ARTS IN CULTURAL DIALOGUE

Abstract. Issues related to the impact of music on humans have been in the research
focus of art historians, psychologists, educators, cultural scholars, neurophysiologists,
and psychiatrists for the recent decades. This interest can be attributed to the modern
trends in the analysis of the music and personality interaction to develop some
conceptual provisions to clarify this process. The article focuses on the hierarchical
structure of music’s impact on human consciousness and activity in the critical
perspective. Four levels of this process are highlighted: emotional synchronization,
meaningful immersion, spiritual objectification, and activity objectification. The
characteristics of each level and their interconnections are outlined as the most
comprehensive structure of music’s impact, ensuring an effective result. This
hierarchical structure is examined in the context of the process of assimilation that
occurs within a person under the influence of music. The multifaceted influence of
musical art on a person’s inner world and activities is highlighted: immersive,
suggestive, spiritual-moral, and other impacts that contribute to the formation and
development of personality. Music develops a person as a biological being by shaping
neural connections, thereby providing new opportunities for the brain, promoting its
plasticity, and endowing a person with the ability to perceive and respond differentially
to various intonations, forms, and styles. Music not only contributes to the evolution of
human personality but also enriches a person’s inner world, expands their horizons,
develops creative potential, and strengthens psychological resilience and health.
However, the positive formative and developmental effect is possible only based on the
full realization of the substantive potential of music; otherwise, it will either remain
misunderstood, as often happens with complex classical and modern academic music,
or evoke only primitive emotions and hypertrophied activity. As a result, the influence
of music on personality will be simplified and substantively inadequate. Relevant
findings conclude the article.

Keywords: music, perception, assimilation, emotional synchronization, meaningful
immersion, spiritual objectification, activity objectification.

Bodina E.A.: Doctor of Pedagogy, Full Professor, Department of Music at Institute of Culture and Arts of Moscow City University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: bodinae@mail.ru.

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