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Don’t let your era pass you by!
Dangerous Notes
Dangerous Words
The Harmful Effect of
Negative Music and Lyrics

Music is a very prominent part of western
society. Most people have their favourite artists
and favourite songs. This is especially true
among the youth.
 In the past few decades, new types of music
such as rock, heavy metal, hip hop and industrial
music have emerged, and are particularly
popular among the youth today.
 This ‘negative’ music is accompanied by crude
and lewd lyrics containing references to
violence, illegitimate sex, crime, pessimism and
other anti-social behaviours.
“Vain Talk…”

While Islam does not forbid all types of music, it
definitely forbids certain types of music,
including the ones mentioned earlier.
 It also forbids songs with crude lyrics that
contain references to violence, illegitimate sex,
crime and other anti-social actions.
 Why does Islam forbid these kinds of music and
lyrics, and is there any evidence to support this?
 We will first look at the effects of music and then
the lyrics themselves.
Sound Effects

We often don’t think of sound as something physical, but
sound is a set of vibrations, and these vibrations can
have a very strong chemical and physical effect on the
surrounding environment.

For example, if a liquid containing proteins were to have
shrill sounds played into it, the proteins inside the liquid
would react chemically and join one another because of
the effects of the sound. A practical example of this is
that one can boil an egg simply by playing loud music at
it for a while.
Tame, David. The Secret Power of Music. Destiny Books, 1984. p. 138.
The Rhythm of Nature



All aspects of nature run according to a specific rhythm and
are accustomed to certain sounds, and if this rhythm is
disturbed by unnatural sounds, the usual course of nature will
be disturbed.
For example, scientists have found that playing sounds at a
frequency of 5000 hertz causes plants to open up their pores
and take in nutrients at seven times the usual rate, helping
them grow faster. Amazingly, this is the frequency at which
birds sing.
A human example: our DNA and RNA molecules, which
make up our genes that in turn make up all the characteristics
we and our children enjoy, resonate to a musical relationship
caused by the earth’s rotation pattern.
Ostrander, Sheila & Schroeder, Lynn. Super Learning 2000. Delacorte Press, 1994. p.95
 If
our genes are effected by sound from
such a passive phenomenon such as the
Earth rotating, can you imagine the effect
of music blasting loudly into our ears?
What the Plants Said

In a very famous experiment, a woman named Mrs Retallack put
fresh plants in two separate chambers. In one chamber, the radio
was tuned to a local rock station, and in the other the radio played a
station that featured soothing "middle-of-the-road" music”
-After two weeks, the plants in the soothing-music chamber were
uniform in size, lush and green, and were leaning between 15 and
20 degrees toward the radio. The plants in the rock chamber had
grown extremely tall and were drooping, the blooms had faded and
the stems were bending away from the radio.
-On the sixteenth day, all but a few plants in the rock chamber were
in the last stages of dying. In the other chamber, the plants were
alive and growing abundantly.
She repeated the experiment with various types of rock music and
found that the plants always bent away from the cassette player.
Dorothy Retallack, The Sound of Music and Plants, 1973
What the Animals Said

In one experiment, rats were allowed to freely move
between two boxes that were connected by a
passageway. In each of the boxes a speaker was
playing one kind of music. Bach's classical music was
played into one box and rock music into the other. Even
though the boxes were identical in all respects except for
the type of music played through the speakers, the rats
spent all of their time in the "Bach box". To further verify
their results, the scientists switched the music that was
playing in each box. The rats then all migrated away
from the rock music to the box where the Bach was
playing.
Tame, David. The Secret Power of Music. Destiny Books, 1984. p. 141.
What the Animals Said

In another experiment, the physicist Dr. Bird from
Fairleigh Dickinson University in the US and
neurobiologist Dr. Gervasia Schreckenberg from
Georgian Court College also in the US, conducted a
study where they subjected one group of mice to
‘voodoo’ drum beats (similar frequency to rock music
today) and another group to Strauss’ classical music.

