Amy Gudino

De Piero
Writing 2
4 November 2015
How Music Rocks the Mind
Who doesnt love music? People may have their favorite bands, genres, and artists, but
people like music. Music can cause someone to feel a certain emotion or it can take someone
back to a certain memory or time in their life. Music can have a significant impact on the mind
and has been studied by many academic fields and analyzed by non-academic fields that all
prove that music has the ability to alter attitudes and mood. Each of the articles do prove this
point but due to the fact that this is such a broad topic they all focus in on a manner in which
music affects people, such as the effectiveness of music therapy, the impact of music in films,
and the influence it has on culture.
Psychological researchers have studied the use of music as a form of therapy as done in
the academic article, Music as a Therapy for Depression in Women: A Theoretical Perspective
by T.A. Jamabo and I.R. George in which they were thoughtful of the factors such as using
women as depression is found more often in women than in men (Jamabo, George). On the
other hand, film study researchers studied the manner in which music involved in a movie scene
amplifies emotion and sentimentality for the viewer into a movie scene as they mentioned in the
academic article Music Influences Ratings of the Effect of Visual Stimuli by Waldie E. Hanser
and Ruth E. Mark. Because musics impact on the human mind is such a popular topic it is also
seen in non-academic articles to talk about how it impacts culture. As a result, there has emerged
non-academic articles such as the research article Influential Beats: The Cultural Impact of

Music by Selwyn Duke. Regardless through which discipline someone analyzes it, music is
proven to be a very powerful form of influence due to the emotion it instills, both on the human
mind and the human race as a whole. Music and the impact it has on peoples emotions and
minds can be ambiguous however each of these articles proved that musics affect on people in
their own way and, because it is such a broad topics, in a more specific approach, whether it be
how it may treat depression, add more sentiment to a movie scene, or define an entire culture or
era.
To help better further the evidence that music can effectively ignite emotion in the human
mind that can alter behavior and thoughts, in order to do so all three articles had to use tactic of
persuasion, meaning that the three articles shared some conventions. For example, all three
articles used ethos by quoting professionals, resulting in adding more validity to their argument.
They all share a pedantic tone, to be presented to the audience as knowledgeable. However,
although they share an organized structure, there is a distinction between the academic articles
and the non academic article, due to the fact that they are academic articles it must be set in a
way that will allow the reader and other researchers, their audience, to be able to see that they did
every part that needs to be done for an academic research paper. Whereas, the non academic
article labels sections so that it can easy to follow and to make his point clear, and at the same
time have a plethora of evidence to back up his argument.
When writing, authors use different moves in hopes that the move will instill a very
specific reaction from their audience. The academic articles use something called the Scholarly
Structure they use the conventional structure that is used for an academic paper so that people
will recognize its prestige the use of the jargon of their field is a convention of this structure as
well. All three articles also use the Name Dropping move, this involves the author quoting

scholars of a certain field so that the audience are able to see that they are getting their points
from intellectually reliable sources . In the case of the academic articles the Name Dropping
move is used to prove that research and that other professionals in their field back their opinion.
As for the Dukes article, Influential Beats he uses the Name Dropping move to add validity
to his piece, because it is a non-academic article his audience may seems he is a less trustworthy,
but if he has professionals that back up his opinion then the audience is more likely to see him as
a credible source.
In Jambo and Georges academic piece about music therapy they use Conceptual
Defining with Purpose which is the author defining the concept in a particular way that will
help them prove their point. In this case, because their study was based on women who are
depressed in Nigeria they assured that contrary to popular belief in Nigeria, depression is not
something you can just snap out of, but rather it is a mental disorder (Jamabo, George). They
chose this group due to the fact that women are more often more susceptible to depression and
because they were countering the belief of a whole culture using mental research, and were able
to prove that both music and depression involve the mind and can even have some control over it
due to the results that there was a change in behavior after the therapy.
For Hanser and Marks article, they use Concept Organizer which is when they use
subtitles to separate ideas throughout their piece. Concept Organizer is a move in which Duke
as a well as Hanser and Mark use in their pieces, however function in different ways in the
different pieces due to difference in disciplines and subjects and they separated them by labeled
sections so that both can build on their thesis. This helps show their amount of research and build
on a lot of evidence. In the case of Dukes article Influential Beats, because his was not an
academic article he had to prove that he had a valid opinion, which involved him expanding on

different topics and disciplines to show his knowledge. Dukes use of it is arguably the most
effective use of this move because mentioning where a researcher found their information is a
convention for the academic articles, but when Dukes article mentions the philosopher Plato and
the legend Beethoven it demonstrates the amount of research he had done, and how his argument
of musics impact on culture is timeless. His audience are people who want to know more about
what music does to people and people who are not convinced of musics significance so he has to
prove his validity because hes not a professional and show his research.
All of the articles are structured in a way to support and further prove the main point.
Most of the data that the articles contained consisted of quoting other professionals. Hanser and
Marks article included the conceptual definition of music as a stimulus but not one that is quite
understood of how it changes so much throughout the years or how it is such a natural instinct to
know how to react to sounds, like the way infants already possess the ability to recognize the
beat in music, (Hanser,Mark). The article also elaborates on the operational definition of
musics effects, which works as the basis of the article as a whole. It builds on this point and uses
different perspectives one of the main disciplines was through the study of film. They measured
the effect music had on a scene based off peoples reactions to the scene with music versus
without music. Another means they used to measure was the manner in which the type of music
that is playing in the background affects the likability of a character. The researchers were able to
see that emotion rose with the presence of music in film scenes. Another finding was that music
added mood to scenes that without music seemed more neutral. When music is added it
dramatizes the scene and ignites a mood between characters and on the audience
(Hanser,Mark). They also found sadder music tends to make a character more likeable because
the audience is more likely to empathize with the character (Hanser, Mark).

