This presentation, entitled "Oh What Songs of the Heart: Experiencing the Power of Music in our Everyday Lives" was presented by Dr. Brian Ebie and Laura Hoopes Ebie for the Singles Conference at in Kirtland, Ohio for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Kirtland Stake. In the presentation, the authors discussed the power of music to influence emotions and even cognitive development. Interspersing the presentation with scriptural and scientific references, as well as quotes from famous philosophers and LDS church leaders, the presentation offers both scientific and anecdotal approaches to the use of music in our every-day lives.

1. Oh What Songs of the Heart:
Experiencing the Unique Power
of Music in our Daily Lives
Laura and Brian Ebie
2012 Single Adult Conference
Kirtland, Ohio

2. • 150 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary:
praise him in the firmament of his power.
• 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to
his excellent greatness.
• 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him
with the psaltery and harp.
• 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with
stringed instruments and organs.
• 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the
high sounding cymbals.
• 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise
ye the LORD.

3. • Three Domains:
• Cognitive
• What we know
• Affective
• What we feel
• Psychomotor
• How we respond

4. • Music listening activities have been linked to:
• Improvement in mental clarity
• Lasting effects on ADD/ADHD
• Ability to cope
• Ability to retain information
• Advertising has been using this for years…
• Increased evidence of Whole-Brain activity (right/left hemispheres)
• Increased productivity in the workplace
• Significant positive effects upon Alzheimer’s/Parkinson’s patients

5. • Music listening activities have been linked to:
• Improved attitude/mood
• Reduction of negative emotions
• Alzheimer’s patients (Sundown Syndrome)
• Feelings of well-being
• An effective treatment in episodes of depression
• “Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune, so no one will suspect I’m afraid…
And every single time,
the happiness in the tune convinces me that I’m not afraid.”
• Alleviation of Pre- and Post-operative anxiety
• Improvement in emotional expression
• Increased sensitivity to cultural differences

6. • Music listening activities have been linked to:
• Improvement in motor function
• Rhythm stimulates movement
• Reduction in tremors/shaking
• Lower stress hormone levels
• Cortisol levels drop, even under anesthesia
• Evidence for the use of soothing music as an empirically-based
intervention for sleep disorders
• Physical Improvement
• therapeutic music exercises help improve verbal output for people
with aphasia, strengthen respiratory and vocal systems, stimulate
language development in children, and increase fluency and
articulation.
• Regulates heart rate, lowers blood pressure
• Stronger immune systems
• After listening to music, the levels of the antibody immunoglobin A,
the immune system's first line of defense, were heightened

7. • A few quick examples…
• Cognitive: II Kings 3:9-20
• Affective: I Samuel 16:23
• Psychomotor: Joshua 6:15-20

8. • “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the
imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything; It is the essence
of order and lends to all that is good, just, and beautiful.”
- Plato
"Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to
music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued with the same
passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble
passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form."
- Aristotle
“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm
and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they
mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly
educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful.”
- Socrates

9. • “After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the
inexpressible is music.”
• Aldous Huxley
• “We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps
through any other thing except prayer.”
• President J. Reuben Clark, 1936
• “Music can act upon our senses to produce or induce
feelings of reverence, humility, fervor, assurance, or other
feelings attuned to the spirit of worship.”
• President Spencer W. Kimball

10. • A force so powerful that it can influence our hearts, our
glands, and our muscles is a force to be reckoned with.
• The influence of music is significant enough that we
should take care what kind of music we allow into our
homes, cars, iPods, etc.

11. • Music also has great power on our emotions.
• Music has been called the universal language because it
speaks directly to our emotions. And our emotions and
feelings influence our actions.

12. • LDS composer Lex de Azevedo spoke about his
experience writing the musical score for the film Where
the Red Fern Grows:
• “While working on that project, I encountered a serious problem:
the entire story was built around a boy’s love for his dogs, but that
love wasn’t being communicated through the film itself. I
composed a tender love theme to fill that void, and suddenly flat
images on strips of celluloid had emotional life. The audience
wept.”

14. • Music also has great effect on words. I like to use this example
of a popular poem from the early 1960s:
You think you lost your love.
Well, I saw her yesterday—
It’s you she’s thinking of,
And she told me what to say.
She says she loves you,
And you know that can’t be bad;
Yes, she loves you,
And you know you should be glad.
Whoooo.
She loves you,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She loves you,
Yeah, yeah, yeah

15. • Usually, music gives a song its emotional power, while
lyrics tie that power to a concrete idea. Generally, lyrics
appeal to the head, while music captures the heart.
• The lyrics of “She Loves You” are rather innocuous, but
the situation becomes serious when questionable or
immoral words are wedded to an appealing melody.
• Hard-to-remember words stick in the mind easily when
combined with catchy, easy-to-remember melodies.