Over the period of the experiment, they tested the
different groups to see how well they could run through a
maze to get to their food. This was a measure of their
cognitive ability - their ability to remember the maze over
time.
What the Animals Said
What the Animals Said

They found that the group that listened to the
voodoo music had a very difficult time with the
maze that increased over time to the point where
they were totally disoriented and unable to
complete the maze. The other groups had no
problem learning the maze, with an edge given
to the mice listening to the classical music. Even
when the mice were given a break from the
music for three weeks, the group that had
previously listened to the voodoo music still
could not remember how to get to their food,
while the others found it quickly with no
problem.
The Deep Effects of Music

After the experiment was finished, the brains of
the mice were dissected, and it was found that
the mice that had been listening to the voodoo
music had abnormal structural changes in their
brain cells. The neurons in their brains were
growing out wildly in all directions without
connecting to other neurons. There were also
abnormal amounts of Messenger RNA, a
chemical that the brain uses for storing
memories.
Lipkin, Richard. Insight Magazine, April 4, 1988. p. 58

This experiment was very significant because it
showed that negative music had an effect on
deep areas of mammalian brains, an effect that
many other activities do not have. Since human
also have mammalian brains, it is likely that we
would suffer in a similar way from the effects of
harmful music.
-Dr Alfred Tomatis, an ear specialist, found that a group of grey cells called Corti
cells in the centre of the brain were ‘re-charged’ not by the chemicals inside the
body but by the sounds picked up by the ear from the outside environment. The
ear is very much connected to the brain and the sounds that enter the ear travel
through a maze towards these Corti cells and cause them to move or act in a
synchronised, rhythmical way. This produces energy that splits off, some going
to the brain and some to the rest of the muscles in the body.
Brain Drain

With further experimentation, he found that sounds in
the 5000-8000 hertz frequency recharged these cells
fastest. These are sounds such as the singing of birds
or classical music. He used this in the treatment of
many diseases.
 He
also found that low, pounding sounds
such as rock music in fact drain the brain
from energy.

Ostrander, Sheila & Schroeder, Lynn. Super Learning 2000. Delacorte Press, 1994. pp. 91-94
A Dark Tint to Life
-Negative music effects the way we perceive the world around
us. It causes us to be pessimistic and to react to situations in a
more negative way.


A study was conducted were three groups of people were exposed to tense
music, calm music, or no music at all. This music was not accompanied by
lyrics.
After this exposure, the participants were asked to view ambiguous photos
and then write a story that described what was occurring in the photo.
Participants who heard the tense music wrote the most unpleasant stories.

Aggression, Music Nicholas L. Carnagey , Iowa State University , Brad J. Bushman , University of Michigan , To appear in Encyclopedia of Children,
Adolescents, and the Media

“Numerous studies indicate that a preference for heavy metal music may be
a significant marker for alienation, substance abuse, psychiatric disorders,
suicide risk, sex-role stereotyping or risk-taking behaviours during
adolescence.”

(Source: American Academy of Paediatrics, 1999)
Does Music Effect Learning?

Does music effect our capacity to learn? The
following study was done on a group of primary
school children:
The
two-pronged experiment studied the effect of
fast-paced music on how long children would watch
an educational television program, and also how
much information they acquired from it.
 In
the first part of the experiment, it was
found that programs with fast background
music were viewed considerably longer than
programs with slow, unappealing music or
those with no music at all.
 However, in the second part of the
experiment, it was found that fast music,
regardless of its appeal, had a negative
impact on attention paid to and information
acquired from the educational segment.

