Introduction

Art in its many forms and how it exists

Music is a phenomenon that is shared among many living creatures. Humans (or Homo sapiens if you prefer) in particular make music for reasons that are too diverse and numerous to count. Some of us sing, dance, or play musical instruments for fun, some of us learn to harness our talents for more. Music has existed with humanity for much of its 300,000 year history, but today, it it is difficult for us to say when exactly music came into to being.

Archaeological evidence from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History states that humans began creating musical instruments around 40,000 years ago (Smithsonian Institution, Jan 2024). However, music is something that has seemingly evolved with life itself: animals use their own bodies and vocal chords to produce sounds and vibrations that we sometimes call “music.”

Animals like birds, whales, and lemurs are also commonly observed to sing and dance for reasons like finding a mating partner or to alert other members of their family of threats. In fact, we do the same thing. However, a most interesting phenomenon of humans is storytelling through dance.

The purpose of song and dance as forms of art

Dancing exists in every society, but storytelling through dance is something very peculiar. Ballet, bharatanatyam, the waltz, many forms of dance incorporate meaning and storytelling through movement and sounds. Stories tell us, humans have been singing and dancing since the beginning of time.

For this reason, anthropologists and neuroscientists claim that, based on anatomical evidence, it is likely singing predates musical instruments (Morley, 2013). Religious and canonical texts of humanity such as the Mahabharata suggest the same thing.

Mahabharata is an ancient Vedic poem revered in India. In ancient times, it was believed to be sung and danced to in demonstration of the story and to revere the individuals within the story (John D Smith, 1990). Evidence suggests the same for ancient Greek mythological texts like The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Music in the form of song and dance clearly has a very strong connection to life and being. From the concept of tempo and rhythm to the vibrations that calm one’s nerves or amp them to excitement, music trains one’s body to a sense of time and energy. Sound and physical vibrations can have a profound impact on a person’s physiological and mental states.

This article will review art as a phenomenon and cultural concept to describe how it affects human socialization and how music could work to help regulate the human physiological cycles through time training. I will also discuss how music and dance helps me regulate my anxiety.

Background

Music is distinguished from speech by the aspects of pitch and tempo as well as cognitive intention. Oftentimes, speech and music coincide. Still, nonvocal music also exists as a form of music that can have intention behind it.

Dance is heavily associated with movement to music. In late February, I had the opportunity to visit Bagore Ki Haveli in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. My family and I watched a showing of their Dharohar Folk Dances.

One of the first dances of the routine was a puppet show. It was a great show of talent on the part of the puppet master, who used a diaphragm instrument — an instrument placed within the mouth to produce the squeals of the puppet — as he played its strings around the stage.

Photo 1. Puppet show with single female puppet played by a man in traditional kurta.

Rajasthan is known for many forms of art, one of them being its art of puppetry, which has been around for hundreds of years. The show incorporated the use of tabla drums and other instruments to set a beat to which the puppet danced.

The second dance I found compelling to watch was one in which the dancers were dressed as peacocks.

Photo 2. Dancers dressed in royal-presenting garb resembling peacocks, one spinning a wheel.

I am not fully sure what this dance was about, I could not find any information about it on the website. I was not able to understand everything about the dance fully, but it seemed to be a rendition of a story.

Photo 3. Hindu mythological lord of dance, Nataraja.

The photo above, you’ll notice, depicts a figure that has striking similarity to the figure in the first image. This is, in Hindustani culture, known to be the dance form of Shiva, one of the premier deities in Hinduism.

Among many different talents, India is well-known for its song and dance culture. For thousands of years, Indians have passed down stories, traditions, and knowledge through the forms of singing, dancing, and music. These three forms of art have a profound impact on the physiological and mental state of a person, and they also transform cultures and societies in more profound ways.

As someone professionally trained in playing music, I spend a lot (and I mean a lot) of time listening to music. I tend to listen to it most when I need to focus on high intensity tasks like exercising or studying. As someone with anxiety and ADHD, it also helps me with my ability to focus and feel confident in what I am doing. I used to walk to my exams in senior year of college listening to a particular song (Crocodile Tearz by J. Cole) just to get my head in the right space.

