Riot at the Ballet! What Atonal Music Can Reveal About Change Readiness
Paris, 1913 — Inside a newly-built theater, and only several minutes into a ballet debut, auditorium lights suddenly switch on.
What began with aristocrats whispering confusion and expressing disapproval at the stage, escalated into an uproar, as petit bourgeoise and music critics defended the performance.
Eventually the dancers could no longer hear the beat, forcing the choreographer to guide them from off stage.
In the composer’s own words, he stood up and shouted over the din, “Go to hell!” before storming out of the theater.
This was the — perhaps infamous — opening night of The Rite of Spring, a new ballet by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (and yes, he did storm out of the debut).
Musical mythology refers to it as a ‘riot’ but historians generally agree the event was more of a considerable ruckus. In pre-World War I France, The Rite of Spring came to symbolized a break from the old world to the modern one.
The audience expected the usual light-hearted story but got Russian pagan tribes celebrated Spring with a virgin dancing herself to death.
Musically, some deemed Stravinsky’s accompanying orchestral concert as avant-gard, even offensive. A journalist later described it as having:
“…contradicted every rule about what music should be. The sounds are often deliberately harsh…The music was cacophonously loud, assaulting the ears with thunderous percussion and shrieking brass. Rhythmically it was complex in a completely unprecedented way.”
By daring to challenge the status quo, The Rite of Spring became one of the most major turning points in the history of Western music
The Rite debut strongly parallels organizational transformation. When challenging “the way things are done” — too much, too soon might very well spark a “riot” in the town hall.
Tonality vs. Atonality
From Mozart to Jimi Hendrix to K-Pop, most music is written on the tonal scale, which comprises of a tonal center.
That is, the musical notes are arranged to create a clear melody and harmony with progressive hierarchies leading to a resolution or a “home base.”
You might be familiar with this tonal ear worm from The Sound of Music.
This simple tune is melodic and harmonic, progressively ascending the tonal scale until the resolute note that is ‘Do.’
Doesn’t this scale just feel satisfying?
Why Our Brains Love Tonal Music
The human brain is on a constant hunt for information that hits an individualized sweet spot of novelty and prediction. Genetic make-up and/or lived experiences can produce brains favoring one over the other.
When our brains find that sweet spot, its reward system — structures that de/incentivize behavior — is flooded the feel-good chemicals dopamine and serotonin.
With relatively good accuracy, tonal music allows the brain to predict the next note or measure, satisfying the brain’s craving for prediction and order.
In Contrast to Tonality
Atonal music lacks a tonal center — or a melody and harmony. An atonal version of ‘Do-Re-Mi-Fah-So-La-Ti-Do’ might sound like an out of tune piano.
Upon first hearing at least, atonal music impedes the brain from predicting the next note or measure. Processing it send the brain into cognitive overdrive — it must concentrate more and use different parts of the brain compared to tonal music. In fact, listening to atonal music is similar to processing a foreign language.
Music & Neurocognitive Processing
Most people across different cultures describe atonal music in negative terms and demonstrate a bodily response similar to fear.
We know this thanks to auditory cognition research — or how the brain processes sound. Here’s a synopsis of this process and how it translates to the workplace:
Anticipation
The prefrontal neocortex (forehead area) houses our personality — preconceived judgements and memories construct how we believe the music will sound before its played.
Workers use this area to anticipate in what ways the new ways of working and delivery will manifest; how it will occur and impact them.
Pitch and Tone
The audio cortex processes both plus recognition. You might think, “Is this the Beatles or the Stones?”
For most workers, pitch and tone will play a significant role in change agent’s the trustworthiness and credibility when communicating changes.
Emotion
Although often conflated, emotions and feelings are in fact different. Emotions are physiological responses to stimuli measured objectively through bodily responses: pupil dilation, heart rate, brain activity, or facial movements.
Responses to change are felt first physiologically and often unconsciously or unconnected to conscious feelings.
Feelings
Once the study participant has heard the music, the prefrontal cortex forms our conscious feelings of it. Researchers use surveys and questionnaires.
How workers feel about change in relation to the company’s history, their roles, experiences, esteem of those in charge and other factors.
Let’s Pause for a Mini-Experiment
Listen to each piece for about 15–20 seconds at least. Focus on how the music makes you feel (not if you like it or how you would describe it).
Rank the following adjectives in order from highest to lowest: confusing, relaxing, scary, complex, pleasant, thought-provoking, harmonious, agitating, or different.
Sample A : La Campanella by Franz Liszt
Sample B: Suite for Piano, Opus 25 by Arnold Schoenberg.
