Why do we like music?

[AskWazzup]

I had this question in my mind for a long time, but since today i never actually delved deeper into this dilema. Why DO WE LIKE MUSIC? I tried to search a bit about this in the internet, but it seems that there is no concrete data about this topic, or any factual information (at least i didn't find any, in my brief foray) on scientific basis.

So what do you think? Is this a purely psychological/evolutionary phenomena, or is it influenced by social/cultural aspects? Why do we like different music?

I understand that there are many questions-marks in this topic, but i just can't put my finger on this. I know that some music gives me the goosebumps, some music can set my mind into a cetain mood, or even a kind of a trance. I understand that i like a certain genre more if i know the backround of it better and i lean towards music that has a certain emotional bearing that i can relate to, but this is not always the case, sometimes i just like music that has no similarities to my personality.

I would like to submit my conclusions on this , but i just don't have any rational ideas at this time, so what do you think?

 

[remake]

I assume that music has always been around as part of religious rituals. From there it developed into a craftsmanship/art and became sort of a tradition, say, a habit.

Why do we like it? I guess for the same reason why we like other arts; because it is a creative outlet. And there's more to us, humans, than mere flesh and bones...

 

[Blackened]

Are you asking what makes music different than simple noise (and why do we like exact combinations of tones (which are sounds of different frequency) and exact intervals between them?

Because if you are, then you are asking the same thing I asked once in a psychology forum (uncommonforum). However, my thread got two pages, and only one person actually understood and answered my question and gave a meaningful answer, even though I clarified it several times.

At a complete guess, perhaps the enjoyment of music is something to do with a structured firing of sensory neurons, that the brain agrees with somehow and responds to by releasing some 'feel-good' neurotransmitter. Every brain being slightly different, different patterns of sound (and hence neuron excitation) are agreeable to different brains.

I don't have a real answer to your question.

 

[SkuLL]

The world is music - whether you look at or whether you look at the sounds of any system or the actual vibrations of electrons or molecules, there seems to be an underlying orchestra at work everywhere.

I heard that when you remove a certain sound from a system (say you remove a certain type of bird from a tropical island), the sounds of that system will gradually change to adapt, to fill this vacuum, to continue the song.

So I guess that different pieces of music have the power to create different kinds of emotions in people, because they work with some subconscious mechanism that equates them to different situations in nature.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

You're all wrong, but partially right.

Our love of music, is a consequence, side effect if you will, of our evolutionary development of speech. The love of music is hard-wired, and developed along with the speech center of the brain.

Music involves rhythm and melody that is the framework of speech. The two are interconnected with each other, and music developed along with language, writing, and philosophy.

Those three things made music.

The evolution of the human brain, and our ability for subjective/abstract thought to define our species and meanings of things in the world around us is an obvious requirement for the development and enjoyment of music.

 

[TheWesDude]

black, i could agree with that.

plus, it has been found through brain analysis and such where they have found that listening to someone talking, even poetry, only engages one part of the brain.

but when they involve music, all of a sudden you have multiple parts of the brain turning on and processing that sound.

now every brain is different, and how they process sound is also different. some brains will process certain musical types and it will trigger parts of the brain associated with pleasure, and others will trigger parts that are associated with such as fear or pain.

one of the biggest "strays" from that ideal is classical music. it tends to be processed far more on the analytical side of the brain far more than other types of music, especially for those trained in how to analyze or read music.

thats the main reason they say to listen to classical when pregnant, the hope is that by "activating" those parts of the brain while it is still forming in the womb, that the baby will hold onto that and be "smarter" when they grow up.

does that help?

 

[Deleted member 53669]

^^^

Must have been some shitty poetry, or a very non-descriptive sentence.

Plus, the Beethoven Fetus theory doesn't work, since a fetus isn't engaged in verbal/auditory development until after birth.

If you understand music theory, then you understand that a single note, or noise, is just noise unless you make that noise an interval.

The two notes in a bar, or in a certain pattern, trigger the musical aspect of a sound.

A simple A note, played once or continuously, gathers the attention, and the second note, finishes the sentence relative to the frequency of the first note.

Of course, a sense of timing, or the brains internal clock, is required for music and speech. The reason that numerous parts of the brain light up, is that the individual is focused on these aspects when listening to music.

Timing is required when talking, most of the time. After a language is learned, the melody, or verbal aesthetics placed onto words, dictate the emotion and extra meanings of the speaker. Monotone talking is not. In a rhythm that is known, the timing and other aspects are not focused on.

 

[remake]

^^^

Must have been some shitty poetry, or a very non-descriptive sentence.

Plus, the Beethoven Fetus theory doesn't work, since a fetus isn't engaged in verbal/auditory development until after birth.

If you understand music theory, then you understand that a single note, or noise, is just noise unless you make that noise an interval.

The two notes in a bar, or in a certain pattern, trigger the musical aspect of a sound.

A simple A note, played once or continuously, gathers the attention, and the second note, finishes the sentence relative to the frequency of the first note.

