Pod Insights Know Thyself E195 - Dr. Mei Rui: The Science of Sound & Music as Medicine About this episode Dr. Mei Rui is a Yale-trained molecular biophysicist, concert pianist, and clinical researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she runs trials on the measurable effects of music on the human body. In this conversation, we explore what actually happens in the brain the moment music enters it, why the auditory system is the first sense to develop in the womb and the last to go when we die, and how something as accessible as a curated playlist can outperform FDA-approved pharmaceuticals in reducing cortisol.
What We Dive Into:
1. Music is not a supplement to healing. In the right context, it is the intervention.
2. The brain responds differently when you actually show up for the music.
3. A longitudinal study in twins showed that three to four years of musical training reduced the risk of Alzheimer's and cognitive decline by 64%, an effect size found in no other single activity.
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00:00 Introduction: Dr. Mei Rui
01:44 A Life Between Music and Science
05:26 What Happens When Music Enters the Brain
07:26 How the Brain Processes Sound and Music
11:32 Why Minor Keys Feel Sad: The Science of Tonality
14:37 Live Piano Demo: Matching Music to Mood
19:06 Music in the Operating Room
27:41 Music as Medicine: Clinical Applications
29:10 The 32% Cortisol Study
31:19 The 16 Compositional Elements of Healing Music
35:11 Oxytocin, Familiarity, and the Parasympathetic Response
36:18 Timbre and the Cello's Resemblance to a Mother's Voice
42:31 Cymatics: Sound Made Visible
45:16 The Ancient Roots of Music as Healing
47:09 Listening vs. Playing an Instrument
55:33 The Musician's Brain: Structural Differences
57:46 Music Training and Protection Against Alzheimer's
59:44 Music, Empathy, and Neural Synchrony
1:01:36 The EEG Experiment: Reading André's Brain Live
1:18:21 What the EEG Data Revealed
1:22:26 Music, Flow State, and the Disappearance of Self
1:26:55 Music as Spiritual Medicine
1:30:23 How to Listen More Intentionally
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Transcript 12,481 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 André Duqum? We put an EEG helmet on me. And this is just a small window into what you're studying, which is the impact of music on our biology and neurology.
0:07 Speaker 01 Music engages every critical area in your brain, more so than any other human endeavor.
0:12 André Duqum? Best job ever.
0:14 Speaker 01 Music is a natural narcotic.
0:17 André Duqum? Did you prescribe music?
0:18 Speaker 01 Absolutely, yes.
0:23 André Duqum? What about nostalgia?
0:28 Speaker 01 Music is a medium of communication. It's just so much more natural. Pharmaceutical interventions will carry side effects.
0:35 André Duqum? Blindness, death.
0:37 Speaker 01 Our study showed a 32% reduction in cortisol, more powerful than an FDA-approved pharmaceutical drug. It could protect your brain against your degeneration, Alzheimer's, dementia.
0:48 André Duqum? Like a percentage?
0:49 Speaker 01 64%. Even under general anesthesia, they used to think what happens acoustically would have much of an impact. Now we know that is false. This kind of music is way to activating. This may send your body into.
1:07 André Duqum? Dr. May Ray, you have a degree from Yale in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. You're a classical pianist, a very good one at that. You're also a yoga teacher and you're doing incredible research and running clinical trials right now. Most people in life are told to pick a lane. You know, choose one path. I would just love to hear from you through your circuitous journey, kind of getting to this point and choosing not just one path. I would love for you to share a bit of your story of how you decided to combine so many of your passions into one.
1:43 Speaker 01 So my journey started very early. My musical journey started very early when I was three years old. And I started performing around the world when I was in elementary school. I played my very first recital in Austria for the president of Austria in Hoffburg, Paris when I was 10 years old. And did a lot of competitions. So that was a very intensive period in my life where the primary focus was deliberate musical training. And then in my early teenage years, I had a few. Quite big setbacks and specifically, you know, in the competitive arena.
2:27 Speaker 01 And, you know, at that time, I was also very strong academically, always had a very curious mind and high affinity for science and for mathematics. But then I started to explore partially from just a state of curiosity, but also that was during my immigration to the US as well, to New York and going, attending conservatories here. But I discovered that, that I was passionate about a lot of these other areas and I was discovering overlaps between these two fields. That journey then took me to Yale University.
3:09 Speaker 01 But throughout the whole, I would say, my teenage years and twenties and even early thirties, there was a lot of internal conflict and uncertainty and wandering and self doubt, like many of us, that are pulled in different directions. So it was really in the last seven, eight years or so that I became more centered and more comfortable with these quite divergent career trajectories. And I found ways to unify them and pursue, you know, music and research in, both in very meaningful and impactful ways.
3:51 Speaker 01 But I feel my early training as a concert pianist helped balance a lot of the struggles that exist in academia as well. So, but now they are all part of my ecosystem. Yeah. And all of these factors, they're all very integral part of my system, just like being a mother and being a yogi, yogi. And it's, they all feed me. And on different days, you know, there's no, if you want to call it balance, right, work-life balance, I don't think they already exist, you know, we try to achieve. We always, as humans, have a way of striving toward, going toward a homeostasis and finding equilibrium.
4:35 Speaker 01 So on the different day, on any given day, the proportion or, you know, the distribution of how I spend my time will be completely different.
4:45 André Duqum? Do you feel at this day and age like these aren't different caps you wear, but they're all just different aspects of you?
4:51 Speaker 01 Yes, and accepting that took really decades.
4:54 André Duqum? Yeah.
4:55 Speaker 01 Because especially being told, in this society, you're told to be very hyper-specialized. And I discovered that a lot through my collaborations with these amazing experts in different fields. So everyone has this hyper dedication to their field. But sometimes we lack the full, the big picture, the integration. So I find the open-mindedness and being willing to explore helps my research as well.
5:26 André Duqum? Undoubtedly, and if everybody who's listening to this right now knows the power of music, right? At some point in their life, more some than others, different types of music have been super impactful for them. I know for me, like, music has been a big love of mine for a long time, both listening and playing. And we all know that music is impactful. You're studying it in a very rigorous way to... And it has really big implications on when we listen to music, why we listen to music, the type of music we listen to, the different effects it has on us. And through this conversation, I'm hoping people can really gain context to what the power of music is, so they can properly commune with it and leverage it in their life to be able to be more effective
6:09 André Duqum? at whatever they're doing and understand actually what's happening. What happens to the brain the moment that music enters it? What's happening?
6:19 Speaker 01 So it's a very beautiful process. And when we receive an external acoustic stimulus, so even if we track back to when we were in the womb, so the last three months.
6:34 André Duqum? Third trimester.
6:35 Speaker 01 The third trimester, essentially. So your auditory system is almost fully developed in utero. And you've heard of the Mozart effect, mothers, expectant mothers putting headphones on the belly. And there is a scientific basis for that. So the auditory sense is really the first one to fully mature and develop. And it's the last one to perish when we die.
7:02 André Duqum? Interesting.
7:02 Speaker 01 Of the five senses. And it's the first one to wake up in the morning and it's the last one to go to sleep. So even if you compare it to smell, which is also, so smell comes next.
7:15 André Duqum? Yeah, I'm just thinking like going to bed, waking up, yeah, taste, sight, smell. Hearing is usually the last thing that you're consciously, I guess, aware of before you enter the void.
7:27 Speaker 01 And so in, you know, if you look at research in palliative care or someone that may be in even a fully sedated state or under general anesthesia in the operating room, you know, even the providers used to, used to think the, what happens acoustically inside of an operating room, they wouldn't have much of an impact on the well being of the patient. Now we know that is false. So the side effects of the music that you mentioned, if the surgeon has a strong preference for death metal, for example, or very activating hip hop, right, where you have 160 beats per minute, that's way above the, the rate of the human resting heart rate.
