Without any doubt, music is a subjective experience. Some folks love country, some love jazz. Some people detest Metallica, and I think those people are insane. Other people listen to classical and allow it to bathe them in calming tones. I, on the other hand, appreciate classical music, but find it kinda boring. However, I simply do not think that subjectivity is the only way to experience music. To me, music can objectively and measurably alter brainwaves such that musicians can create desired emotional/mental outcomes through conscious and purposeful arrangements.

Now, it’s well published that people tend to associate low, slow tones with sad/melancholic states. It’s also known that people tend to associate fast high-pitched tones with happiness/excitement. However, these are all qualitative reports of how study participants experience the musical input. However, I want to study purely objective measures using EEG data. Therefore, I am looking for the right toolset to be able to do these experiments.

I especially want to study the panacoustic system that my grandfather developed to determine what, if any, objective data I can collect as to its efficacy as a musical system. So far, in listening to panacoustic arrangements, they are a bit jarring and even dissonant to the point of making me squirm in my chair.

Again, though, I can discuss how listening to the recordings make me feel, but there are so many filters and evaluations that occur mentally that there’s no way to comb out my opinion from what the music is actually doing to my brain (I’ve included a track that Kitchen Sink Studios digitized for me).

Ultimately, my goal is to develop a musical curriculum that can objectively heal people suffering through substance use disorders (SUDs). There’s ample evidence to suggest that music therapy is a viable treatment option. However, too often, music therapy requires guided practices that people with SUDs tend to avoid.

By gathering data, perhaps I can create music that people can download on their own and heal their own dysfunction.

I have so much to learn before I can say for sure that I have a solid gameplan. Before I do anything else, though, I have to find an available EEG machine that will do what I need it to do…