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STATEMENTS OF DR. JOE STUESSY, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT
SAN ANTONIO, AND DR. PAUL KING, MEMPHIS, TN
Mr. STUESSY. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chairman, Senators and guests, thank you for allowing me to
make a few remarks.
I have submitted a substantial written testimony. l hope you
will take the chance to read it because my 5-minute speech will be
rather brief and just try to hit the main topics. Substantiation is
in the written documentation.
Let me see if I can convey to you what we know from the field of
music psychology about music and its interrelationship with people.
I should say that I am on the music faculty of the University of
Texas at San Antonio. I hold a Ph.D. in music, and have taught a
course in the history of rock music for 12 years at two
universities.
The first thing we know is that music affects behavior. Many
children will say I listen to that stuff, but it does not affect
me. In fact, Mr. Snider said exactly those words earlier today. He
said, it does not affect me. We have known intuitively for
centuries, and it has been proven conclusively by scientific
studies in recent decades that music does affect behavior.
Music affects our moods, emotions, attitudes, and our resultant
behavior. Music affects us psychologically and physiologically.
This fact explains why we have choirs and organs at church, why we
have bands at football games, Muzak in stores, business offices,
and doctors' offices. It explains why there are military
marches, discoteques, music behind movies and TV, Jazzercise, and
most importantly, commercial jingles.
We know some other things about the way music interacts with
people. We know that music is an aid to verbal retention. Any
verbal message that you receive, you are more likely to remember if
it is in a musical context.
We also know that repetition increases our preference for that
which is repeated. The more we hear things, the more likely we are
to internalize it and like it.
We also know that coordinated multisensory input reinforces
music's message. The more senses that can be evolved in
receiving a coordinated message, the more likely that message is to
impact upon our conscious and subconscious.
Although this next point may seem contradictory to the previous
one, it is really not, and that is that there is such a thing as
exclusionary input, that is to say, input which blocks out all
other inputs, thus removing distractions. We also know that
exclusionary input increase the impact on the mind of the messages
being received.
Today's heavy metal music is categorically different from
previous forms of popular music. It contains the element of hatred,
a meanness of spirit. Its principal themes are, as you have already
heard, extreme violence, extreme rebellion, substance abuse, sexual
promiscuity and perversion and Satanism. I know personally of no
form of popular music before which has had as one of its central
elements the element of hatred.
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