8:07 Speaker 01 So in some situations, it's been shown that this type of very activating external stimulus, it can cause arrhythmias and cardiovascular and hemodynamic instabilities in the patients that are under GA, under anesthesia. So that translates to increased need for sedatives. So the anesthesiologists would have to work harder to sedate the patient. They have to put extra propofol. So these, these pharmaceutical interventions will carry side effects. So now going back to your question, when, when we hear not just music, but any sound, right? And so there's usually, it depends on, you know, again, the time of the day.
8:51 Speaker 01 So circadian rhythm plays also a critical role in how we receive external stimulus. So a first preference plays, so the brain does decide. In the critical judgment center, right? Do I like this? Do I not like this? And also depends on your mood. If you're in open-minded configuration. And you know, the music, whether it's novel versus familiar. If it has a temper that you may be familiar with versus something that's, you know, a piece by John Cage that has a lot of discord and harmonies.
9:31 Speaker 01 So all these different elements in the music itself can play a critical role in where or which of the networks are activated. So you may be familiar with the default, the salience and executive networks, right? Let's say we are, you know, you may be overstimulated at the end of a workday. So in those situations, exposure to nature, nature sound, ocean waves, they have been shown to, to let your body and let your neural systems go into the default network, which is, if you imagine you've had gone long hikes or even, you know, if you're driving and
10:13 Speaker 01 you may be in a more open state when there's no traffic. Some of us may have had the best epiphanies when your brain is in that default state. And then your salience network decides, it kind of modulates. It's like a traffic cop. So do I go into this default state and, or do I go into this more vigilant executive state where you have to assign different tasks?
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11:40 André Duqum? I'm really curious, I mean, there's a whole philosophical side of things we can open up, which I'm sure we'll touch on, but when you look at, okay, the auditory system is developed in the third trimester and mothers report back the finding that they play calming music and it's calming for the baby, also dogs, right? Play some classical piano music. I know when I've had dogs in the past freak out, like it really helps calm them down. We're, we're human beings, we're also animals and we have this limbic system and I'm curious, is there a reason specifically, maybe mathematically speaking, physics speaking, why like a minor third interval feels universally more sad to folks?
12:23 André Duqum? Why, why these different, yeah, it seems to be pervasive and just a part of the way the universe structured and vibration works.
12:32 Speaker 01 That's a really, really great question. And even as a professional musician, I had to think about it for a second. So I know from the scientific side, then, maybe I'll start from the musical side. So the, the minor third, which is a half, half a step, a semitone lower than a major third, so it mimics almost a human sigh.
12:55 André Duqum? So minor third interval, you're saying it mimics the kind of like sighing, releasing, which feels a bit more sad or releasing versus a major third?
13:05 Speaker 01 It's this type of more eyebrow raising relation. It depends, of course, on the articulation, the timbre of the music.
13:14 André Duqum? Yeah, it's, I guess it's still a bit of an unanswerable question, why? Why certain things feel the way they do, right?
13:23 Speaker 01 That's, yeah, so we did set out to, at least we tried to capture preference, on the preference side, or on the perceived relaxation side. Do participants feel, whether minor or major, may be more relaxing? Because a decade ago, in the music therapy literature, it was believed that it's better to play music in more positive imagers for people that are in pain, or for a teenager suffering from some mental illness, depression. But now we know that is not true. And so the data from our study actually showed it was almost a 50/50 split between, so in self-reported relaxation,
14:05 Speaker 01 whether we played exactly the same piece of music modulated to major or modulated to minor. So it was a very, very even split. So there's no clear distinction between which of the two tonalities may be superior, inducing a positive emotional state. But now we know for a minor-toned music that may feel sadder, they're actually more effective if we're targeting someone that may be severely depressed or in a very traumatized state. Because that's actually closer to their natural state, so to speak. If we have a patient that's already very agitated or already very, very upset, you try to play cheerful music for them. It's a feeling of being completely misunderstood.
14:50 Speaker 01 And then they sever that connection. They don't want any of it. But...
14:55 André Duqum? Why don't we just, you want to show it?
14:57 Speaker 01 I can show a little bit, yeah, the major/major. It can be more effective than...
15:01 André Duqum? Sure, we just keep talking around it, so let's just do it. Okay, so we were just talking about the difference between a minor third and a major third interval, and why they universally feel the way they do. So you can show us that example, so we can hear it and feel it, rather than...
15:14 Speaker 01 Of course, yes. So this was one of the excerpts that was used in the study, where we isolated tonality as a variable to see if there is an innate preference for major versus minor.
15:44 Speaker 01 Now?
16:00 Speaker 01 So while the minor keys may make you feel a little bit more introspective, perhaps, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Because I mentioned earlier, in patients that may be already prone to rumination, or they may be feeling anxious and depressed. Something that's a little bit on the... Or the more pensive side have been found to feel more closer alignment to their existing emotional state.
16:30 André Duqum? When you're sad, you want to listen to sad music. It feels good.
16:33 Speaker 01 And then gradually, so through the progression of our music intervention over 30-minute period, we can gradually take them up through the emotional arc to something a little more uplifting.
16:45 André Duqum? Meet them where they are.
16:46 Speaker 01 That's right. But then coax them in a way.
16:48 André Duqum? Yeah.
16:49 Speaker 01 And lift them up into... So the progression may look like this, right? So we start with...
17:04 Speaker 01 This is actually one of the PISA's use in the clinical trial. And then we may modulate to something with a little bit more movement, but still in minor. So...
17:34 Speaker 01 And the piece by itself, already compositionally, it goes into slightly
17:42 Speaker 01 sunnier harmony. So it's a very subtle way to coax someone that may be in a
17:51 Speaker 01 depressive state. And it's in a very gentle way. We help lift them up. And then gradually, the music will become more positive. So we may modulate to something.
18:30 Speaker 01 And then adding a little more movement.
18:43 Speaker 01 So we introduce a little bit of, you know, a new variable each time. So not to overwhelm the system. That's still a long way from other type of very activating music that I avoid using completely in these studies. Give you an example. This kind of music is way too activating and it may cause me to lose my job if I play it in the intraoperative setting in the operating room. For example.
19:29 Speaker 01 So this may send your body into a fight or flight system. Have you never heard of this?
19:34 André Duqum? It could be great for a workout.
19:36 Speaker 01 It could be, yes. And or anything with a strong rhythmic drive. This type of music, whether it's hip hop or whether it's... It can increase your blood oxygen level by up to 7%.
20:02 Speaker 01 You feel a little bit of adrenaline rush as well?
20:05 André Duqum? Yeah, this is, yeah.
20:07 Speaker 01 And it's different. Your response will be very different if this is your very first time.
20:11 André Duqum? Yeah.
20:11 Speaker 01 Getting exposed to this. And then in this case, we found through the EEG study, your occipital region gets very activated. So if you think back to the hunter-gatherer days, right? Your occipital region, your vision is... It needs to be very active if you're hunting the forest, right? If you spot a tiger, you know, if you spot or spot a deer that you can hunt. So we noticed that this type of novel stimulus, especially if it's very activating, it triggers the occipital area and also the frontal, where you're trying to make a critical judgment. Do I like this or do I hate it? The classical music genre is particularly challenging
20:54 Speaker 01 if we're trying to harness different pieces for... to be integrated for a clinical study. Then the major reason is the sheer complexity and really the infinite choices that's in this repertoire. Everything from Baroque to to modern, right? So unless if you you really have that knowledge when we are selecting the music, it's very important to know compositionally what happens. Because if you have a very calming, a very calming piece that starts very slow, a minute and a half into the piece, we can have a very explosive climax. So if we were using that in a critical care setting, that will translate to elevated blood pressure and so not what we want to achieve.
