Rhythm Rules

Louis Torres toured America, 1967-68, as the electric bass soloist in the premier rock band, Haley's Comets. In 1969-70 Carol was first violinist for the Long Island Symphony. Following conversion, they attended Pacific Union College. Louis now serves as Conference Secretary and Conference evangelist, while Carol specializes in evangelistic music.

Just as there are natural laws that govern the physiology of our bodies and minds, so there are natural laws that govern music. These laws of music have been established by careful observation and, more recently, by scientific study. To many people, the laws of music have seemed little more than prejudice and preference.1

Until very recently, the relationship of music to the health of society and to our personal health has largely been ignored and even considered nonexistent. Tastes in music have long been proclaimed to be merely a matter of personal choice, thus leaving the field open for experimentation.2

Music Is Rhythm

Music is made by combining and balancing five basic elements: melody, tone color, harmony, rhythm, and tempo. Though not obvious to the casual observer, all of these five elements consist of rhythmic vibrations and/or rhythmic cycles.3

All sounds are vibrations. Though we could examine each of the musical elements, our emphasis here will be on rhythm. The element of rhythm in music is primarily cyclic in nature, thus creating the "time meter." There are two basic arrangements upon which all early time meters were based: the two/four family (of which the 4/4 time signature is most common), and the three/four family. In 4/4 music, the emphasis falls on beats one and three of the measure, forming primary and secondary accents. In the 3/4 meter the primary accent is on the one count with a secondary accent on the three count as a preparatory beat leading to the first count of the following measure.4

In most cases, the secondary accent is not very noticeable. As insignificant as these accents may seem at first glance, they are nonetheless the starting point for the discussion of music as a negative influence. "Swing" music moved the accent from the first and third beats to the "unnatural" second and fourth beats in a 4/4 meter. This led to syncopation and to complex rhythms, of which we will speak more later.5

Power to Penetrate

Music has power to enter the human organism and transmit its messages and influence throughout the body, but its mechanism for doing so is not widely understood. Most people do understand the basic processes of the ear—how sound waves (vibrations), acting upon the ear drum, are transformed to chemical and nerve impulses which register in our minds the different qualities of the sounds we are hearing.6

What many people do not know is that the "roots of the auditory nerves—the nerves of the ear—are more widely distributed and have more extensive connections than those of any other nerves in the body.... [Due to this extensive networking] there is scarcely a function of the body which may not be affected by the pulsations and harmonic combinations of musical tones."1

This means that while "music attacks the nervous system directly..."2 we can say also that "music, which does not depend upon the master brain (centers of reason) to gain entrance into the organism, can still arouse by way of the thalamus the relay station of all emotions, sensations and feelings. Once a stimulus has been able to reach the thalamus, the master brain is automatically invaded."3

The significance of these statements lies in their observation that music, even when bypassing the centers of judgment, can still affect the judgment centers by stimulating emotional responses through the thalamus. Research has also pointed out that music affects the nervous system by means of the influence of auditory pathways on the autonomic nervous system. Though emphasis varies from research to research, the point remains the same: What we hear affects the nervous system and, through it, the whole body.4

Changes

Where can we see the effects that music has on the system? Probably the two most important areas are the nerve or message pathways of the body and the emotional changes brought about by the thalamus. These changes affect other processes, such as heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, digestion, hormonal balance and swings, and electrolyte balance, and show up in our emotions, moods and attitudes.5

Now exposure to "harmonic" music reinforces the rhythmic cycles of the body. Harmonic music helps to balance body processes, synchronize nerve messages, enhance coordination, and bring moods and emotions into a rest state of homeostasis. However, exposure to "disharmonic" music—characterized by the "tension" caused by dissonance and "noise," or by the unnatural swings of misplaced rhythmical accents (syncopation and polyrhythms), or by inappropriate tempo—can result in a variety of negative changes.6

These negative changes include altered heart rates with corresponding changes in blood pressure, disordered digestion, and over-stimulation of hormones (especially the opiates or endorphins) causing an altered state of consciousness from exhilaration on one end of the spectrum to unconsciousness on the other.

Deep Seated Rhythm

So deep seated is our body's association with certain elements of music that "short of numbing the entire brain, neurologists have been unable to suppress rhythmic ability. Doping either side of the brain, or many regions at once, still leaves the patient able to count or clap in time."7

The secret behind the body's ability to respond to rhythm even when doped is that "sound vibrations acting upon and through the nervous system give shocks in rhythmical sequence to the muscles, which cause them to contract and set our arms and hands, legs and feet in motion. On account of this automatic muscular reaction, many people make some movement when hearing music; for them to remain motionless would require conscious muscular restraint."8 The body responds to the stimuli without consciously or unconsciously judging whether the incoming rhythm is compatible with its own functions.

