Can Music Completely Change Your Mood?

 

I had no idea what kind of concert I was going to, except it was to be commemorative of the Shoah. All of  France  along with other European countries had recent events of  remembrance of this extremely horrifying atrocity  in the  history of humankind.

My invitation to the Hungarian Institute of Paris to hear the Glass House Project musical ensemble, frankly did not arouse much initial enthusiasm.    I only learned later that the band was named after the Glass Houses in Budapest, established by Swiss diplomate Carl Lutz, that helped saved many Jews from being sent to the concentration camps.

My initial thought was that the music was going to be sad, even morose; after all, what else could it be? How wrong it was for me to have had such preconceived  notions!

The Glass House Project band  was absolutely fantastic!    Their musical renditions were  some of the most passionate and soul filled  folk music I have heard in a long time!  Bar none!

Unfortunately my poorly recorded video takes do not do them justice, but it is all I have downloaded on youtube, which takes forever to do!

It only took about the first two minutes before I felt I was being transported to another place and mood. I was totally overwhelmed and caught up in an immense pleasure reverberating in my ears.

I literally felt like jumping up in my chair and swaying to the beat.  This was so unlike my generally overly reserved and  contemplative self!   So what was going on here?

First a little introduction to the Glass House Project musical ensemble, that recently was put together by Grammy award trumpeter Frank London, under the sponsorship of the Hungarian institute of New York in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Shoah.

They are  composed of  American and  Hungarian musicians who have sifted through old and some lost ethnic Hungarian and Jewish folk music from before the Holocaust and afterwards, in order to give them a new life.   This extremely spirited and immensely talented  group had just performed the night before in Budapest, but performed with a whirlwind of freshness rarely seen these days.

The ensemble also introduced me to the  concert cimbalom, which I had never seen nor heard played before. It is a string chord instrument developed in Hungary in 1874, resemblant of a piano,  that was popular in the Austro-Hungarian empire,  played by Hungarian, Jewish and slavic peoples of Romania, Moldavia, and the Ukraine.

 

 

They had a packed audience of Parisians of Hungarian descent, expats, students and curious others, like myself, wondering what type of music we would hear.  The ambiance before they started was one of reserved quietness typical of French audiences.

Suddenly, without much warning the room had literally taken flight with fiery exuberance  to the bursting  sounds of music, that I had never really heard before.  Frankly I was taken back in surprise,  as the rich tapestry of  music  enveloped me.

The fact that I do not have any musical knowledge to describe in musicological terms what I was hearing, perhaps isn’t much of a drawback, because it was for me purely emotional.  The whole band played with such a gush of pent up passion, you would have to have been anaesthetized not to feel deeply touched by it all.

The intensity was immense; with emotions ranging from soul searching cries of pain to  an unbelievable joy of redemption that triumphed over and above all.   The majority of feeling was one of joyful deliverance and celebration.

The music reverberated optimism and playfulness than you would find in the innocence of a child, who once was crying and the next minute having forgotten his pain, is all grins and laughter.  The pulse was fast and furiously infectious.

Before long,  there was spontaneous clapping along to the beat as the audience too were pulled into the vortex of pleasure.  We were celebrating along with them.

The  room of politely restrained people had let loose, including me.  I was no longer in the same mood as I had been when I took my seat, not that I was sad, but more in neutral gear.

It wasn’t just me either!  There was an obvious transformation  going on, that was palpable in the air.  The delightful energy was consuming us all!

The passionate outpouring of each of those talented musicians and singers had spiked us all with their own feverish enthusiasm that music has the ability to recreate in us.  Drugged to the gills with unceasing joy!

So what was this magic that transformed us?  Was it the mean trumpet of Frank London, or the powerful voice of Edina Mókus Szirtes, and her soulful violin, or the mesmerizing and enthralling sounds of Miklós Lukács’s  outstanding playing of the cimbalom?

No, it was the consummate whole of each instrumental sounds blended expertly together in a frenzied froth of musical vibrations that was so contagious,  we were all touched.  Joyous music begets joyous feelings.

All of those vibrant vibrations will tickle the little hairs in your cochlea (inner ear), flooding your auditory nerve with signals that reach a good part your amygdala, with governs your mood.  You can be almost immediately flooded with the feel good neurotransmitter dopamine.

Ah, dopamine, let us feel ourselves to the brim!  That powerful neuronal messenger that rewards and motivates to want even more, be it sex, drugs, or love!

Yes, music is a powerful stimulate and mood changer.  Even the anticipation of hearing pleasurable music to our ears arouses us with flirts of dopamine.  Even when we “recreate” music in our brain, without actually hearing the sounds, we get some dopamine.

An easy fix you say. Yes, if only the enlighten mood would persist! It may for a while, but for some of us, our natural innate level of neurotransmission returns, which for some might set up craving to hear that special piece of music over and over to get our fix of pleasure and joy.

Apart from this direct neuronal stimulation, you and I are all subject to the prevailing energy that is around us at any given time.  Whatever type of energy is in the air so to speak, will leech over onto you, whether you may be cognizant of it or not, as witness by the clapping that overtook the audience.

I am very sensitive to energy that is around me, which certainly helps in being a therapist.  The overwhelming impression of the energy of the musical group was one of a passionate need to give the best of their talents in homage for the many people who suffered and died in the camps.

It did not go un-availed, for each musician played with so much soul, it was as if the spirits of the those who vanished were cheering them on.      We could have all walked in their shoes, had we been where they were, just because they were born into a religious and culture background seen as unworthy of life.

History has a tendency to repeat itself, so it is very important to  remember these atrocities, with not only  shame and disgust at the cruelties of men, but in hopes that we can do our part in preventing such mass destruction of innocent lives from ever befouling our planet again.

The Glass House Project band resonated beautifully through their music that goodness will always triumph over evil.  Killing the body, does not kill the soul, nor of the goodness and love within that will live forever in the hearts of those they left behind.