: The results showed that the post-test mean of the total score 51.1 (SD = 3.9) of WEMWBS was significantly (p< 0.001) higher than the pre-test mean of the total score 30.9 (SD = 4.6). The same trend was reflected by the mean difference pertaining to all of the components of WEMWBS. Conclusion: It was concluded that raga Hamsadhwani may be effective in improving mental wellbeing in a pandemic situation. There is a need to do more work by improvising the research design employed in the present study. This will help to interpret more accurately and more meaningfully the effects of Indian raga music on mental wellbeing.

Indian Culture and Music as a Source of Inspiration for French Opera Composers

"The current paper strives to discover and reveal the influences of Indian culture and classical Indian music in French operas. At first, the evocation of India was obtained through the subjects of the operas and stunning scenic designs, fulfilling the requirements of exoticism. Gradually, the composers attempted to include in their musical discourses exotic rhythmic and melodic elements, in some instances inspired by Indian classical music, thus aiming to evoke a genuine image of India. At the same time, the use of elements pertaining to Indian music (rāgas, rhythmic patterns, timbres) offered the musicians the possibility to create novel sound discourses. The analysis focuses on several operas, composed between the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, following the evolution of Indian representations in several dimensions: dramatic (libretto), visual (scenic representations, dance), and musical (melody, rhythm, timbre). The present paper investigates the way Indian themes influenced the conception of the libretto, and at the same time the visual dimension of the works (setting, costumes), observing how these visual elements were gradually absorbed into the musical discourse (analysis of the melodic structures), through the incorporation of Indian rāgas in works conceived according to the rules of Western music composition. Keywords: exoticism, orientalism, India, French opera, rāga "

Listening Space

Classical music venues in the Netherlands and throughout the world are struggling to attract new audiences. Especially younger visitors are underrepresented. Previous research emphasizes the importance of providing new, potentially interested audiences with more means to consume the music. This paper presents an exploratory case study with the persuasive game Listening Space which we developed to help attract new audiences and thus preserve Western classical music heritage. In particular, we studied to what extent this game could promote more varied ways of listening to classical music and thus enrich the experience of visiting a classical music concert. We designed and executed a controlled randomized trial with surveys before and after the experiment as well as a series of in-depth interviews with participants after the experiment. Our treatment group consisted of 139 participants (both new and existing visitors). They played our digital game at their own convenience, followed by a visit to a concert in a renowned classical music concert hall. A control group of 165 participants only visited the concerts. We measured the effects of the game – changes in the ways participants listen to classical music – through self-report in questionnaires before and after the experiment. Results show that Listening Space seems most effective for new audiences: the game promoted more varied ways of listening in the treatment group and thus enriched their experience of visiting a classical music concert. The control group of new visitors did not show an effect and also no differences were found between the treatment and control groups of regular visitors of classical music concerts We employed regression analysis to identify predictors of the game's effect on listening styles: participants’ age and their level of appreciation of the classical music genre were negatively related to the effectiveness of the game. The way in which participants experienced the game also significantly influenced the effectiveness. This case study shows the potential of using games to promote classical music concerts: games seem to be valuable in attracting new, young audiences and, therefore, represent powerful instruments to help preserve Western classical music cultural heritage.

The missing fundamentals of harmonic theory: Chord roots and their ambiguity in arrangements of jazz standards

Since Lippius and Rameau, chords have roots that are often voiced in the bass, doubled, and used as labels. Psychological experiments and analyses of databases of Western classical music have not produced clear evidence for the psychological reality of chord roots. We analyzed a symbolic database of 100 arrangements of jazz standards (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] files from midkar.com and thejazzpage.de ). Selection criteria were representativeness and quality.The original songs had been composed in the 1930s and 1950s, and each file had a beat track. Files were converted to chord progressions by identifying tone onsets near beat locations (±10% of beat duration). Chords were classified as triads (major, minor, diminished, suspended) or seventh chords (major–minor, minor, major, half-diminished, diminished, and suspended) plus extra tones. Roots that were theoretically less ambiguous were more often in the bass or (to a lesser extent) doubled. The root of the minor triad was ambiguous, as predicted (conventional root or third). Of the sevenths, the major–minor had the clearest root. The diminished triad was often part of a major–minor seventh chord; the half-diminished seventh, of a dominant ninth. Added notes (“tensions”) tended to minimize dissonance (roughness or inharmonicity). In arrangements of songs from the 1950s, diminished triads and sevenths were less common, and suspended triads more common, relative to the 1930s. Results confirm the psychological reality of chord roots and their specific ambiguities. Results are consistent with Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory and the idea that musical chords emerge gradually from cultural and historic processes. The approach can enrich music theory (including pitch-class set analysis) and jazz pedagogy.