Department of Educational Technology, San Diego State University
Does Music Effect Physical Ability?
-A study was done to investigate the effects of
music on athletes. The athletes were asked to
run with music on at times and music off at
other times.
-The data collected from the study indicates that
running with music decreases lap pace. The
research conducted clearly demonstrates that the
playing of music had a profound effect on
participants in the study. In trained subjects,
listening to music while running decreased lap
pace by an average of 3 seconds.
- Furthermore, the heart rates during the music-on times were
lower, and the athletes’ perceived exertion (how tired they felt)
was higher during the music-on times.
-In fact, in a comparison between trained and untrained subjects,
it was found that although the untrained subjects were considerably
slower when the conditions were the same, the untrained subjects
ran faster laps when they had the music off than the did the trained
subjects when they had the music on.
(Anshel, & Marisi, 1979; Becker, Brett, Chambliss, Crowers, Haring, Marsh, & Montemayor, 1994; Beckett, 1990; Brownley,
McMurray & Hackney, 1995; Schabort, Hopkins, & Hawley, 1998). http://www.thesportjournal.org/2002Journal/Vol5-No1/music.htm
Does Music Effect Our Reactions?
-A study examined whether music and the
volume of music effected driver reaction time.
-It found that music at any volume increased
the driver’s reaction time, and that the louder
the music was, the longer the driver’s reaction
time.
-At high volumes, reactions was slowed by
about 1.2 seconds, which the study designers
noted, was enough to be the difference
between life and death on the road.
http://drdriving.org/misc/music_strick_report.html
Dangerous Words

So far, we have seen how deep the effect of
music can be on our brain and how profoundly it
can effect us.
 When words accompany music, such as in
songs, the music acts as a medium for the
words, giving them a much greater effect than
they would usually have.
 Songs have a powerful propaganda effect and
are used to send subtle messages to society,
and play a great role in re-shaping society and
its values.
Songs: Subtle Commands

Some people argue that rather than leading to violence,
violent lyrics allow people to express their anger through
listening to songs rather than committing violent acts. They
argue then that violent lyrics have a positive effect on the
listener. Some experiments have been done to test this
hypothesis.

In one study, five experiments examined effects of songs with
violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings. The
experiments demonstrated that college students who heard a
violent song felt more hostile than those who heard a similar
but nonviolent song. They also demonstrated a similar
increase in aggressive thoughts. These effects replicated
across songs and song types (e.g., rock, humorous, non
humorous).”

Craig A. Anderson and Nicholas L. Carnagey, Iowa State University; Janie Eubanks, Texas Department of Human Services; Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology , 2003, Vol. 84, No. 5, 960–971
Songs: Subtle Commands
In a 1989 study, it was found that exposing males to
violent music videos ‘led to a significant increase in
adversarial sexual beliefs and negative affect.’
Peterson and Pfost (1989)
In 1995, another study found that males who had been
randomly assigned to view violent rap music videos
became more accepting of the use of violence in
dealing with interpersonal problems. Related research
found that males and females exposed to violent rap
music videos became more accepting of teen dating
violence.
(Johnson, Adams, Ashburn, & Reed, 1995).
Songs: Subtle Commands
Yet another study found that students were also more likely to
accept stereotypic sex-role behavior after being exposed to
music videos that displayed similar behavior. The implication
of this is that these music videos are subtly dictating youths’
attitudes, especially towards the opposite sex.
(Hansen,1989; Hansen & Hansen, 1988).
www.wfu.edu/~carnagnl/pubs/CV_NLCarnagey.pdf

A study by a paediatrician found that those teenagers who
listened to "degrading" song lyrics were more likely to engage
in sexual activity and earlier intercourse. The researchers
found that listening to "non-degrading" lyrics did not affect the
teenagers' sexual behaviour.”
Pediatrics for Parents, Jan, 2007 by John E. Monaco
Songs: Subtle Commands

In a 1992 study in the in-patient department of a US hospital,
it was observed that there was a significant decrease in
aggressive behavior after the removal of MTV from that
department.
“Waite, Hillbrand, and Foster (1992)
It has also been found that college students exposed to rock music
videos with antisocial themes produced a greater acceptance of
antisocial behavior.
(Hansen & Hansen, 1990)
and that…’college students who preferred rap and heavy metal
music reported more hostile attitudes than other students. Listeners
to heavy metal music held more negative attitudes toward women.
Rap music fans were more distrustful.’
Rubin, West, and Mitchell (2001)
www.wfu.edu/~carnagnl/pubs/CV_NLCarnagey.pdf
The Net Effect
 In
a major study in 1994, two
psychologists found a correlation
between preference for rap and
heavy metal music and belowaverage academic performance,
school behavior problems, drug use,
arrests, and sexual activity.”