21:37 Speaker 01 So we have everything from love and rapture and...
21:59 Speaker 01 To triumph, feeling very victorious and uplifting.
22:20 Speaker 01 Now, the same composer also writes something that could be used as a sedative. And this is one of the pieces that's used in one of the trials.
22:56 Speaker 01 So a piece like this would work for pain, work for...
23:00 André Duqum? Lullaby kind of?
23:01 Speaker 01 Lullaby, yes, it can work.
23:03 André Duqum? Could I name a couple of emotions and try to play it?
23:06 Speaker 01 That's great, yeah, I love that.
23:07 André Duqum? Because I find it so fascinating that, again, various different pieces universally evoke certain feelings states within us human beings. Like, what about frustration?
23:20 Speaker 01 Oh, that's a great question. Let me think.
23:27 Speaker 01 In a more suppressed way or like stuck?
23:32 André Duqum? Stuck, frustrated.
23:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay, that's a hard one. That's a really hard one.
23:37 André Duqum? I'm trying to give you a couple harder ones.
23:38 Speaker 01 Okay.
23:41 Speaker 01 Then there's a little bit of release, okay? So we have a moment of stuck frustration, then there's a release, so...
24:08 Speaker 01 So this is like a thirty minute long piece.
24:16 André Duqum? Yeah, I'm pissed off.
24:19 André Duqum? Okay, what about nostalgia?
24:21 Speaker 01 Oh, I love this.
24:46 Speaker 01 What do you think?
24:48 André Duqum? Yeah, I feel that.
24:48 Speaker 01 You feel that?
24:50 André Duqum? What about something pure and honest?
24:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, so we go to Mozart a lot and some Chopin.
24:58 André Duqum? Yeah.
25:24 Speaker 01 It's very uplifting. It's like a little glass of champagne.
25:28 André Duqum? That's a good note to go back in the podcast.
25:31 Speaker 01 As you can tell, I'm so much more natural at the piano than in talking.
25:35 André Duqum? I mean, you're great at both, but I prefer music over English any day.
25:42 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
25:44 Speaker 01 Well, you can express yourself that way. You're so thankful to have to. It's not as direct, you know?
25:51 André Duqum? Yeah.
25:51 Speaker 01 Especially because of my childhood, I didn't talk about earlier.
25:54 André Duqum? Yeah.
25:54 Speaker 01 I know, practice six, seven, eight hours a day. That was my medium of communication, you know? So it's just so much more natural.
26:02 André Duqum? Yeah, I'm just curious your thoughts on that.
26:04 Speaker 01 So I think for me, this is because of my personal journey. You know, in my developmental years, I spent a lot longer at the piano during my awake hours than away from it. And now we know music engages every critical area in your brain, more so than any other human endeavor. So they have compared. Elite sportsmanship or playing chess, surgeons operating, but playing music really triggers activation, especially performing live music, triggers activation every part of the brain. So in my, in my childhood, instead of having playdates with my neighbors,
26:47 Speaker 01 which my kids get to do every day, I was at the piano practicing five to seven hours every day. And, um, and even now as an adult as well, I find that's the most direct and visceral connection. And whether it's through, you know, when I rehearse with other musicians, I also find it, you know, if we play first,
27:12 André Duqum? Yeah.
27:12 Speaker 01 there is a natural connection. And that, when that's built, and it's much easier to converse.
27:17 André Duqum? Yeah.
27:18 Speaker 01 Um, in, in a robot way.
27:20 André Duqum? I mean, I feel like communicating the most effectively when I have like a few musician friends over and we're jamming. And it's just, it's just like a universal language.
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28:17 André Duqum? So basically, it's good stuff. I use it because I care about what's happening under the surface, not just on top of it. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code KNOWTHEYSELF at oneskin.co/nothyself. That's oneskin.co/nothyself. After your purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them and you can let them know we sent you. Link down in the description. I hope you enjoy. So yeah, so when music enters the brain, you have this chart here, I'll just pass it over to you.
28:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's okay.
28:48 André Duqum? But you know it by heart.
28:49 Speaker 01 Yes, this chart basically means what are the uses, the applications of music medicine in a clinical context? What music has been used for as a narcotic? To modulate pain?
29:02 André Duqum? So different types of music could be obviously a sleep aid, a painkiller, a brain stimulator.
29:07 Speaker 01 That's right.
29:08 André Duqum? Boost your exercise, anti-inflammatory, antidepressant, mood enhancer, stress modulator, baby whisper, aphrodisiac.
29:18 Speaker 01 That's right. So it's very context dependent and very goal oriented, right? Whether the goal is for, if you were to use it for seduction in a romantic context.
29:29 André Duqum? Yeah.
29:29 Speaker 01 Because now we know the, especially for females, for women, we are very, we're more acoustically triggered than male. Male is more visually, we're more visual, male are more visual animals. But going back on more on the clinical side, music has been harnessed and that's what a lot of my research does as well as a powerful way to modulate the human stress response, to decrease pain, both on a physiological level and also in pain perception as well. And of course, in modulating the release of stress hormones like cytokines, interleukin-6, for example, and even our inflammation response. So the data from our newest clinical trial,
30:14 Speaker 01 that's in 132 neurosurgical cancer patients, we're seeing a very pronounced decrease in the plasma level, so detected in the blood before and after. So we took two blood draws in these surgical patients the morning of their brain surgery. And we found actually a very beautiful 32% reduction in serum level cortisol. So that is very powerful if you compare it to the effect size of an FDA-approved pharmaceutical drug. That's, do you happen to know what the range would be?
30:53 André Duqum? For a typical?
30:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, a pharmacological drug.
30:56 André Duqum? Like an SSRI?
30:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, or for pain, or for blood pressure.
31:02 André Duqum? I think when including the placebo.
31:06 André Duqum? It's higher than thirty two percent, yeah? Or no?
31:08 Speaker 01 Uh, no, sometimes we get twenty percent, even fifteen to twenty percent.
31:13 André Duqum? Okay. So then could you prescribe music?
31:16 Speaker 01 That's absolutely, yes.
31:17 André Duqum? Amazing.
31:17 Speaker 01 And without, the best part, it's easy to implement without known side effects.
31:24 André Duqum? Yeah.
31:25 Speaker 01 So some of these drugs could have very, very severe, like the one for Alzheimer's that came out about eighteen months ago. So it doesn't cause brain bleeds.
31:34 André Duqum? Some of them are gnarly. It's like, we've all seen those ads on television, which is a whole can of worms in itself, that it's legal to do that. But the side effects of taking this medicine are blindness, death, puking.
31:47 Speaker 01 So music is a natural narcotic. And my research is trying to see, because music is so heterogeneous.
31:55 André Duqum? Yeah.
31:56 Speaker 01 You heard the single piece I performed for you, right?
31:59 André Duqum? Just a quick note on that, we're gonna splice it in later in this conversation. You guys are gonna hear a piece that May played, and almost brought me to tears. It was so beautiful, I'm excited for you guys to see it. And she also put a EEG cap to see what's actually happening in my brain while she's playing. But to go back to thirty two percent reduction, this is a different study than the sixteen compositional elements?
32:21 Speaker 01 That was a study designed to validate. So we isolated these individual parameters in music. You may be familiar with tempo, some of the more basic elements that were in prior literature.
32:33 André Duqum? Yeah.