Discussion

Physiological and psychological effects of art

Physiologically, art has a tendency to evoke emotions through our various senses. Traditional paintings use the visual pathway to activate our amygdalas in different ways depending on what we are looking at. Paintings are thought to activate our amygdala during aesthetic judgement of paintings, resulting in our awareness being focused on specific aspects of the paintings themselves (Jacobs & Cornellisen, 2017). Moreover, amygdala activation may evoke memory of similar emotions and imagery.

Amygdala activation results in a number of physiological responses, one of them being cortisol production. A 2012 study at the Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences examined the effects of music on cortisol and blood glucose production in patients undergoing spinal anesthesia. Those who listened to music during the procedure appeared to be unaffected, but those in silence during the procedure experienced significantly higher levels of cortisol and blood glucose.

Cortisol tends to translate into forms of energy and results in “stress” within our physiological systems. Sometimes that stress can be good, sometimes bad, but generally, it means activation of the sympathetic nervous system. This is the part of the nervous system responsible for our “fight-or-flight” response.

Art, traditionally thought to be something humans create, could be viewed as something humans are meant to enjoy and learn from. Dance and musical performance, among other forms of art, are often critiqued and evaluated for progressive improvement. This in turn, generally, results in better performance and accuracy overtime.

Song and dance in society and how time is trained

Dance and music are known to heal the mind, body, and soul, but why do humans do it beyond that? Looking at animal behavior, it seems reasons are pretty cut and clear: improving fitness and attraction to other mates. But the ability of humans to socialize, perform, and be judged through art suggests a more convoluted reason.

One of those reasons is storytelling. To tell stories through a form of art that can be replicated and cause enduring change within the body and the society is something profoundly unique to each form of art. Dance tells stories through movement and rhythm. Music tells stories through sound and rhythm. Visual art tells stories in more elusive ways that are hard to describe.

One thing that unites forms of art is their effect on the mind and the body, and perhaps on society. Art tells a story that helps us understand ourselves better and create change, whether that is internally or socially. That change can impact others as well, causing a rebounding effect. If anything is clear, it is that art evolves with humans in a cyclic fashion.

Stories on their own have the ability to cause lasting change because they stand as authentic moments for us to look at and say, “That happened.” While they may not always be true, they are forms of art in their own right, and they teach us more about human thought and behavior.

Rhythm and time’s effects on the body

Rhythm and time are often associated with forms of art like song and dance, particularly because they allow cyclic movement or sound. The bass line of a song or the beat of a drum might come to mind. These are aspects of time and often used to train time — in other words, train someone in understanding and interpreting time — to individuals performing those movements or sounds.

A 2015 study at the Medical College of Wisconsin examined the effects of vibration on rat fingers and bodies. There’s a lot of jargon in the article, but if you want to take a look for yourself, here it is: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4694567/.

My best understanding is that they took data from various sources and made a computational analysis curve on the data to interpret the risk of injury to human workers’ hands based on their data. They claim that at resonant frequencies, or the natural frequencies at which objects tend to vibrate, the models predicted that very low and very high frequencies that resonate with organismal vibration are probably going to harm the human.

The nuts and bolts of the article is that repetitive physical vibrations can cause harm to living tissue and cause it to turn over at a faster rate. This coincides with the idea of aging.

Conclusions and Future Directions

Song and dance are forms of art that are highly trained, both internally and externally from the perspective of the human mind. They are also imperative forms of art to the passing down of tradition and stories in society.

Different social groups and societies around the world perform dances and music to compete, show off talent, or tell stories. One of the most befuddling elements of both is the aspect of rhythm, or time. Time is trained through the performance of song and dance, and it becomes a crucial aspect of the performance.

Song and dance also has profound psychosocial and physiological effects on humans. Not only does it literally create positive or negative vibes in one’s emotion depending on the style and performance, but it also correlates with the generation of biomolecules that we can’t fully understand the reasoning behind.

Future studies should focus on the understanding of biomolecules’ roles in and during the production and performance of general forms of art. Another important aspect to look into, specifically with music and dance, is the training of time and how rhythm is interpreted by the nervous system. One day, we may understand what art truly does to the human body and be able to harness it as a strong alternative therapy, as many clinics already do today in hospice homes.

PS: This is a casual research article and all opinions are my own. Please do your own research and form your own opinions before commenting. Also, let me know if you found anything interesting or incorrect!