Music and It's Application in Learning

Last year, as I went to the new IOI City Mall, in one of the home furnishing store I just have this mood of buying. The environment was set in such a way that people will ignite their sense of buying things because they give the feeling of comfort and elegance. I look at the sofa, it was really tempting for me to bring home one. The blue blanket was like waving it's hand asking me to bring home the whole bedding set.

As I get myself into the conscious mode, I noticed the music that they use was actually playing the role of putting someone emotion to a certain state so that it will ignite the mood of those who shop in the store. Everything was planned well. Music can really give some impact in the mood of a person.

People using music for different purposes. If you watch movies, you will feel the emotion of panic, romance or fantasy by the background of the music. Try to look in a horror movie and shut down the volume. You won't have that kind of effect, and you might totally eliminate the whole emotion of fear and your mind might start to think logic. Even question, why the director did such and such.

Using the right music to accelerate learning
In training, most people use music as part of their tools. However, some trainers use a certain music which inappropriate in terms of timing and wrong type of music. It will give a different impact and in some cases, participants might get confused subsconciously. I was in this training programme, with this good trainer. At the very end of the training, he put on a song for an activity. I just can't feel myself suit because the music used was just not right for that particular activity.

When I was in Bali for the Directive Communication Training, I was been introduce to how music can supercharge process of learning. How does this music affect the process of learning? If you are familiar with the mind wave, you might have heard before alpha, beta, theta and delta state. That is exactly how music can play that role because music was played using this sound wave. (If you are familiar with Winamp, you might have seen the wave of the music everytime you played a song).

Basically there are 8 different types of music:

1. Alpha music (8 - 12 cycles per second)
The super conscious state and is more susceptible to learning tha beta state. It brings a person in a deep relaxation and peace.

2. Reflective (12 - 14 cycles per second)
This kind of music is to bring people to their past. It is useful for a person to reflect on some of their experience.

3. Reflective Active (14 - 16 cycles per second)
This music is a kind of reflective, but it is more useful if being played while participants are doing activities.

4. Background Upbeat (16 - 18 cycles per second)
This music is suitable to play during playing some activities. It will boost the mood and the creative thinking part.

5. Moves (18 - 21 cycles per second)
This music is also during activities, just for a higher energy activities.

Heartstring Music 
6. Visualization (7 - 14 cycles per second)
This song is to take someone to a place where the participants visualize in their mind.

7. Inspirational (7 - 14 cycles per second)
To ignite some inspiration, this song will be suitable.

8. Theme
Depending on stories, just to create some mood into the scene, this type of music will be useful especially when people have anchored it with the past experiences.

Using music can really enhance the process of learning, even to be more productive in your daily task. Understanding the different types of music can provide a better outcome in creating environment, as how Disney did it with the Frozen, you too can use it to create your own environment and to ignite emotion.