32:34 Speaker 01 But my team went above and beyond. So we really tried to quantify all of these additional variables. Temper, interpretation, or flexibility, rubato in the music. So rubato is a very unique feature for music. It's related to rhythm. And so if we think of heart rate variability, right, which is a critical indicator of your wellness, you know, before and during the pandemic, before someone was about to get sick, in the forty eight hour window prior to that, you would notice a significant drop, up to forty percent sometimes in HRV. So if you think of rubato-
33:11 André Duqum? Which heart rate variability is like the variance in between, space between your heartbeat?
33:16 Speaker 01 That's right. So the more flexible.
33:18 André Duqum? More resilient.
33:18 Speaker 01 The more resilient, exactly. So if, I can demo later.
33:23 André Duqum? Yeah.
33:23 Speaker 01 But in in musical performance, you know, if we have a MIDI file, something that's computer generated or AI generated, you lose that flexibility or you lose the variance completely.
33:34 André Duqum? That's really interesting. I would be curious if you ran the same trial with AI-generated music and see what the percentage in reduction of the cortisol that you're picking up in the plasma would be. Because I definitely can feel it, like AI is fundamentally predictable, like trained off large models and the internet of what's the essentially the average. And so it doesn't leave space for that humanity and that imperfection that really connects with people. What music were you playing in the study with the thirty-two percent reduction in stress?
34:06 Speaker 01 So it's a combination of, it's a playlist I had sent you. But just going back to what you were saying about the, you want a little bit of a surprise to keep the brain trained. So what's effective or what's magical about some of these classical compositions we use is it's a perfect mix of familiarity. You know, you do hear the theme return. So it brings that sense of comfort, even if you don't know the piece, right? Usually within that the frame, the structure, if whether you have a simple binary or ternary structure, you have the re-encounter of the theme, which brings the familiarity. But then every time it comes back, especially if it's a variation form, a little bit of novelty,
34:52 Speaker 01 variations are introduced. You may, Mozart may add a little trail or a little cadenza here and there. So our brain likes these little teases and that translates to elevated dopamine surges. If you play something that's very monotonous and completely predictable, it becomes, it can almost cause anxiety, especially if it's in a repetitive loop. We all have so sound machines, right? You can hear the same bird again, two minutes and thirty seconds in. So the difference between, let's say, in these environments, we put.
35:32 Speaker 01 Something from a country music track. First of all, lyrics could be very emotionally triggering and potentially in a negative way, especially if there is a memory trigger that may be traumatic. So we usually avoid using vocal music in these more critical care settings. But also, the length of a typical song, right, that's in other genres, they're usually two to three minutes on average. But we could carve out these slightly longer narratives with the classical music that we use. So again, to avoid repetition, but also to have that familiarity.
36:12 Speaker 01 And on the familiarity and comfort front, another element of the data we found to be very exciting is there was a 28% increase in the levels of oxytocin also detected in the blood using proteomics, metabolomics. So if you're familiar with oxytocin, with the neurotransmitter, it's a bonding
36:36 André Duqum? Yeah.
36:36 Speaker 01 hormone, and it's usually secreted when you feel really a sense of comfort. So it's a very hard environment if you think of the preoperative setting, and they're about to have the patients about to have their brains operated on. So it's a very high agitation state. So to be able to see that increase signals that the music was really able to help calm the system and bring them into, activate the parasympathetic nervous system and deactivate the sympathetic nervous system.
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38:09 André Duqum? What's the difference if you take the same melodic structure, play it through a cello, through a violin, someone sings it, you play it on piano? What's the difference in terms of the impact on biology?
38:21 Speaker 01 That's a great question, and it is a question we have addressed in the Composition Element Study. So we had the exact same piece, and we chose the Rachmaninoff Vocalis. It's a very beautiful melodic work. So we had maybe seven or eight different versions, exactly as you described. Also, we have vocal, soprano and alto, we have different singers, and our French horn, so on a multitude of instruments. And then when the participants were asked, so it's still the same, exactly same piece of music, played at the same tempo, so we preserve all these other variables and isolating the single variable, which is essentially timbre, right? Or instrumentation.
39:02 Speaker 01 So that's when we found the cello and the middle range of the piano, middle lower range of the piano, which, you know, if you look at the vibrational frequencies, they align to the natural range of a mother's soothing voice. So those were perceived and selected in the responses to be most relaxing in the over 300 participants.
39:27 André Duqum? That makes sense, especially for, I mean, in the yogic traditions too, any chanting or mantras and the using of your own voice to create that sort of...
39:38 Speaker 01 Vibration.
39:38 André Duqum? Yeah, that vibration that's soothing. And then, so the higher ones were activating?
39:44 Speaker 01 The higher ones, while, you know, if the purpose is not... So I'm talking about relaxation right now.
39:49 André Duqum? Yeah.
39:50 Speaker 01 Where the clinical aim is to downregulate the stress response, right? So we don't, we are trying to avoid music that may be overly stimulating and very intense. You know, if you think of the vibrato, the very intense vibrato in the upper register of a violin or the sound of a piccolo, it could be overly emotionally invasive. And also the human voice as well, especially if you may not, you know, when words are introduced, the brain mechanisms are completely different. And it's also more exerting and taxing, which means less relaxing for the brain to accept and process all that stimuli. So instrumental music is a little bit now more non-invasive.
40:35 André Duqum? Yeah. Is that why you choose it? Because you, you've done studies with open brain, during open brain surgery, playing.
40:43 Speaker 01 It's a new trial during awake craniotomy. We're trying to measure the effects simultaneously.
40:50 André Duqum? Both with the surgeon and patient?
40:52 Speaker 01 On the surgeon, on the patient.
40:53 André Duqum? Fascinating.
40:53 Speaker 01 So to my knowledge, it's the very first study of its kind when trying to capture, again, quantitatively, what the acoustic environment, how important it could be. Because we don't know, maybe people have looked at the effects separately, but not in the same setting.
41:09 André Duqum? If someone is sedated or even asleep, let's say they're in an environment that is completely silent versus something that's playing some of those lower resonant tones. I know, I mean, right now on YouTube, there are so many sleep tracks and solfeggio tones and different frequencies that people feel like they sleep better or stays deeper in their sleep. I know it's early in the findings of the studies, but for those that are actually under surgery, I'm curious, like, are you, what, can you share anything about what you're finding?
41:41 Speaker 01 The control group is now receiving standard of care. So that could be, you know, they could be even in the unconscious state, they could be receiving communications, which sometimes could be stressful, you know, if you hear a nurse talking about your case. Blood pressure is spiking and push more of this.
41:59 André Duqum? Because you're subconsciously picking it up.
42:00 Speaker 01 You're still picking it up and now if we dilute that, that potentially stressful stimulus with something that's been shown, it's been demonstrated to be relaxing on a physiological level, at least help mask it. And the music we choose, usually there's a little bit of a narrative, so it can help transport the system, the brain into, you know, if you want to call it a meditative state. And it provides a healthy escape.
42:31 André Duqum? Yeah.
42:31 Speaker 01 And so you don't have to be a classical musician. You don't need to know what the dominant chord is. That was one of the really illuminating part of the research. The largest impact, actually, we, in the data set, right, we look at associations, correlations between demographic variables, like level of education, gender, cultural background, prior exposure to different types of music preference. So we found that in those participants, they may have never ever attended a classical concert before. So they're not familiar with with this genre of chamber music. They don't know who Beethoven or Brahms are, but they actually report the highest level of anxiety stress reduction, which is very interesting.
43:16 Speaker 01 And females benefit a bit more. So there is a little bit of a gender difference. You know, females in waiting areas, they're more prone to elevated levels of anxiety. So, and going back to, remember when I said females a little bit more primed acoustically versus visually for male?
43:36 André Duqum? There is, I'm gonna try to remember, I mean, it's a completely side tangent, but I saw someone share something on Instagram that kind of resonates with that because men fall in love with what they see and women fall in love with what they hear, which is why men lie and women wear makeup or something.
43:53 Speaker 01 I have, I have, yeah, that's right. So I tell my friends, right, especially those that are not in this area, instead of spending, you know, $250 on a bottle of cologne, although the smell, the sense of smell is, olfactory senses are very important, you really should cultivate a very mindful acoustic environment or soundscape, you know, if you have your.
44:15 Speaker 01 Love interest over.
44:17 André Duqum? Getting the tips.
44:18 Speaker 01 You get all these powerful cocktail of neurotransmitter releases.
44:22 André Duqum? Yeah.
44:23 Speaker 01 You don't have to buy even buy a cup of coffee to or alcoholic drink.
44:27 André Duqum? Yeah.
44:27 Speaker 01 To do that.
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45:28 André Duqum? We can be subconsciously lowering their CRP and boosting their endorphins. So fascinating. One aspect I might have referred to earlier before we were recording is sci-matics. So this whole field of sound made visible to me is super intriguing because it talks about. And it explains and shows visibly how. Sound has a mathematical geometric, physical component that you can actually see when you put sound and vibrate it on a plate. And it takes certain shapes. I just think this whole field of sound and music as medicine. We're just at the infancy of really discovering the power that it can have.
46:10 André Duqum? So I wanted to just show you this quick like and we'll throw it on screen like a. 25 second little clip showing the sci-matics. So just hold that and then click play.
46:43 Speaker 01 Wow, that's beautiful.
46:46 André Duqum? It's very fascinating that like, we just don't know a whole lot.
46:51 Speaker 01 And the geometric, and they are all very symmetric, right?
46:53 André Duqum? Right.
46:54 Speaker 01 As you look at the patterns, that reminds me, if you look at a cello string, a violin string, all the intonations, all the notes are on a guitar string.
47:03 André Duqum? Yeah.
47:03 Speaker 01 So, and all the frequencies, they have a mathematical ratio. So, this is not my field, by the way.
47:10 André Duqum? Yeah, yeah.
47:11 Speaker 01 So, I don't know how much I want to go into it.
47:13 André Duqum? It's just, it's so fun.
47:15 Speaker 01 It's your passion that I can tell.
47:17 André Duqum? I mean, this is one little interesting aspect, I think, to just bring in here. I just think it's interesting because your brain, obviously, is enveloped in cerebral spinal fluid, and your body is mostly water. And vibration forms these lattices, you know, what you see in these geometric structures. So, when we listen to music, like, what's happening internally into every cell in our body? And how is that corresponding to the neurochemical cascade that's affecting our mood regulation? And all of it, you know, it's so fascinating.
47:51 Speaker 01 That taps into the more visceral impact, yeah, of music. That's why instruments like the cello, right? If you talk to a cellist, they'll tell you the, you know, the direct vibration of the cello or of your instruments over here.
48:03 André Duqum? Yeah.
48:04 Speaker 01 They can send that physical contact. And we pianists don't have that luxury. It's still very tactile, you know, we make contact with the keys, but we don't really feel the core of the vibrations of the whole instrument.
48:18 André Duqum? This kind of goes into a whole field where, like, ancestrally, like, all these various indigenous communities across the world use various different instruments for healing, for medicinal purposes, for communal purposes, from drumming to various different string instruments. And...
48:38 André Duqum? I think it's very much so a lost art. What you're speaking to in the modern day, like the shamans would have been the highest kind of people on top of different cultures and societies. Today it's scientists, right? We speak the language of science in the stay in age.
48:51 Speaker 01 But the healing was from the very beginning of time. The root of music therapy or music medicine could be traced back to 4,000 B.C. And then later on, Aristotle, Plato, they all wrote about music in a healing context. So it's nothing new. And then, if you look at before World War I, World War II, there was kind of a disconnect with the westernization. So now we have these expert musicians, right? And then you have the non-musicians. If you think of everything from Renaissance to the Romantic period, your 19th century, 18th century, a lot of the performances, they happen in social settings. So amateurs played all the time.
49:32 Speaker 01 So it's not like you have a disconnect within that spectrum, right? Where you have the elite professionals, and then you have these people that don't know what they're doing at all. So it was more similar to sports, unlike basketball. Everyone is willing to get into a game, right? You don't have to be an expert athlete.
49:52 André Duqum? I think, I mean, I'm curious to get your perspective on the difference from somebody who listens to music versus plays it. I strongly encourage everyone who's listening that doesn't play an instrument to pick up something and to start, even if it doesn't come naturally to you. There's a lot of interesting instruments that are way easier to play that are just one scale, from different handpans to, you know.
50:11 Speaker 01 Handpans are wonderful. And again, on the vibration side, it's very healing. And then a lot of people familiar with sound healing, sound therapy.
50:20 André Duqum? Even like, you want to pass me this guy?
50:22 Speaker 01 So I remember, ah, one of my favorite childhood memories. So my mom is Buddhist, and I went to lots of different temples growing up. We would go at least twice a month. So the one of the temples that were near my house in Shanghai, it had a huge gong, you know, there was um, it also had the bell that that drapes down with this giant rope.
50:45 André Duqum? Yeah.
50:45 Speaker 01 So I remember just wanting to, so you get to only strike it once. Everybody is standing in line and then I wanted to be near it. Does you feel that just impact of the waves in the air?
50:57 André Duqum? Yeah, I know. This is a perfect example of that.
50:59 Speaker 01 It reminded me of that.
51:01 André Duqum? This is like a wave chime. Um, it just C and G, but I will see how good the mics pick it up. But it's a perfect example too of you can feel what's happening in your body, especially in person when you listen to this. But it's a super interesting sound.
51:42 André Duqum? Similarly with those tuning forks. So now now we're getting into the.
51:45 Speaker 01 You can artificially induce these crescendos and diminuendos just by the directionality of the.
51:51 André Duqum? And you feel it here. Actually, you wanna you wanna try it? You wanna see how it feels in your hand when you move it? Cause it's actually really like uh.
51:58 Speaker 01 And you know, in in some the the chakras, right? If you have, I won't go into that event. Okay, so which one is the C? Probably this is.
52:15 André Duqum? And then when you move it, you can feel like the.
52:17 Speaker 01 Oh.
52:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, she got a little closer.
52:29 André Duqum? We're becoming sound dealers. No, it's, it's, it's, these tools are super fun to play with. Even if you could toss me these tuning forks. I mean, you see these things in.
52:38 Speaker 01 You're hearing me now.
52:39 André Duqum? Yeah. Hey, as you give, so, so you shall receive.
52:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's.
52:45 André Duqum? I wonder if the mics will, will pick these up too. But I just find it so interesting.
52:52 André Duqum? You can obviously place these on different parts of your body and.
52:57 Speaker 01 Does, do each one of these correspond to a different chakra?
53:01 André Duqum? I, they, I think so. I mean, let's see, there are seven, so they must, you know? I think they, they, they correspond to different parts of the body.
53:10 André Duqum? Like, you know, different sound healers and shamans would use different.
53:18 Speaker 01 I feel in my finger a vibration, but you don't.
53:21 André Duqum? Yeah, if you smack it hard and then put it really close.
53:24 Speaker 01 I have a perfect, I have perfect pitch, so I should be able to tell them.
53:29 Speaker 01 G flat.
53:30 André Duqum? Yeah. Wow, so you have perfect pitch.
53:33 Speaker 01 It's a curse because I can't listen to a cappella groups. Either go out and tune together.
53:39 André Duqum? Okay, all right. Put, put down the witchy tools for a moment. I'm curious to ask actually about that because I've heard from a few different folks that you can play complex, high information music in utero up to the first six years after birth and actually train perfect pitch. For people that don't know perfect pitch, obviously, like you see red, you know what that looks like, you can hear a middle C and know what that is by.
54:05 Speaker 01 You hear a car horn, you can identify a frequency or a note on the piano.
54:09 André Duqum? Right, after learning what the notes are, then you can correspond. So because you, I'm assuming because you played since you were very young, that's probably why you have.
54:17 Speaker 01 Also tonal language speakers, like Mandarin speakers are, have a higher probability of developing, naturally developing perfect pitch.
54:27 André Duqum? Interesting.
54:27 Speaker 01 As well. So when I was a year old, I actually was one of. I was involved in one of the perfect pitch studies in the Coxai lab. And there are different levels of perfect pitch. There are people that can tell between 440 and 442. So depending on how close you can get to, I think it's a very small fraction of the population that are really these absolute perfect pitch folks.
54:50 André Duqum? So if I went and played a couple of polychords or different things, would you be able to? Would you be able to pick out the different notes? Really?
54:57 Speaker 01 Yes, go ahead.
54:57 André Duqum? Okay, I have to go do this now.
55:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:01 André Duqum? Wow, alright.
55:03 Speaker 01 Now I feel silly, because this is like a little party trick, you know?
55:06 André Duqum? No, but it's great.
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56:25 André Duqum? Alright, so I won't go too crazy. I'm just curious. So obviously.
56:31 Speaker 01 Oh, C.
56:36 Speaker 01 F#? C# E?
56:40 Speaker 01 Oh, F# AE.
56:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:48 Speaker 01 That's like a pentatonic scale, almost.
56:50 André Duqum? Yeah.
56:55 André Duqum? What about?
56:58 Speaker 01 Uh, the bass is an F sharp.
56:59 André Duqum? Uh huh.
57:00 Speaker 01 The top is an A.
57:03 Speaker 01 And then A, C sharp, E, A, that's just an A major chord, G sharp.
57:15 Speaker 01 Am I passing? Oh, that's a bit from B. The top, the top is still the same. We have a D and E. So B, D, E, A.
57:28 Speaker 01 How's that?
57:29 André Duqum? Yeah, it was good.
57:30 Speaker 01 Okay. Low, oh. Wow, we have some augmented. That's a low E.
57:38 Speaker 01 D. F. G sharp or C sharp? E?
57:46 André Duqum? Wow.
57:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:47 André Duqum? So fascinating.
57:50 Speaker 01 Oh, E flat?
57:59 Speaker 01 We have validated.
58:01 André Duqum? She's proved herself.
58:02 Speaker 01 I have proven myself.
58:05 André Duqum? So fun. It's like a little, it's like a little test at school.
58:08 Speaker 01 I haven't done it in like nine decades.
58:10 André Duqum? You passed the test.
58:11 Speaker 01 I haven't been tested.
58:12 André Duqum? I'm jelly.
58:13 Speaker 01 It's like a party trick.
58:14 André Duqum? It's, it's very hard to be able to train that later in life, right? Relative pitch.
58:17 Speaker 01 Later in life, yes.
58:18 André Duqum? Relative pitch would be more useful for most musicians, but perfect pitch.
58:22 Speaker 01 But, but I mentioned it's earlier. It's very hard for me to listen to a cappella groups that they all go on a tune together. It's very torturous.
58:31 André Duqum? Yeah.
58:32 Speaker 01 So.
58:33 André Duqum? Getting back to the whole brain situation. Now, we've, we've explored a couple of different tangents. When we hear a lot about like left brain, right brain stuff these days. And you, you share how music is one of the most powerful ways to be able to have a whole brain activity and actually strengthen the connective tissue in the corpus callosum between the two. Why is that, why does that matter? Why is that important? And how does it differ, listening versus playing?
59:00 Speaker 01 So first I'll just describe a little bit of the functional and structural differences in a musician versus non-musician's brain. Of course, there are different levels of musicianship, right? Whether you have an amateur or.
59:13 André Duqum? Yeah, there's me and there's you.
59:16 Speaker 01 Well, the benefits are immense as well, even if you're not a professional. So pianist's brains are, for example, differently. They're different from violinist's brain. And you could probably guess which brain is more symmetric, pianist's brain or violinist's brain?
59:33 André Duqum? Pianist.
59:34 Speaker 01 And why is that?
59:35 André Duqum? I mean, you're using both hands, not that you don't on violin as well. But there is a, you're playing notes with both hands.
59:48 Speaker 01 The tasks are more similar, the demands are more similar on a muscular level. And for violinist, would you venture to guess which hemisphere is larger?
1:00:00 André Duqum? I would say for most, because most violinists are, what, right-handed with the bow?
1:00:06 Speaker 01 And then?
1:00:06 André Duqum? So I would say their right hemisphere is probably more active because they're playing with their left hand.
1:00:10 Speaker 01 That's right, exactly. So that's sometimes up to, you know, the gray matter volume, up to thirty percent larger in the in the motor regions. And so that's a tremendous difference. But pianist's brains are structurally very, very symmetric. So if I were, someone were to perform an autopsy on my brain, they would be able to tell, without having any background information, that I was a musician before I died. And that's the only type of brain where they could differentiate. And if you look at any type of profession, that's the only type of profession.
1:00:47 André Duqum? And what is that, how does that correlate to the rest of your life?
1:00:50 Speaker 01 Right, so if we're looking at, on the neuroplasticity side and also on the neuroprotective side, if you had, there was a longitudinal study in twins, so pairs of twins. They looked at the effect size of, you know, over, I think, three to four years of instrumental music training and how decades later it could help your brain and protect it against neurodegeneration and cognitive decline, so Alzheimer's, dementia. So the effect size was, actually, before I review it, do you want to take a guess?
1:01:25 André Duqum? Maybe sixty percent?
1:01:29 Speaker 01 Sixty four percent.
1:01:29 André Duqum? Is that right? Let's go. Okay, I got lucky.
1:01:33 Speaker 01 Doesn't that blow your mind?
1:01:34 André Duqum? That's insane though. That's huge, yeah.
1:01:36 Speaker 01 And if you look at, there's nothing, there's really no other, no activity that could have that type of tremendous enhancement and protection against aging, right? If you look at, so because it protects the brain in a multitude of different ways. So music could be anti-inflammatory. We already know through stress regulation and even music listening over after just three to five minutes, it can enhance a variable called global brain efficiency. So basically, it's, it brings oxygenated blood flow to all these critical regions in your brain that may be associated with memory retrieval, communication, emotional regulation, executive decisions. So it's like a whole symphony, right?
1:02:19 Speaker 01 So the music or musical stimuli, they help coordinate the communication among all the different disparate regions in your brain that may not otherwise work together. So we found in our EEG data that the GBE, the global brain efficiency can increase for one hundred seventy five percent, meaning the communication gets faster and more efficient after just listening to music and during our live in hospital concerts.
1:02:45 André Duqum? So how does that correspond with cultivating empathy as well?
1:02:48 Speaker 01 Yes, so empathy is one of the regions that's, and also mentioned earlier in the surgeon's study, right? That's, so going back on a humanistic level, music making and music listening help unify us under one roof, you know, people from very different cultural, religious, socioeconomic backgrounds. We don't have to have any other common interests or even common language.
1:03:14 André Duqum? We've all felt this, whoever's gone to live music or performance, the whole audience can melt into one thing, right? That's empathy.
1:03:21 Speaker 01 Literally, our, you know, our cardiovascular, our neuro rhythms mechanisms, they start to align after a few seconds, two minutes of exposure. So, and that we can now, we can be able to visualize that in real time in some of my studies because we actually project the data. On the screen, where we have a diet or triad of volunteer, mostly non-musician participants, it could be surgeons or cancer patients. And then we see that their brains actually start to synchronize. And while exposed to music, they don't have to be familiar or have to have a prior preference for the music. But there's something very inherently impactful and human about the music.