Niyazi Sayin (one of the few still-alive masters of classical Turkish music) defines music as "the spiritual relationship between at least two consecutive notes."

 

[Deleted member 53669]

It doesn't take a master to realize the importance of an interval.

But it takes taste to realize the awesomeness of using tri-tones at a slow bpm.

 

[remake]

It doesn't take a master to realize the importance of an interval.

But it takes taste to realize the awesomeness of using tri-tones at a slow bpm.

Classical Turkish music is monophonic.

 

[TheWesDude]

face dude, of course the fetus does not perceive the "music" per se, they do perceive the vibrations.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Response 1, I was referring to Black Sabbath, you twit. If you were trying to trick me, I don't care because I don't know anything about Classical Armenian Killing Anthems by Silly Tassel Hat Desert Dwellers.

Response 2, Anything with a nervous system can perceive vibrations. Doesn't make it a connoisseur. You twit.

 

[TheRatKing]

from what I've studied, ))<>(( hit the nail on the head with this one.
(How do you pronounce ))<>((? How about super bracket man?)

anyways to add to the discussion, I read a study that found that after recording and analyzing speech patterns of a sample, researchers found that we did in fact respond to sad emotions with a minor third tone and happy emotions with a major third (generally corresponding to what is heard musically)

 

[Deleted member 53669]

from what I've studied, ))<>(( hit the nail on the head with this one.
(How do you pronounce ))<>((? How about super bracket man?)

The answer to your question, lies here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQoJo81lujk[/youtube]

 

[Mettle]

The world is music - whether you look at or whether you look at the sounds of any system or the actual vibrations of electrons or molecules, there seems to be an underlying orchestra at work everywhere.

I have to link to Jodrel Banks Observatory and tell you to listen to the bottom file, The Pulsars of 47 Tucanae. That is eerie stuff.

 

[remake]

Response 1, I was referring to Black Sabbath, you twit. If you were trying to trick me, I don't care because I don't know anything about Classical Armenian Killing Anthems by Silly Tassel Hat Desert Dwellers.

Huh? I wasn't trying to trick you. I was just trying to have a decent convo with a few beers in me. I don't know much about Black Sabbath. Crappy music if you ask me...

"Classical Armenian Killing Anthems"? What does that even mean? How do you relate a 1200 year old musical tradition which belongs to all the peoples of Minor-Asia (including the Armenians) and some parts of the Balkans to a historical event of a century ago which practically has nothing to do with the music itself?

Or are you just trolling?

 

[SkuLL]

Plus, the Beethoven Fetus theory doesn't work, since a fetus isn't engaged in verbal/auditory development until after birth.

I agree, the foetus doesn't 'hear' the sound and consciously form an opinion about it, but that doesn't mean that different vibrations from different types of music can't have any effect.

[spoiler:85bae7b6c7]

Bach

Heavy Metal

Healing Music[/spoiler:85bae7b6c7]

 

[Blakut]

Plus, the Beethoven Fetus theory doesn't work, since a fetus isn't engaged in verbal/auditory development until after birth.

I agree, the foetus doesn't 'hear' the sound and consciously form an opinion about it, but that doesn't mean that different vibrations from different types of music can't have any effect.

[spoiler:ae55cddbab]

Bach

Heavy Metal

Healing Music[/spoiler:ae55cddbab]

That's just pseudoscience... ever tried that for real? I mean with the ice. It won't work, of course...

 

[AskWazzup]

Our love of music, is a consequence, side effect if you will, of our evolutionary development of speech. The love of music is hard-wired, and developed along with the speech center of the brain.

This does make sense, but didn't music develop much later than speech did? I know that there were musical instruments dating 7k years or so ago, but i think the first ones were used for scaring away enemies, or some religious porpuses.

Music involves rhythm and melody that is the framework of speech.

Not all music has clearly defined rhythm and melody, genres such as "ambient industrial" are on the slippery side, because often they are just a bunch of real life noises, that you just might hear accidentily while working, say, in a factory. Still , some people love this kind of "music"....

Also, wouldn't we all like music if this was purely a physical, neurological aspect of human evolution. I mean i can't stand certain types of music that are often considered much more musical than some of the stuff that i listen to. Then there are people who don't like music at all.

Now every brain is different, and how they process sound is also different. some brains will process certain musical types and it will trigger parts of the brain associated with pleasure, and others will trigger parts that are associated with such as fear or pain.

But how do we start to like certain types of music? This can't be just about our experience (being in an enviroment that plays a certain type of music), because i remember quite a few musical genres that i just loved from the first time i heard them, though i was never exposed to them before and they couldn't have been hardvired in my neurons by that point.

 

[SkuLL]

That's just pseudoscience... ever tried that for real? I mean with the ice. It won't work, of course...

I was trying to be funny with that reference.

But I do believe different vibrations affect you differently, beyond what you hear with your ears and consciously analyze with your brain. That feels like common sense.