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Background Information

Very closely related to the topic of my experiment "Does Music Affect Your Pulse Rate?" is rhythm and tempo. Rhythm is the most influential element to music, whether it is a classical or heavy metal song. I found out from many of the sources, (see Bibliography) that harmonic and disharmonic sounds and tempo affects our body. Rhythm and tempo, used harmonically, are soothing and sympathetic to the body. That is, a tempo with corresponds and is relatively similar to the normal human heart rate range of approximately 60- 120 beats per minute (bpm), with most music between 70- 80 bpm. If the tempo or rhythm does not fit into that area, it is then disharmonic, which is destructive to the body. Disharmonic music includes frequent syncopation (e.g. popular modern music), 20th century arts (e.g. classical music) and repetitious and dreary music (e.g. modern unsigned bands).

You may not think that music affects your body at all, but after my research, I found that music does many things for the human body including, covering up unpleasant sounds and feelings, slowing down and equalising brain waves, affecting our respiration, reducing muscle tension and improving body movement and coordination, affecting the body temperature, regulating stress-related hormones, helping the immune function, changing our perceptive of space and time, strengthening our memory and learning ability, helping productivity, stimulating digestion and creating a sense of safety. So from this information, I decided that Music might also affect the humans pulse rate.

So what is a pulse rate? It is the measurement of the number of heartbeats per minute. A pulse rate can be used to investigate a person's medical condition. If a person has a fast pulse rate, it may mean that the person is undergoing dehydration or possibly an infection. In the state of an emergency, the pulse rate may be an indication to whether or not the patient's heart is pumping.