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1:05:02 André Duqum? So earlier, you did a performance. I did also a performance. I basically just put on a helmet. But you put on this EEG cap on me and you played a really beautiful piece, which I want to cut to now to show. And then we can come back and talk about what actually happened in my brain as you played that piece. It was very beautiful and I really appreciate it. So special to be able to do this as a job. Like, it's really meaningful.
1:05:27 Speaker 01 Front stage seat.
1:05:27 André Duqum? Yeah. So yeah, let's cut to that now and we'll show what
1:05:32 Speaker 01 Sounds good.
1:05:32 André Duqum? the unitive brain experience looks like in real time. Then we'll talk about it.
1:05:36 Speaker 01 Sounds good.
1:05:39 André Duqum? All right, so May, I'm now gonna be your guinea pig.
1:05:43 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:05:44 André Duqum? I'm your, I'm now your research patient. What are you gonna put on me? What is this thing?
1:05:49 Speaker 01 So I bought a portable piece of equipment from my lab at MD Anderson. This is a dry electrode wireless EEG cap. So electroencephalography, which measures your brain activity using these electrodes that make contact with your scalp. And additionally, this state of the art technology is really amazing because it allows us to measure your cardiovascular activity as well.
1:06:19 André Duqum? All right, doc, hook me up. The things I do for this podcast. So all these electrodes that you're tightening to make contact with my scalp is essentially you're gonna be picking up the different
1:06:32 Speaker 01 Signals.
1:06:33 André Duqum? Yeah, like electrical signals from my brain to determine what brainwave states I'm at or where they're changing, contrasting to as you play the piece on piano.
1:06:42 Speaker 01 Right, so we can capture both region-specific changes. If you're a musician and you're improvising, usually the patterns emerge from the right side of your right hemisphere. They may migrate to the left when it becomes more memorized.
1:06:55 André Duqum? Good, we're about to find out if I'm brain dead, yeah?
1:06:59 André Duqum? Okay, so yeah.
1:07:00 Speaker 01 We are seeing now your live data. And this is, I'm going to pull the screen up where you will see the raw data. And so I mentioned there 20 electrodes are placed on your scalp.
1:07:12 André Duqum? So we'll be able to see the live changes as you're playing what's happening in the contrasting neurologically?
1:07:18 Speaker 01 That's correct. And then I'll ask that you minimize, you don't have to freeze or tense your body.
1:07:23 André Duqum? Yeah.
1:07:23 Speaker 01 But you minimize movement because otherwise we will, some of the changes will be due to
1:07:29 André Duqum? Yeah.
1:07:29 Speaker 01 motion artifacts.
1:07:30 André Duqum? Okay, all righty. Take us away.
1:09:13 André Duqum? ...
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1:23:01 André Duqum? So good. Wow. That's powerful.
1:23:06 André Duqum? So I'm curious for those that listen, that set some time apart from their day to sit down and actually listen and feel the changes that we're going to talk about right now. But what happened? If we pull up the Brain Map right now, what's happening to the different parts of my brain that are lighting up or down-regulating when you play a piece like that as it has different movements?
1:23:25 Speaker 01 Absolutely. So I want to profit that your question by saying there are very different modes of listening, right? We have the type of background listening. You know, if you're dining in a fancy restaurant, you have background music. But then we also have intentional and mindful listening. So to receive the full benefits of a piece like that, where it really has a very clear narrative arc and has a lot of emotional modulations, lots of different mood states. So you have to imagine it's, you know, the demand is similar to watching a movie. So you need to give it at least comparable amount of attention as you would to watching a movie that you set the time to do, rather than just, you know, doing other tasks.
1:24:11 Speaker 01 And so that piece is called "Ballade" in B minor by a romantic composer called Franz Liszt. I chose that because it really demonstrate the full range of mood states and very polarized emotions that the music will invite you to experience through this journey. And it's different from tuning to, I love in my free time, listen to a lot of jazz. And we talked about this before. Also, I love, I have a very eclectic taste in music, whether it's Bill Evans, Billy Eilish, Bob Marley, David Bowie. I love them all.
1:24:55 Speaker 01 But this piece that you heard, it has a really...
1:25:01 Speaker 01 You know, distinct narrative arc. So you may hear, I'm curious, did you hear the theme coming back several times? And there is this angelic element.
1:25:11 André Duqum? Yeah.
1:25:11 Speaker 01 Almost a call from heavens.
1:25:13 André Duqum? And returning back to like the kind of stormy.
1:25:15 Speaker 01 Very stormy, very tumultuous. So through that, you know, your body goes between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve system and also on a neural side, you may shift between the default network, going through semians into the executive network. Maybe some moments you really don't like, or you find it too invasive, which is all very normal. And these reactions will shift as you get familiar. That was your first exposure to the piece, right? And the amount of dopamine, you know, endorphin, all the serotonin surges, they may differ depending on if this is your first time listening or your 10th and 20th time.
1:25:54 Speaker 01 So if going on the neurotransmitter side, if you are familiar with the piece, and if you recall, towards the end, there's that very triumphant climactic section. So if your brain anticipate at the arrival of that section, it could produce a very massive hit of dopamine that may be even comparable, not quite like, you know, that's induced by drugs, but higher than eating your favorite piece of chocolate. So you've heard of the chills, right? The goosebumps you could do.
1:26:24 André Duqum? Yeah, I got chills. I definitely think it was stronger than chocolate. Somewhere between chocolate and MDMA.
1:26:30 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. Wow, that's, oh, I'm so, oh, I'm so happy to hear that. But, but the really cool aspect, I think most people may be surprised to hear is that, you know, your sensitivity to this type of stimulation actually increases over time. So that's when you become more familiar with the music, unless if there is a traumatic memory tied to it. If your, your favorite song by, you know, that the Beatles, that's your breakup, that's a song you used to listen to with an ex, you don't, you don't want to listen to that again. That's different. But let's say you have a healthy relationship with a piece of music or something. And as you cultivate the relationship throughout your lifetime, you become more attached to it.
1:27:12 Speaker 01 And so you fall, you can fall more and more in love with, with same piece of music. So you become more sensitized to it and then your tolerance actually decreases. That's the opposite mechanism for almost every, any other type of experiential stimulation you can get, which is really unique.
1:27:31 André Duqum? I'm curious how you can build that association to help you enter flow state more, because whether it's playing or listening to it, we all seek that state where we have a lack of self-consciousness, where we kind of disappear into our work, into what we're doing. And we've heard and we've experienced in our lives, but great athletes and musicians, I love that scene in the movie Soul where everything disappears and it's just him floating at the piano. And music, for me, is one of the strongest access points into that, outside of just a more formal meditation practice.
1:28:06 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
1:28:07 André Duqum? What's actually happening in that flow state?
1:28:09 Speaker 01 Our EEG data shows we have provider surgeons and they come and become our experimental subjects. So we see an increase in theta brainwaves, which is associated with creativity. So to enter flow state for a musician will be very different. The demands will be very different and the conditions will be very different versus for a listener, right? If you're writing essay, writing a grant, or you're performing surgery and you're putting music on as a background to train your brain to go into flow state. So going back to the surgeon side, let's say they have very heavy mental loading going on, right?
1:28:51 Speaker 01 They may be coming in the middle of a very busy day of having to do two, three surgeries. So the music helps them deactivate from that state and tap more into... What we also have seen is they tap more into areas like the parietal region of the brain, which is with multisensory integration and the insular, right? Which is... Although EEG cannot monitor deeper brain regions like the amygdala, we have done also FMI studies, like the one surgeons, the one I mentioned earlier to you. But for musicians, to enter this experiential fusion state, which is very elusive, but
1:29:36 Speaker 01 it's really incredible when you really lose track of time. So several conditions have to be met. So one is you have to have full command of what you're doing on the technical level. So it becomes mostly muscle, motor memory driven.
