Music’s power over your brain, explained | Michael Spitzer

Humans are musical animals 4 million years in the making, explained by music expert Michael Spitzer. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► Up next, 40,000 years of music explained in 8 minutes ► The oldest record of notated music, the Hurrian “Hymn to Nikkal,“ is more than 3,000 years old. But in a sense, our relationship with music is far more ancient than that. As Michael Spitzer, a professor of music at the University of Liverpool, told Big Think, humans have been making and learning to recognize music from the moment our species learned to walk on two legs, creating a predictable beat. Music affects the brain in profound ways. It eases stress by lowering cortisol. It floods the brain with pleasurable neurotransmitters like dopamine. And it serves as a conduit through which we can process emotions that otherwise might not be describable in words. Read the video transcript ► ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michael Spitzer: Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read more of our stories on music: 10 of the greatest classical composers alive today ► Here’s what your music preferences reveal about your personality ► 10 of the greatest classical composers of all time ► ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think Make your business smarter, faster: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want more Big Think? ► Daily editorial features: ► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: ► Facebook: ► Instagram: ► Twitter: