The Secret Power of Music

I love reading inspirational books that aim to help you improve your life; work; wealth; status; self-esteem and just about anything else you can think of. Books like 'The Secret', 'The Law of Attraction' and 'The Science of Getting Rich' are among some of my favourites.

Something that a lot of these books have in common is that they stress the importance of both visualizing the things that you want to achieve and feeling the fantastic emotions that you will feel when you achieve them.

I read about many methods for generating the powerful feelings and visualisations necessary, like thinking about something that you love or a time when you felt particularly uplifted - but very few give more than a passing reference to the power of music to quickly and easily achieve both the of these things.

I don't know about you, but I often find it difficult to conjure those pictures and emotions using their methods never mind maintain them. However, I have found a method that works for me. - Music!

In my experience, most of us already use music to affect our emotions, although most of the time it appears that we use it to exaggerate what we are already feeling.

For example, most of the women I know (I can only assume men do this to) put music on when they are getting ready to go out for a night on the town. But it's not classical or ballads that they choose to get ready to, usually it is something wild, exciting and with a great dance rhythm.

They are already feeling excitement and looking forward to a great night dancing into the small hours, something that puts them into the great party mood. The music reflects what they are already feeling and builds the excitement further. By the time they have put on the finishing touches they are wired and ready and can't wait to get there!

When driving along the motorway, especially on a long journey (and assuming I am not stuck in traffic queues), I usually find I prefer 'Bat Out of Hell' or 'Road to Hell' to be blaring out of my car speakers, something that feels fast and powerful.

On the other side of the coin, I have noticed that when people are feeling down, perhaps after a relationship breakdown or depressed because life doesn't seem to be dealing them the cards they want right now, they choose ballads; songs and tunes that elicit pain, longing, hurt and loss.

Strange, isn't it? I mean, I can understand wanting to heighten good feelings, but why is it that the human animal loves to wallow in the bad ones?

So it seems to me that when people choose what music they will listen to at any given time, it will usually match feelings and emotions that they are currently experiencing and the end result is even stronger feelings of the same nature.

Psychologists, Movie makers, Advertisers and Television Producers all understand the true power of music to control how you are feeling at any given time.

I've worked in the the movie industry for many years, and believe me when I tell you that the music can make a huge hole in the budget.  It doesn't matter whether you use the rights to something that already exists, or whether you create your own music tracks from scratch, it's a big expense.

So why do producers spend so much money on the music that lies beneath the pictures?  Because they know that no matter how good the performances and the writing, any scene intended to elicit an emotion from the audience will be heightened multi-fold when you use the right music to control what they audience feels.

Music with a feeling of dread will be faded in when you are meant to begin to feel scared or worried that something horrible is about to happen to the hero; boy and girl will start to fall in love to soft, romantic tones; and comic scenes will be played out to light and playful sounds. 

In advertising, the music is used to help make you feel a certain way about a product (classy, fun, powerful, etc).

If you've ever watched the rushes of a movie before the music is added you will see what I mean.

So if it's considered powerful enough to spend all that money on, then you should begin to understand the power you have in your own hands to change how you are feeling.

As well as affecting our moods, I believe music helps us to create powerful images in our minds.  While teaching actors, I would occasionally come across someone who had difficulty conjuring images in the minds and visualizing scenarios.  When this happened, I would put on a piece of music or suggest a tune to them that I knew captured the feelings of those images, emotions or scenes and, almost instantly they were able to 'see' whatever I was trying to convey to them.

The next time you are listening to music, close your eyes and see what images your mind conjures from those vibrations.  You might find that your mind screen is able to almost create an entire moving image throughout the tune - a bit like your own private music video.

So, if you are trying to conjure images of success or freedom or joy, or whatever, try picking a piece of music that suggests those things to you and watch how easy those 'visualisation' become.  Then watch your feelings change accordingly.

If you are trying positive thinking to change your life - avoid sad songs; songs of loss; ballads and the like and choose music that inspire and uplift; that speak of hope and triumph.

In no time, you'll find that you are more positive, have greater energy and feel terrific!