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Damian Fuentes

Mrs. Trishia Briones

ENGL 1302-222

24th February 2022

Music Within the Mind

It can be said that music can improve daily performance by fueling a person with boosts

of energy through what some call ‘hype’ which leads to efficiency. The experiment being

presented is proposed by the very concept of this, but to answer this promotes another question.

Music varies in numerous ways so to say music alone does this is not particularly reasonable. So,

the question is, which genre of music is the most effective or efficient during the day? According

to the Meriam Webster dictionary, the definition of the word effective is, “producing a decided,

decisive, or desired effect.” In the sense of progressiveness, overall success is the target goal or

as the definition says, the “desired effect” of this experiment.

It should be noted that these overall genres do indeed have their subgenres but regardless

of this, they still fall into the same category of music and overall genre. An example would be

that Rap and R&B are still within the Hip-Hop genre. Another example is metal, classic rock,

and others still fall into rock music. For the experiment, a set of four days were selected for four

different genres being Rock, Hip-Hop, Pop, and Funk. The process’ of each day are the same and

the participant went through their daily routine as per usual. Wake up, do chores, go to the gym,

and do any other work in this case being college homework and just college-level activity as the

participant goes to Texas A&M International University. (TAMIU) While conducting the said

experiment the participant kept a journal to write in entries on how they would be feeling
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through the day and how they would rate their efficiency of a task done during the four-day

period. To understand the journal entries, it was left as a note that they mainly consisted of just

mind chatter transferred onto the paper rather than properly taken down as notes. The hypothesis

of this experiment would be what was stated in an article from Springer Link Psychology

Research, “background music would increase the proportion of task-focus states compared to

states of mind-wandering and external distraction.” (Kiss, Linnell 2)

Starting off the experiment with one of the first journal entries, “During the first day I

listened to rock music, and it was especially during the gym I felt more aggressive and more

‘hyped’ to do things.” (Fuentes 1) Concluding from this statement it was clear to see the upbeat

and overall strength of the instruments flowing through the body of the subject. However, it is

noted towards the end of the day it was stated that the music was a bit tiring for the student.

Reanalyzing the journals and looking at the structure of rock music, it is understandable that it

can be tiring after quite some time simply due to the consistent fast tempos, the beating

thunderous drums, and the aggressive loudness of the music can be draining. In the journals, it is

also said that others who noticed the music coming from the student’s device, considered him

depressive or edgy. While this is mostly associated with a negative connotation, can the same be

said with the hip-hop genre?

During the next day, the attempt was made to listen to the genre of Hip-Hop music,

however, “There was times throughout the day that I was not able to listen to music at the same

amount of time as yesterday” (Fuentes 2) In this case, the second day went with faults as the

device used to play the music throughout the day had run out of battery. This was later resolved

the next day, however, since according to the journal entry the day went as usual however the

only difference is that there were more social interactions throughout the day. “What I loved
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about this day is that I had others comment to me that they liked the song that they were able to

hear through my headphones or at least those who managed to see my phone and look at the song

that was currently playing and such.” (Fuentes 3) It was mentioned that the student had shown in

person to the college campus of TAMIU and was able to gather an input from various other

students and classmates. From that it was determined that hip-hop is a rather popular genre.

Within the entries the subject states that the people he asked questions such as, “have you heard

of-?” All answers would lead to a reply yes as opposed to the rock genre and so because of this it

confirms the previous statement. Conceptually speaking could it be the same case for the pop

genre of music?

Pop music itself derives from hip-hop and various other genres as the structure of pop

consists of remixing already made sounds and songs. “It was a nice break from the other days

where it was rock and hip hop, it almost got me in my feels since it was just waves of nostalgic

sensations going through.” (Fuentes 4) The effectiveness of pop through the experiment can

within itself be relative to the mood however at the same time the mood can be influenced by the

music itself. Often than not pop songs are still extremely like their counterparts however they

stand out by innovating on the sound of the sample or old sounds used from the original song.

Just like stated in the article from PLOS One, “Random Access Memories was finally produced

with the help of 27 other featured artists or exceptional session musicians, who were asked to

play riffs and individual patterns to give the duo a vast library to select from” (Percino, Klimek,

Thurner 2) This statement pretty much says what was stated before in the way that pop music is a

way of revamping the old into the new.

After a few days, the student was not able to continue the experiment with the funk genre

of music and so the experiment ends there. As much as it would have been interesting to
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compare the data with each other it is by technicality incomplete. Additionally, if it were the

conclusion made from the current data is that effectiveness from music derives from preference

rather than one absolute answer. Music is a form of art and by that logic, it can be said that art is

subjective meaning that music is subjective. This conclusion can lead to a different experiment

set of analysis of which music genre is heard the most from the people rather than which would

be a more effective one. It just goes to show that through science the answer to a question could

potentially just lead to yet another question to ask.

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Citations:

Damian Fuentes, Experiment Journal, Feb 8th, 2022, 3 pages, Not Published

Luca Kiss, and Karina J. Linnell. “The Effect of Preferred Background Music on Task-

Focus in Sustained Attention.” Psychological Research, vol. 1-13, 2020, pp. 1–13,

doi:10.1007/s00426-020-01400-6

Percino, Gamaliel, et al. “Instrumentational Complexity of Music Genres and Why

Simplicity Sells.” PLOS One, vol. 9, no. 12, 2014., doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115255

Webster, Meriam. “Effective Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam

Webster www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/effective