Even casual observance bears out the truth of these statements. While the music is playing for a dance or while a march beat is being counted aloud, a group of people can easily move in near-perfect synchronization. But within seconds of the end of such rhythmic stimuli, each person begins to move to the beat of his own internal clockwork, few of which are equal to anyone else's.9

Risks of Rhythm

The body is deeply rhythmical. Each individual has his own clock, ticking out its own rhythm of homeostasis. Yet our individual rhythms may be voluntarily submitted or simply overridden by outside rhythmic stimuli. If indeed we can alter the body's natural rhythmic swings simply by exposing it to outside stimuli that differ in rhythm and tempo from its own, and we can do this, the question must be asked as to how safe is this overriding process.10

An article concerned with this very question has this to say: "Man is essentially a rhythmical being.... There is rhythm in respiration, heart beat, speech, gait, etc. The cerebral hemispheres are in a perpetual state of rhythmical swing day and night. To maintain a sense of well-being and integration, it is essential that man is not subjected too much to any rhythms not in accord with his own natural rhythms."9 Research has found that if the tempo of music is much faster than the normal tempo of the body, it generally produces a quickening and over-stimulation of body processes. Analogously, the opposite has been found true of very slow music. Indeed, "tempo may be the most important factor for our hearts and our heads. Our hearts normally beat 70 or 80 times per minute. Most western music is set (coincidentally) to this tempo."10

So we must ask, How far out of sync is too far? We may answer, Any pull or push that causes the body to have to fight for homeostasis is a "pull or push" too far. Naturally, the results, immediate or lasting, depend on the extent of exposure and the extent of deviation from the norm, as well as on one's personal strength and level of resistance to foreign states of being. Too little power input and a thing doesn't work; too much, and you "fry" the controls.11

Emotional Balance

In a healthy state of mental, physical, and emotional balance, a person's processes of judgment and decision-making tend to be balanced, calm, and under control. We describe persons in such a state as well adjusted and even tempered. We appreciate leaders in this state of mind because they impart a sense of stability and security. Harmonic music reinforces this state of balance.12

The flip side, however, is very different. As we noted, one of the effects of listening to disharmonic music is the release of too-high doses of opiates and other hormones, engineering an overcharged emotional state.

Some emotional traumas come to us in a way that we are able to recognize easily, such as the fear that we experience at the scene of an accident or in a fire. We can feel our hearts pounding; we sense the cold sweat and we fight with ourselves to keep calm. If we should lose control, if our bodies should be unable to bring us back to a state of homeostasis, we might do any number of very foolish things or even slip into an unconscious state.13

But some emotional "highs" steal up on us very much unnoticed. Perhaps the classic example of this is the emotional high of sentimental love—a state fully obvious to everyone else but largely unobserved by the person(s) involved. In this condition, one can be given every logic, spared no words of evidence, bribed, beaten, and flogged, but nine times out of ten will continue as is, till the emotional high burns out. Judgment is impaired, important decisions boggled, and improper behavior indulged. In fact, the most obvious evidence of emotional disturbance is altered behavior.11

Some time back, the processes that the body engages to maintain homeostasis of the emotions were referred to in scientific literature as the inhibitory and excitatory processes. (Inhibitors are like brakes and excitors are like accelerators.) If either accelerator or brakes malfunction in a car, the vehicle may halt or it may speed out of control.14

A person whose inhibitory and excitatory processes are seriously unbalanced is described as suffering from "neurosis," a condition we associate with introversion, despondency, depression, nervousness, wild unpredictable behavior, and extreme aggression. Such a state can also cause hyperactivity, heightened mob instinct, abnormal fear, bad attitudes, lethargic or lazy behavior, and impaired learning and memory. This last fact is what has educators and learning/memory specialists all excited.15

Disorders caused by disharmonic music can range from "the intoxication of the dance"14 to wild frenzies and even seizures, from suicide to violent aggression.15 Whether the unbalancing of the mind is little or great, the judgment impaired slightly or grossly, the behavior altered briefly or continually, the fact is that while in a state of emotional imbalance, judgment cannot be trusted.16

Impaired judgment and improper behavior are sometimes obvious to the individuals affected but mostly the affected persons are the last to realize their condition. Such people are out of balance, out of sync, out of harmony, not necessarily with others in their society, but certainly within themselves, with nature, and unfortunately, with the God of creation.17

Rhythm rules. Our only choice in the matter is, To which rhythms will we expose ourselves—to the rhythms of harmony, or to the rhythms that disturb harmony? There truly is no middle ground with music. It either enhances the Creator's design and nature's pull "toward optimum (harmonic) balance"16 or it interferes with the balance so necessary for our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. It is either uplifting or degrading. May our choice ever be to cooperate with our God, that His desire for our lives can be realized, "that [we] might have life, and have it more abundantly" (Jn 10:10).