For the safe space part of my project I am going to have a video with just music playing but I want a specific piece of music that is scientifically proven to be calming to its listeners. In order to find what sort of music is calming I have had to do some research.
To make sure the evidence I found was reliable I have fact checked through multiple sources. The first site I looked at was called inc.com and they are a newspaper style blog that looks into things like the latest technology and the current financial situation so quite serious topics. The title of this specific article those was quite clickbaity as it said 'Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent' which is often just to entice people to read the article but does make my question how scientifically accurate the article is. The article claims to have done research with actual scientists and has come up with a list of the scientifically proven most relaxing songs. The first song they listed was a song called weightless which is an instrumental piece by a trio called Marconi Union, on listening to the song I did find myself feeling a lot more relaxed. The article states that 'listening to that one song -- "Weightless" -- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants' overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates'. It also goes onto say that the song was made to reduce anxiety levels in people 'The group that created "Weightless", Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener's heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol'. According to the scientists through the tests the song proved so effective that they had to put a warning to not listen to it while driving as it was proven to cause drowsiness. The article then abruptly ends with a list of 10 songs that are supposed to be scientifically proven to combat anxiety's and stress without actually going into any detail on any of the other songs. That being said though I still think weightless is a contender to be in the safe zone of my art piece.
The next site I looked at is actually a site that sells a smart pillow that you can control with your phone for maximum comfort. The site has articles that are everything to do with how to get the best sleep and so I would say this article is more reliable than the first because they want you to buy their product meaning they are more likely to be using scientifically proven information as otherwise people would be less likely to buy their product as customers often fact check. As they are looking to sell something though there could also be a case made that that have a reason to exaggerate the benefits of certain things again in order to get you to buy their product. The specific article I looked at was very similar to the first in that it spoke a lot about the song Weightless and how the song was created to scientifically reduce stress. 'The British Academy of Sound Therapy set out to create the world’s most relaxing song. In collaboration with the Manchester band Marconi Union, the song “Weightless” was born'. It then went on to give the same list of other songs that are proven to reduce stress and help you sleep better as the first article did. It turns out the reason for this was because that is the list that the British Academy of Sound Therapy realised as a conclusion to their studies so it makes sense that this would be the next place for me to look.
On the British Academy of sounds website they had a full article on Weightless and just hwo successful it was. 'In 2011, Lyz Cooper teamed up with Marconi Union to write a track for the Radox Spa campaign. The piece created by Marconi Union in consultation with Lyz was voted the ‘Most Relaxing Music Ever’ and came 11th out of 50 in Time Magazine’s Top 50 Best Inventions Awards'. As well as winning numerous awards the piece actually did have a big impact on society and gained a big media following. On the website there is a full 8 page document that explains exactly the experiments that took place as well as the benefits the song gives to people., Hear are the most relevant bits.
The experiment-
'20 female participants aged between 18 and 61 with an average age of 37 completed the study, one at a time. After signing an informed consent form they were connected to bio-monitoring equipment to monitor heart rate variability, skin conductance (EDA) and respiration (breathing) rate. All data was recorded using a Nexus10 biofeedback system (Mindmedia)'.
'Participants were sat comfortably in a distraction free room. The music was presented using Bose over-ear noise cancelling headphones. Each music track was played for 3:00 minutes with a period of silence afterwards. In between each track, auditory and visual distracters were played / displayed to induce stress.'
Results-
'This research has indicated that listening to music is effective in inducing relaxation, helping to substantially reduce heart rate. Stress levels in relation to heart rate were decreased by 18.6% as a result of listening to music after participants were stressed by a range of activities, compared to drinking cup of tea (16%) or taking a walk (7%).'
My Take-
What this article shows is that clearly the song weightless has a clear profound effect on 'Womens' stress levels. The interesting thing is that they never tested any men which could have changed the results significantly and it would be interesting to see how mens stress levels are affected by the song. Obviously being that my installation is looking likely to be an online online piece now its not going to be possible for me to test peoples heart rate while they view my piece. I can however how ask in the survey how relaxed they felt in the safe zone which is where I have decided that I will be playing this piece of music and then conduct my own experiment based on my results. It would be interesting to see if the song has the same effect on men to. This official article also proved to me that it is worth checking your sources as the other two websites said all the songs in the experiment were relaxing but the bar graphs above prove that not all of them were.
In conclusion, I plan to use the weightless track in my art piece as the safe area where people can escape and I am interested to see how relaxed people feel after listening to the track.
References:
Britishacademyofsoundtherapy.com, (2020) Available at: https://www.britishacademyofsoundtherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Mindlab-Report-Weightless-Radox-Spa.pdf (Accessed: 22 March 2020).
Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent (2017). Available at: https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/neuroscience-says-listening-to-this-one-song-reduces-anxiety-by-up-to-65-percent.html (Accessed: 20 March 2020).
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