Much of our music, from classical to contemporary, is written in either a major or minor key (with exceptions, such as jazz, which uses neither). For most, a major key conjures up feelings of happiness, while pieces written in a minor usually do the opposite. Is this merely a function of learned behavior, or is there something else going on?
music
Lessons from the immune system
The silent Award Season is upon us
How music touches us
For Thom, saving coffee from warming, global warming
Leave aside the social awkwardness of those junior high school dances. What got you up on the dance floor? A friend, a possibility, the tune? A new study identifies one of music’s dance drivers.
In the never-ending campaign to demonize any drug that could possibly be abused, a physicians group at the University of Pennsylvania claims that music is a viable alternative to Versed (a benzodiazepine) in calming patients before outpatient surgery. But it is not. All you have to do is read the paper and this becomes obvious. Better orthodoxy, worse medicine.
During the opioid epidemic, any form of medical care involving "addictive medications" has sought alternative therapies. So we ask: Can music soothe our nerves prior to undergoing medical procedures?
Hollywood tends to depict all seizures with great drama as generalized convulsions. In the real world of an intensive care unit, they can go unnoticed without overt signs. And if the seizures are protracted, they can cause damage. New technology marries music and the mind, to prompt early detection by the untrained.