1:29:54 Speaker 01 And you almost have to reduce that level of meta-awareness, which actually a lot of, I know through meditation, we try to achieve that where you become hyper-aware of everything.
1:30:06 André Duqum? Metacognition, aware that you're aware.
1:30:09 Speaker 01 Right, so that's actually not a good thing for musicians when we're trying to go into flow state. Because then all the lot of these minute, hyper-technical details become very evident. You notice the way your fingers are moving. Almost like I remember when I was little, you know, learning to write Chinese characters, which could have many, many strokes. If you stop to see the whole character as an image, as a whole, as a totality, and you start to focus on the individual details, you lose track of how to write that character. So that happens during performance. On the other hand, so you want to have complete command of the technical aspect, but then you also want to be in tune with the environment as well.
1:30:52 Speaker 01 So there's a difference between practicing in the practice room, which you could get into flow state, but it's not as wholesome of a flow state as you would get when you have an audience. So that live energy actually helps. It helps me a lot. Some of the best, most memorable moments where I experienced this experiential fusion, which is a form of flow state, was during live concerts in large crowds.
1:31:19 André Duqum? Does that feel like a spiritual experience for you?
1:31:22 Speaker 01 It does, it does. And it's, you really become, as cliché it sounds, you become one with the music and you don't feel the physicality of the music.
1:31:35 André Duqum? Yeah, you're not playing the music as much. The music is sort of playing you.
1:31:39 Speaker 01 And you become an embodiment of the music. Yeah, exactly, of the music self. And some of our audience members also, listeners of these concerts have told us that, you know, they really forget they have, they just came from a chemotherapy appointment. So it's very beautiful how we get to connect and hear their experience.
1:31:59 André Duqum? I wanted to actually read you this quote from Bach.
1:32:02 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. I hope I know this.
1:32:04 André Duqum? Yeah, because he was quite a spiritual human being and, you know, wrote Glory to God solely on all of his transcripts or manuscripts. "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." Have you heard that?
1:32:22 Speaker 01 I have heard of that, yes.
1:32:24 André Duqum? I mean, he's one of the most mathematical composers ever to exist, and he's saying the whole point is spiritual. And whatever people have in terms of spiritual or religious beliefs, it does feel like music in a time where things seemingly increasingly feel divisive and separate is like one of the greatest medicines for us all collectively.
1:32:45 Speaker 01 And human universals.
1:32:47 André Duqum? Yeah.
1:32:48 Speaker 01 So interestingly, a lot of the composers list, Beethoven, they became more religious or religious if they were not, they didn't start off being religious toward the end of their lives.
1:33:01 André Duqum? Yeah. The, another incredible, have you heard of Inayat Khan? He's a Sufi musician and poet. I have a book from him, The Inner Life and the Mysticism of Sound, I'm gonna give you.
1:33:17 André Duqum? So he's an Indian classical musician, became a Sufi teacher, brought Sufism to the West in 1910. And he wrote a lot around music as like a spiritual medicine. And he wrote, "The use of music for spiritual attainment and healing of the soul, which was prevalent in ancient times, is not found to the same extent now. Music has been made a pastime, the means of forgetting instead of realizing God."
1:33:43 Speaker 01 That's right. Oh, that's very beautiful. I'm very fond. And so on the opposite end, you know, music, especially because going back to the environment I work in, right? When I first, if you try to bring a program like this in a large institution, a lot of clinicians or policymakers, they think of music as a pure form of entertainment or just an art form, something aesthetic. But now we know it's so much beyond that.
1:34:15 Speaker 01 And in the healing context, you know, that's music has been healing us for since four thousand B.C. and really since the beginning of humanization. And we know that babies, they remember music they heard in utero. Because so there were an experiment they conducted in infants, right, that I think when they were twelve month old. And they were able to detect or differentiate the pieces, the songs they heard while they were in utero and pay more, show more interest and attention in compared to novel music. So that the memory was there before anything else. So it's really incredible. And in the healing context, also in the in the human connection context as well.
1:35:01 André Duqum? Yeah, there is this, you have this slide also, just to like, really ground it of the, you know,
1:35:08 Speaker 01 The neurotransmitter release.
1:35:10 André Duqum? Right, like what's happening when we're paying real attention to a musical piece versus TikTok, or drug addiction, or your favorite food, what's happening neurologically? We don't have to get too much into the science of it, but I'm curious, what, what is one fundamental shift you wish everyone listening right now made to their relationship to music?
1:35:28 Speaker 01 I think music has been made into, you know, just type of mass consumption, right? It's just one of the many types of stimulations, brain stimulators that we can purchase. So it's very commercialized. And but going back, you know, going back to what you were referencing earlier on the spiritual side, if we really look at the root of music could be, it's really a part of the human universal, and it impacts us so viscerally. And so it should really be perceived as much more than entertainment. So I would advise much more intentional listening. And many of you are being may
1:36:09 Speaker 01 already do that, you know, curating your own playlist based on that may help align with the circadian rhythm, you know, everyone should have a morning playlist and bedtime playlist, depending on your preference. And also for the outcome, right? So we design very different.
1:36:26 Speaker 01 Music programming, if the targeted cohort is dementia versus, you know, stroke recovery or intraoperative or someone that's just having a bad day and need a little pick-me-up. So being very intentional and mindful in selecting your acoustic environment is very, very important.
1:36:50 André Duqum? Well said. I am excited to explore conversations like this more on the podcast. I think it's very helpful and really important work that you're doing. And I know at times felt frustrating where these different aspects of you hadn't yet come together. And now your life's path and purpose, very much so, is in informing people and what you're finding by bringing the two together. And I think it's a great permission slip also for anyone who's listening right now and feels stuck between choosing multiple paths, that you can really trailblaze and carve your own way. So it's really cool that what you're doing, yeah.
1:37:24 Speaker 01 Thank you.
1:37:24 André Duqum? Yeah.
1:37:26 Speaker 01 Big admire of your work as well. And other piece of advice is if you ever feel stuck, you know, music is, for me personally, is movement. And it's a moving meditation. That's why I'm very drawn to a flow type of yoga as well. So it can really help, you know, especially if you gravitate toward rumination. And everybody experiences anxiety to a different extent, right? Because of what's going on in the world right now. So I would say strategically harnessing that, very easy to implement and free resource. You don't really need to spend a lot of money, you know, and go out of your way to curate anything special,
1:38:09 Speaker 01 but just being very mindful in curating your acoustic environment can go a long way.
1:38:15 André Duqum? Yeah. Amazing. Well, we're gonna leave links down in the description where people can look more into your trials and your work. And yeah, I hope you start going on more podcasts. I saw you somewhere online, reached out. I'm so happy I did. And I think this is the start of many more different media appearances for you and sharing your work with the world. So yeah, that's it. Do you have any last messages before we head out?
1:38:38 Speaker 01 No, thank you for, and I'm so glad you responded so strongly to the piece I shared.
1:38:44 André Duqum? Yeah, no, it was so beautiful. All right, everyone, please let us know in which ways this episode has resonated, connected with you personally, and what changes would then stem from that. I'm curious. For me personally, playing music and getting really intentional to the music that I'm listening to and the different frequencies that are being embedded in our subconscious mind, to leveraging it for relaxation, or more higher energy stuff is something I'm very passionate to keep on looking into and leveraging. And yeah, so that's all. Thank you so much.
1:39:21 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for having me.
1:39:22 André Duqum? Until next time, be well. All right, we did it.
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