In this conversation, Dr. Victoria Williamson discusses the profound impact of music on the brain, exploring its role in memory, emotional connection, and cognitive enhancement. She highlights the significance of music from infancy through adulthood and introduces the concept of binaural beats as a tool for sound therapy.

The discussion also covers her company, Audicin, which aims to provide sound solutions for wellbeing and productivity, backed by scientific research.

Stay in touch with Dr. Victoria and get a free trial of Audicin at this link.

Takeaways

• Music has been a part of human life for millennia.


• Newborns can remember melodies they heard in utero.


• Music is deeply tied to our emotional experiences.


• The brain processes music in a unique way that enhances memory.


• Binaural beats can help synchronize brain waves for various states of mind.


• Music can be used as a mnemonic device for better memory retention.


• The right kind of background music can enhance focus and productivity.


• Nature sounds in music can significantly reduce stress levels.


• Research is ongoing to explore the benefits of music therapy for various conditions.

Watch on YouTube

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Episode transcript

Cheryl McColgan (00:00 .868)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Heal and Rosh Ro podcast. I am so excited. I I think I say this when I’m talking to every guest, but that’s because I only choose people that I really want to talk to for the most part. So today I have with me Dr. Victoria Williamson, and she is basically her life’s work is all about music in the brain. And this is a topic that really gets me excited because I was a musician most of my time throughout school. I played saxophone for many years, also sang.

and then my interest in psychology and the brain. And at the time, even way back when, when I was in school at this point, there was a lot of research on the really positive effects in a child’s developing brain with using music. So I know that that research is out here, but what I’m really excited to talk to Dr. Williamson about is how they’re finding that music also works wonders on the adult brain. So very long introduction there, Dr. Victoria, but I kind of wanted to let you know where I’m coming from as well.

So welcome and could you just give people some background on how you got into this work? What sparked your interest in music?

Dr Victoria Williamson (01:04 .371)
Well, thank you so much for inviting me. It’s my absolute pleasure to be with you today. We share a lot in our background, you and me. So I paid for school teaching music. I’m a guitarist, classical guitarist, but I love all instruments. I love all forms of music, impossible to name a favorite. But I studied psychology. That’s what I was drawn towards was understanding human behavior and

I was going to school in the sort of late 90s, early 2000s, where neuroscience was blowing up. And we were getting all these cool studies where you could see actual pictures of the brain working. And that was just magnetic to me. when I found out I could combine my two loves, I could combine psychology and music. That was it. That was my pathway right there. And it mattered not that I had to study for so many years and have this kind of uncertain academic life.

Cheryl McColgan (01:57 .112)
haha

Dr Victoria Williamson (02:01 .587)
because you follow your passion, right? And that’s what you’re all about. So we absolutely share that as well. So my pathway through research always clung to this idea that music is transformative in human life. And we’ve been making music as a species for as long as records exist. The oldest musical instruments we’ve ever found on planet Earth are 40 ,000 years old.

And these are very intricate bone flutes. They’re carved from the bone of a vulture wing, and they use the same musical scale that we use in modern folk music.

Cheryl McColgan (02:42 .082)
That’s absolutely amazing. I never heard that before and I’m totally going to go look this up after we finish chatting.

Dr Victoria Williamson (02:47 .887)
You will find it. It’s a National Geographic and all kinds of things that were discovered in caves in the south of Germany. And it’s absolutely transformative in our understanding of the importance of music in human life, because not only have we been making music for millennia, we’ve been making the same kind of music. So humans have intuitively developed with music, but music has been an agent of massive change in the human brain and body.

And there’s a professor called Annie Patel. He’s at Tufts in Boston. And he’s talked about the impact of music on the human brain, mind, and body as being akin to that of the invention of fire. And what that allowed us to do was to cook our food. And once you’re able to cook food, you change completely the aspects of nutrition you’re getting, the job of consuming the food, the jaw changes, because we don’t have to chew so much.

The gut microbiome changes because of the different kind of food compounds and structures that we’re getting. And the invention of music and the use of music in human culture, there has never been a human society on earth found that hasn’t used music of some kind. So it’s universal. So the impact on the human brain and body has been this transformative. There isn’t a special musical box in the brain anymore that there’s a special area for cooked food. The evolution.

of our brain and body is one which takes best advantage of what we have. So what you find with music is something that stimulates multiple areas of our brain, all at the same time, visual area, auditory area, memory, pleasure centers, the thinking frontal planning areas of our brain are all studying music. So it’s the perfect medium for our brain to engage. The brain loves music. And so there’s so much power in there to do good.

And my whole career has been about firstly trying to understand that and then thinking about what’s the little way that I can make a message of transformation through music because people do it in all kinds of wonderful ways. Music therapists, music healers, doctors using medicine and intensive care and stroke recovery, neonatal units. I see myself as part of a massive community and I’m here with my message, getting really excited about one kind of music, one aspect of music.

Dr Victoria Williamson (05:12 .147)
that can make a difference in the world we live in today.

Cheryl McColgan (05:15 .404)
Yeah, and I really am excited to get into that towards the end because I went to your website and listened to a couple of the clips of the music before we got on the interview. And it’s really, really different, but I kind of want to save that for a little bit later when we get to that. In the meantime, though, you mentioned a couple of things there as far as the music’s