In contrast, the article that focused on the discipline of psychology, Jamabo and Georges
operational definition of music is used to help prove their point of how effective it is for music
therapy, so they measure the effects of music by observing how it changed the mood of
depressed patients and the progress the therapy made to their recovery. Both of the academic
articles use operational definitions to help prove that music can control mood in the mind. This is
also true for Dukes article but he does it through a small scope of how it affects an individual
and how that can in turn affect a whole culture. Thus it measures it by how that generation,
person, or culture feels in comparison to the music that is being listened to. This can perhaps be
seen by the possible correlation between the emergence of rock n roll as a music genre and
teenage rebellion a new behavior in the 1950s. Conceptual definition puts the audience in the
mentality the author wants them to be, in this case that is that music has an effect on the mind.
Then, the operational definition helps the writer prove the validity of the conceptual one and
works as a basis of their evidence.
Scholarly articles and articles seen in pop culture have their advantages and
disadvantages. As for scholarly articles, they are taken seriously on sight due to their structure
and academic jargon. The audience observes its professional research conventions and comes off
and they give it validity and respect. As for an article in pop culture there exists a need to
persuade the audience that the points are valid and that the writer does obtain knowledge of their
topic because the writers knowledge and position is questionable considering the lack of
position.
Academic articles must also follow a certain structure which can be an advantage and
disadvantage, no, they will not have to worry about deciding on a structure but it can take away a
lot of creativity due to the rules that are placed on the expected appearance of the piece. As for

pop culture pieces, they have much more room to be creative and allow their piece to look any
way they feel it would work best. This allows the writer to play with structure in a way that can
help further prove his point, for example, Dukes structure allowed a kind of build up effect and
its length proved he had a lot to argue. Whereas for the academic article they proved the point in
a different way in each section as conventions expect. Furthermore, pop culture articles are able
to use any kind of vocabulary which broadens their audience, which means people from different
ages, cultures, or social groups are more obtainable. Which can be a challenge for the academic
articles, because the conventions of academic articles require a certain structure and the need to
use jargon from said field which can be intimation.
Dukes article is given more room to build on other topics although the title implied his
article is about the effect on culture he also discussed the change of music through generations
and the effect on the individual and mentioned how the emotions in music is what causes theses
effects, and even used junk food jingles as evidence. Academic articles can make pop culture
references and it can be effective, but their tone needs to stay didactic and professional.
However, using pop culture references does allow them to connect with the audience and can
lower intimidation while still maintaining professionalism, but the line can be thin as they need
to maintain professional and connections with the audience need to stay minimal.
Music is powerful and has been proven to impact humans in a vast number of ways,
which makes it important for people to know how it affects them. It is a part of everyday life for
people main it vital that people know how music plays a role on who they are and how they feel
and that it is not only a means of entertainment but also a release and sharing of emotions. Both
academic and non-academic article have their moves and those are important to take note of as
well. Being able to [understand] rhetorical messages is essential to help [people] become

informed readers, (Carroll). Furthermore, it also helps evaluate the ethics of messages, and
their effects on the individual and society in general. (Carroll). No matter how theyre topic was
trying to be proven, it can be concluded that the impact music has on the human mind is vast and
deep after examining the evidence presented in these articles.

Gudino, this took me a couple read-throughs to understand. It's especially important that your
first sentence is clear.
Too many "everyone's." Steer clear of always/never/everyone/nobody -- it's not specific or
hedged.
I need more of a specific, driving thesis statement, Gudino. What, exactly, are you going to be
arguing here? And what specific points are you going to use to make that case? What
conventions/moves will you be analyzing? Also: do you think itd help your reader (technically,
me) to lay out which specific sources -- or at least disciplines -- youll be using to make your
case?
Also, I'm sorry to be blunt here, but I wasn't hook in this Intro -- that might merit another look
too.
Is this your 3rd non-academic source? The way you've phrased it, it sounds like a scholarly
piece.
Any reason for separating this thought into two sentences?
Check your comma usage here. Google: UNC Writing Center + commas.
Didn't you already mention this?
OK, great -- do they all name drop in the same way? Are there any differences in how they do it
or why they do it? What *about* the other research/researchers are they calling the reader's
attention towards, and why?
Why? This sounds interesting! Tell me more! Bring this study to life!
Why did they collect the data that they did? What questions were they trying to answer?
Yes! Textual evidence! I want/need a lot more of this.
What were the conceptual definitions? Help *me* understand the "mentality" (I'd say approach
to research or something like that) of the authors?
Did they?