Blogspot 2 : The psychology of Rock and Roll

"Masyadong Violent", "Magulo", "Out of this world and lyrics", and "Mahirap intindihin". That is how people will tell if they heard a rock music. They usually tend to judge rockers as violent, criminals, out of this world and bullies. But what do rock and roll really mean.

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s.

I've read an article entitled "How Rock 'N' Roll Involuntarily Triggers Our Primal Instincts and ; Brings Out the Animal in Us;" by Christine Hsu of medicaldaily.com that tells rock and roll listeners involuntarily triggers their primal instincts. The writer found a study that the distorted and unpredictable of rock are evocatively primal because the pitch and frequency that make up the music are closely related to the composition make up of the distress calls in animals.

Researchers also found that when animals are in distress, they cry out by rapidly forcing a large amount of air through their voice box, which produces a discordant effect intended to grab the attention and trigger an emotional response in other animals. He also said that ""Music that shares aural characteristics with the vocalizations of distressed animals captures human attention and is uniquely arousing," researcher Daniel Blumstein, chair of the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, said in a statement.

Blumstein is an expert on animal distress calls, particularly when it comes to marmots.

Two years ago, Blumstein and a team of researchers published a study of the soundtracks of 102 classic movies in four genres: adventure, drama, horror and war, and found that the soundtracks for each particular genre had characteristic emotion-manipulating techniques."

When I listen to rock music sometimes feel like I unleash my true characteristics and often feel wild. I agree to the article I read because rock music have fast tempo, high in pitch, and frequency. Though sometimes it depends on the music you're listening to, and to the band you usually like. But as usual everything that is too much is bad.

According to another article that I read entitled "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Problems in Neuroscience Reporting" by  Nate Kornell, Ph.D. of psychologytoday.com that our brains release dopamine when we listen to music. Dopamine is associated with reward. Dopamine is released when you listen to music is kind of like saying your hands are involved when you drive. The writer also stated that "Moreover, dopamine is a very busy neurotransmitter. Your hands help you drive but that's not all they do. Dopamine is the same way. It's released during musical experiences and in lots of other situations. And this has reporters excited."

Based on my opinion the study is quite true because sometimes when I listen to Rock music I have this feeling that I have the strength to do what I am scared of doing. I Think the music motivates me. But It also depends on the song if the song really affects you this study will surely apply.