The study of music as a human phenomenon

There is music in every culture in the world. Whether we use it to change our state, for ritual / spiritual / religious purposes or to have a good time it is clearly pretty important to us as species. (Any anthropologists out there: is music as universal as I think it is? Is visual art also universal?)

One of the reasons I'm a musician is that is it possible to explore an inner world that is otherwise hard to reach. For me, music carries the most emotion of all the art forms. I think most people experience some form of emotional response and could describe an experience where music really touched them. As well as being moved emotionally, I sometimes have the sensation of invisible blocks moving inside me or around me - music allows me to interact with an intangible, invisible world. I can step beyond this body.

I mentioned before the distinction between a practical musician and a scholar of music. I studied music at university because I was seeking to understand this amazing stuff, not just wanting to play it. I got there and discovered that how and why it affected us was not covered at all...

Historically the academic study of music means the study of mathematical and harmonic relationships and the study of composers and composition from a very literary point of view. I didn't find either approach very satisfying in explaining why music is so important to us, nor what music does to us.

I'm still fascinated by this and I'm looking for any new leads. I've started to hear about people studying the phenomena of music through a modern scientific approach, mostly to do with how music affects the human brain or our behaviours. Of particular recent interest has been the book Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (musicophilia.com) I'm on the look out for any other studies so if you know of one please leave me a comment!