December 6, 1997, Japanese television aired the 38th episode of the uber-popular animated program Pokemon, entitled “Denno Senshi Porigon.” In the middle of the episode there was a short, five second shot of flashing red and blue lights accompanied by a high-pitch sound. This visual and audio stimulus caused some watching to experience photosensitive epileptic seizures. Over 700 children ended up in the hospital with countless others reporting side effects such as; headaches, dizziness and nausea. It’s estimated that 10 percent of those who viewed the broadcast were affected in some way. As a result, the Japanese government made new rules around their animated programs and the company Nintendo took an immediate hit on the stock market. The incident has become infamous for what is now called “Pokemon Shock.”
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What happened and why am I bringing it up? In our last episode we talked about beat induction and rhythmic entrainment, this is what causes us to pick up the beat around us and tap our feet, even if we aren’t consciously doing it. I mentioned at the very end that there are cutting edge music therapy techniques that use entrainment as a means to treat neuro-biological disorders. The idea is to use outside auditory stimulus, drones, drumming and the like, to change the mental state of the listener.
How can this be possible? It’s helpful to explore a concept called sympathetic vibration or resonance. If you’ve ever heard the windows, walls or any object in a room shake in response to a loud sound, then you’ve experienced this before. It is sound energy converted into mechanical energy. I can demonstrate on the piano. Here’s a piano with the sustain pedal pressed, which means all the strings inside are free, there’s nothing holding them back from making sound. They are just sitting there. Now, I won’t press a key, I’m going to sing into the body of the piano. I will sing a note to the strings… listen. Do you hear some of the strings respond? They are moving in sympathy. They have picked up the wave of my sung pitch and turned that sound energy into mechanical energy, vibrating on their own and creating their own sound. Notice that not every string within the piano is vibrating though. Only those strings that are tuned to similar frequencies will vibrate. So, I could play this piano by singing to it. I can decide what pitches will be produced from the instrument based on the notes I sing from the outside
Your brain is a biological instrument, producing waves of activity at all times, awake, asleep, bored or busy. These waves, like any other wave, have frequencies; measurable, repeated patterns. Brain wave frequencies are quite low, most are lower than what a human can hear. You’ve probably heard the names of these different waves categorized by their frequencies; infra-low, delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma. The brain is so complex, there’s much more than just one pattern or frequency moving within the mind at any one time. However, therapist believe and research shows that we can affect change in mental states and brain wave activity through the use of listening and neuro-biofeedback.
Much in the same way I can sing a note to the strings of the piano and have them respond; outside stimulus, drones, rhythms, specialized sounds, can cause the brain to respond in sympathy. “Pokemon Shock” is an example of an outside visual/audio stimulus causing epileptic seizures and it, of course, was an unfortunate mistake. What could be possible though if we were intentional and informed about how our minds react to sound and images?
This idea of brain entrainment goes much deeper than just saying, music soothes the savage beast. It could honestly be a way to treat neuro-biological disorders, helping suffering individuals with the power of sound.
What do you think? We’d love to hear your thoughts about entrainment and these cutting-edge developments in music therapy. Comment below and let us know your thoughts.
Timeline is an exploration into the development of Western music.