Mini-Experiment Results
Sample A is the tonal piano piece. Most study participants would likely describe it as ‘relaxing’, ‘pleasant’, or ‘harmonious.’
Physiologically, most participants would display an emotional arousal state more closely linked to pleasure or neutrality.
With Sample B then being the atonal piano piece, results would be opposite. Most participants would describe Sample B as ‘unpleasant’, ‘agitating’, or ‘different.’
Accordingly, most participants would also display an emotional arousal state closely linked to fear and timidity.
But a small outlier subset would share atypical responses.
These ‘atonally-inclined’ participants are more likely to describe the Sample B atonal piano piece using descriptors such as ‘complex’, ‘thought-provoking’, or ‘different’ highest?
For the ‘atonally-inclined’, atonal music creates a more positive emotional arousal state and conscious feelings that reflect a “perceptual curiosity” and a willingness to engage the atonal music — a trait associated with positive risk-taking.
Compared to the atonally-disinclined group, these brains displayed greater openness to new experiences, novelty-seeking, and preference for complexity — or a higher threshold for uncertainty. Instead of fear, these brains received a level of neural reward.
All of these traits are key components needed for greater curiosity, tolerance for ambiguity, and resilience (in addition to social advantages and personal traits). In other words, being agile and engaging in creative problem-solving.
A social transformation is not simply adopting a mindset and practices, it also creates physical neural pathways that allow for greater uncertainty, exploration, and creativity.
What were your results? Whatever they are, remember it’s a simplified version of real audio cognition study. Moreover, the brain is not fixed.
Everyone starts at a different place in their journey but neural plasticity — or the forming new neural connections or “bridges” to different parts of the brain — means everyone can grow, albeit at different paces and under different, but supportive, environments.
How Might Atonal Music Enhance Change Readiness Assessment?
Atonality Applied to Organizational Transformations
Prior to an organization/team’transformation, a readiness assessment is performed. Although it has qualitative and quantitative research elements, it most often focuses on external systems criteria (Are roles and responsibilities clear? How is continuous integration, etc.?).
While an experienced change agent also gains a pulse on how those involved consciously feel about the current and future state, there are clear limitations: expressed feelings do not always align internal feelings. And this can be misleading when developing a right-fit approach.
The major of advantage of using atonal music is that it is almost universally disliked across cultures, providing a far less biased “playing ground” to gather insights for change practice.
Values
Let’s say study results indicated 60% of an organization/team members demonstrate a low neural capacity for agility. How would this feedback factor into a transformation approach? What if emotional arousal states were added to the assessment? What could be illuminated?
Conversely, what if the majority were rather high in neural agility? What might one expect in terms of change resistance? Duration of the journey?
Additionally:
- Are transformations more successful if leadership is initially on the higher end in traits of openness to new experiences, novelty-seeking, and preference for complexity? Vice versa?
- What approaches and techniques might be tested and validated for effectiveness with different levels of emotional thresholds?
- What might be found if such a study were repeated in different scenarios 3, 6, 9, or 14 months later?
In Summary
It's hardly productive to standardize gaugeing neurological progression during an organization’s/team’s transformation with EKG machines. Plus, a plethora of feasibility considerations including ethics, unknown variables, and of course, financial cost.
Yet, considering the risk — and expense — of failure is very high, more neuroscience
“Atonality processing could be a key to unraveling learning and environmental considerations that make people more comfortable with uncertainty — and therefore, positive change.”
I’m Abril Garrido Chivato. I’m a design-loving strategist and co-creative facilitator. I partner with responsible and forward-thinking organizations and individuals to navigate complexities in a very real 21st century. Also, okay cellist.
Resources
To learn more about atonal music and music theory, I highly recommend Leonard Berstein’s engaging and digestible masterclass videos.
Learn about music theory from Adam Neely (Youtube channel).
Anne Toor (2013) 100 years ago today, ‘The Rite of Spring’ incited a riot in a Paris theater
References
Iris Mencke, Diana Omigie, Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, Elvira Brattico
(2019) | Atonal Music: Can Uncertainty Lead to Pleasure?
Bryn Farnsworth, Ph.D, (2020) | How to Measure Emotions and Feelings (And the Difference Between Them)
Alice M. Proverbio, Luigi Manfrin, Laura A. Arcari, Francesco De Benedetto, Martina Gazzola, Matteo Guardamagna, Valentina Lozano Nasi, Alberto Zani (2105) | Non-expert listeners show decreased heart rate and increased blood pressure (fear bradycardia) in response to atonal music
Michael Rugnetta, Neuroplasticity.
Prof. Lars Muckl (2018) | Theory of predictive brain as important as evolution.