16. • Heavy Metal, Rap, and Country music have been shown
to have similar, violent, and immoral themes.
• Country tends to be seen as less harmful because the
music lacks the intensity of metal and rap. Yet the
message is the same.

17. • Music is the sugar coating that makes “bitter” lyrics
palatable.
• Even if the words are drug-oriented, erotic, violent,
satanic, or just plain silly—when tied to a “hit” tune, they
sneak past the screening mechanism of the brain to be
stored in the subconscious, and to affect the listener
accordingly.

18. • Let’s revisit this quote from Aristotle
• "Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when
one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes
imbued with the same passion; and if over a long time he
habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole
character will be shaped to an ignoble form."

19. • President Packer has counseled that music can be a
great force for good or evil.
• “You cannot afford to fill your minds with the unworthy music of our
day. It is not harmless. It can welcome onto the stage of your mind
unworthy thoughts and set a tempo to which they dance and to
which you may act. You degrade yourself when you identify with
those things that at times surround extremes in music. Such music
is not worthy of you.
• “Be selective in what you listen to and produce. It becomes part of
you. It controls your thoughts and influences the lives of others as
well. There is so much wonderful, uplifting music available that we
can experience to our advantage. [We] ought to be surrounded by
good music of all kinds.”

20. • Elder Packer suggested that we “choose from among the sacred music
of the Church one favorite hymn … one with lyrics that are uplifting and
the music reverent. Select one that, when it is properly rendered, makes
you feel something akin to inspiration.
• “Now, go over it in your mind very thoughtfully a few times. Memorize
the words and the music. Even though you have had no musical
training, even though you do not play an instrument, and even though
your voice may leave something to be desired, you can think through a
hymn. I suspect you already have a favorite. … You can only think of
one thing at a time. Use this hymn as your emergency channel. Use this
as the place for your thoughts to go. Anytime you find that … shady
actors have slipped in from the sideline of your thinking onto the stage of
your mind, think through this hymn. … Then you will begin to know
something about controlling your thoughts.” This sacred music “will
change the whole mood on the stage of your mind. Because it is clean
and uplifting and reverent, the baser thoughts will leave.”

21. • In the preface of the LDS hymnal, the First Presidency
wrote that “inspirational music is an essential part of our
church meetings. The hymns invite the Spirit of the Lord,
create a feeling of reverence, unify us as members, and
provide a way for us to offer praises to the Lord.”

22. • MUSIC INVITES THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD
• "Inspiring music may fill the soul with heavenly thoughts, move
one to righteous action, or speak peace to the soul." President
Harold B. Lee
• What hymns invite the Spirit for you?

23. • MUSIC CREATES A FEELING OF REVERENCE
• "I wonder sometimes if we realize the importance of music. I
wonder if we know that the Lord himself is concerned about it. He
has given us the information that the song of praise is a prayer
unto him. . . . It [is] our privilege, yea, our blessing, to sing and . . .
our songs should be sung in righteousness." President George
Albert Smith
• What hymns bring you into reverence?

24. • MUSIC UNIFIES US AS MEMBERS
• "The singing of our sacred hymns, written by the servants of God,
has a powerful effect in converting people to the principles of the
Gospel, and in promoting peace and spiritual growth." -- President
Heber J. Grant
• What hymns create a sense of unity for you?

25. • What is the “song of redeeming love?”

26. But more than anything else, sincere repentance requires
change—changed thoughts, changed actions, changed
relationships with God and man, changed patterns of behavior,
changed attitudes, changed loyalties, changed priorities,
changed motivations, changed lives. Alma referred to all of this
changing simply as a “mighty change in your hearts” (Alma 5:14)
which prompts all true believers to “sing the song of redeeming
love” (Alma 5:26).
Of course, this change of heart isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Nor is it intended only for those who are guilty of major violations
of God’s law. It can come every day of our lives as we prayerfully
consider our commitment to the Lord and the sacred covenants
we have made with him. In doing so, sometimes we’ll feel the
need to repent and improve. Other times we’ll feel the confident
peace of purity, which in this life only comes through repentance.
Those are the times when we will feel most inclined to “sing the
song of redeeming love.”

27. • Song can be prayer and prayer can be song and both will
be answered.
• “To sing once is to pray twice”
• St Augustine
• D&C 25:12

28. • “Many people die with their music still in them. Why is
this so? Too often it is because they are always getting
ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.” Oliver
Wendell Holmes
• Tagore said “I have spent my days stringing and
unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing
remains unsung.”
•
• President Kimball then said “ Let us get our instruments
tightly strung and our melodies sweetly sung. Let us not
die with our music still in us. Let us rather use this
precious mortal probation to move confidently and
gloriously upward toward eternal life which God our
Father gives to those who keep his commandments”

29. • Oh What Songs of the Heart
• Hymn 286