Roberts, Christenson, & Gentile, in press
Took and Weiss (1994)
www.wfu.edu/~carnagnl/pubs/CV_NLCarnagey.pdf
A Serious Health Concern

The effect of negative music lyrics is very much a medical issue. The American
Academy of Paediatricians was asked to testify before the US government
regarding the effect of such songs on the health of youth. This is an excerpt from
their report:
 “The American Academy of Pediatrics fears that rock lyrics are potential threats to
the health and well being of adolescents. These concerns include pregnancy, drug
use, sexually transmitted diseases, accidents, and suicide. Physicians view
adolescence as a difficult period because of the biological and psychological
changes that occur. Young people are also expected to develop a solid set of moral
values through their perceptions of adult standards and behaviors. Physicians use
music preferences as clues to the emotional and mental health of their adolescent
patients. Music containing explicit lyrics can skew and misrepresent the realities of
the outside world. Rock music tends to symbolize the adolescent themes of
rebellion and autonomy. Rap music is infamous for its inflammatory remarks
towards women. Thus the two most popular forms of music for adolescents revolve
around themes of disrespect and sexual imagery. Furthermore, the effects music
lyrics have on mood, suicidal ideation, aggression, and stereotyping have been
questioned.”
www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/jstmtevc.htm - 17k -
A Serious Health Concern

Canadian Paediatric Society says that: “…music videos may have a
significant behavioural impact by desensitizing viewers to violence...
more than half contain violence that is often committed against
women. Attractive role models are the aggressors in more than 80%
of music video violence... the potential negative impact of explicit
music lyrics should put parents and paediatricians on guard”

Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth, Canadian Paediatric Society position statement, 2003

The American Medical Association says: “The AMA is concerned
about the possible impact of destructive themes depicted in certain
types of popular rock music. The vivid depiction of drug and alcohol
use, suicide, violence, demonology, sexual exploitation, racism and
bigotry could be harmful to some young people, especially
vulnerable children and adolescents who are socially alienated from
traditional value systems and positive support groups”

Statement of Concern Regarding Destructive Themes Contained in Rock Music, American Medical Association, 1995
The Social Ramifications
“The violent-song-inspired increases in aggressive thoughts and
feelings can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions,
coloring them with an aggressive tint. Such aggression-biased
interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response
(verbal or physical) than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state,
thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial
exchanges.”
 “Specifically, short-term increases in aggression due to violent lyrics
affect the person’s social environment as well as the person. Close
others (friends, family, peers, teachers) are influenced by these initially
temporary increases in aggression and naturally respond to them in a
negative way. Over time, these relationships deteriorate, and
acquaintances begin to expect aggressive and conflictual interactions
with the person and will therefore elicit further aggressive behaviors.
In other words, repeated short-term media violence effects can
indirectly create a more hostile social environment, and greatly effect a
person’s personality.”

Craig A. Anderson and Nicholas L. Carnagey, Iowa State University; Janie Eubanks, Texas Department of Human Services;
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 2003, Vol. 84, No. 5, 960–971
An Evil Addiction?

“Are we smarter than rats and plants when it comes to our choices of
the music we listen to? Or, are we so out of touch with our bodies
and our health that we are numbed to the effects of certain kinds of
music on us...It is likely that many people are simply experiencing
some confusion in their nerve pathways as a result of the music they
been barraged with…Isn't it striking that this is precisely the
description of what many addictive drugs do to you? Your body
ends up craving that which is destroying you…Have you ever
known anyone that always had to have the radio or the TV on? Are
your kids like this…Do they feel that they need certain kinds of
music (i.e. rock music) to get going with their day?”
“Modern
music is as dangerous
as cocaine”…
Pietro Mascagni, Italian operatic Composer, 20 th Century
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Don’t let your era pass you by!