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We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

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Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#71

Post by dvh »

munificent wrote: post #46
lqet wrote: post #2

Related: recent studies have shown that there are people with "musical anhedonia", and that this condition may affect 3 to 5% of the world population [1]. These people "get" music, meaning that they can learn to sing or play an instrument, remember and recognize melodies etc., but they are completely unable to receive any pleasure from it. As someone who gets a significant amount of his daily joy from listening to mu…

I was riding with a new coworker to lunch. Trying to get to know him better, I asked what kind of music he likes. Music is such an important part of many people's life that this is often a good opener. He hesitated for a while and said, "I don't know... quiet I guess?" I think his response caused a full hard reboot of my cranial OS. It was the first time I'd ever met anyone whose relationship to music was so fundamen…

Maybe he only listen to anime soundtracks and was embarrassed to tell you

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#72

Post by crazynick4 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #56
crazynick4 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, which musical traditions favor music built on scales from dissonant intervals? Do you mean music which is more percussion oriented?

Balinese gamelan is played on metal instruments which don't have the same concept of consonance and whose overtones and scales have almost no relationship with Western music. Some eastern european folk uses minor-like scales but harmonies feature a major second, which is certainly not considered a consonant interval. In the West there's also jazz, which is based rather loosely on conventional Western harmony but uses…

Ok I see what you are saying. I guess I didn't really get this across but I'm not saying that more consonance always means more listening pleasure. As with the Pythagorean tunings, all consonance and no dissonance can become bland. Dissonant intervals are also a part of the harmonic series as you go further up. The major second that you mentioned is a 16:15 ratio.

As far as Jazz chords, many are not as dissonant as you would think. The dominant seventh which makes up the entirety of the blues progression is generally considered dissonant because of the flat 7th, the most 'out of tune' note in western tuning. It actually is an attempt to approximate the interval formed between the 7th and 4th overtones which are a strong consonance.

Dissonance is definitely a part of what makes music interesting. I wasn't trying to say that consonant intervals are the only reason for listening pleasure, just pointing out that there's some natural phenomena (harmonic series) that we're approximating or emulating with our music that can explain why we perceive music the way we do or why it sounds beautiful to us.

I'm not familiar with gamelan but I found this interesting quote on the page regarding one of its tunings:

> ..where instruments are played in pairs which are tuned slightly apart so as to produce interference beating. The beating is ideally at a consistent speed for all pairs of notes in all registers, producing stretched octaves as a result. This contributes to the very "agitated" and "shimmering" sound of gamelan ensembles. In the religious ceremonies that contain gamelan, these interference beats are meant to give the listener a feeling of a god's presence or a stepping stone to a meditative state.

So in a way, even though the tuning system goes 'outside' the harmonic series, it doesn't completely ignore it but rather 'stretches' some of its intervals, which is what gives the music its otherworldly or mystical feeling.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#73

Post by qznc »

philmcc wrote: post #64
qznc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. And by the way, since HN talked about Anki a few days ago [0], this is a nice little fact which I just entered into my database. Copy&pasted the first line of the Wikipedia article and used the cloze mechanism the ask for the term and its definition. Now I will never forget about musical anhedonia anymore. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846356

I have a question for musical anhedonics: Do you find it harder to enjoy movies? Typically the score does so much _work_ in the name of emotional manipulation, that I wonder if it would make movies less enjoyable. More specifically I wonder if you would like certain movies (Spielberg) less and other movies (Er, Um. Who doesn't use scores that much?) more?

How would I know if it is harder for me to enjoy movies than for somebody else?

I don't like "music movies" such as High Fidelity, 8 Mile, School of Rock, Blues Brothers. They are just average comedy/drama flicks for me. Maybe normal people like them more?

For a while if someone asked me what music I like, I replied film music. I do enjoy film music but maybe just because the music makes me remember the movie?

I'm definitely affected by the music. Maybe music can still emphasize emotions for a musical anhedonic and it just that music in itself does not do much?

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#74

Post by soundwave106 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #35
crazynick4 wrote: post #34

This article did not mention overtones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music) Combinations of frequencies that form simple integer ratios are naturally perceived as being consonant, no culture or upbringing needed. As the ratios begin to involve higher integers and become more complex, the intervals they produce are considered more dissonant. For instance, in anc…

> Combinations of frequencies that form simple integer ratios are naturally perceived as being consonant, no culture or upbringing needed. As the ratios begin to involve higher integers and become more complex, the intervals they produce are considered more dissonant. This is only true for a definition of "consonant" and "dissonant" that is literally tautological. Yes, one can distinguish between consonant and disson…

"Consonant" and "dissonant" are words that are indeed a bit too specific to the European music pedagogy as a whole. But I would argue that the "whole integer ratio" principle does actually extend a fair bit beyond Western classical.

The lowest whole integer frequency ratios -- using Pythagorean terms and the ratios, octaves (2:1) and perfect fifths (3:2) -- seem to be present in the music systems of many music cultures, at least the ones I'm aware of. Perfect fourths (4:3) are also decently common in many music scales, although not quite as common as the other ratios.

Beyond that, there is much variety and I'm not sure I can conclude anything (especially since my knowledge of scales and modes outside Western music is fairly limited). It just seems like most music systems in the world are aware of these core ratios at least.

One other curiosity: I would say a huge percentage of music scales throughout the world tend to feature either seven or five notes (five notes actually is probably the more common one, if I had to take a guess). Unlike harmony, I'm honestly not sure why this is the case. Even gamelan scales are seven notes.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#75

Post by fjsolwmv »

munificent wrote: post #46
lqet wrote: post #2

Related: recent studies have shown that there are people with "musical anhedonia", and that this condition may affect 3 to 5% of the world population [1]. These people "get" music, meaning that they can learn to sing or play an instrument, remember and recognize melodies etc., but they are completely unable to receive any pleasure from it. As someone who gets a significant amount of his daily joy from listening to mu…

I was riding with a new coworker to lunch. Trying to get to know him better, I asked what kind of music he likes. Music is such an important part of many people's life that this is often a good opener. He hesitated for a while and said, "I don't know... quiet I guess?" I think his response caused a full hard reboot of my cranial OS. It was the first time I'd ever met anyone whose relationship to music was so fundamen…

Maybe he meant smooth jazz, classical, adult contemporary, downtempo type stuff that is quiet music but isn't any genre. People who aren't big into music don't learn all the genre names.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#76

Post by tsumnia »

munificent wrote: post #46
lqet wrote: post #2

Related: recent studies have shown that there are people with "musical anhedonia", and that this condition may affect 3 to 5% of the world population [1]. These people "get" music, meaning that they can learn to sing or play an instrument, remember and recognize melodies etc., but they are completely unable to receive any pleasure from it. As someone who gets a significant amount of his daily joy from listening to mu…

I was riding with a new coworker to lunch. Trying to get to know him better, I asked what kind of music he likes. Music is such an important part of many people's life that this is often a good opener. He hesitated for a while and said, "I don't know... quiet I guess?" I think his response caused a full hard reboot of my cranial OS. It was the first time I'd ever met anyone whose relationship to music was so fundamen…

I'd argue enjoying the absence of music doesn't qualify as musical anhedonia. "Enjoyment" is a valent measure so "negative enjoyment" is still enjoyment, but negatively impacted. If the absence of music is pleasurable, then you are perceiving and responding to the sound. Otherwise you could argue there exists "silence anhedonia", "cake anhedonia", or that everyone has passive "breathing anhedonia".

I'd need to read through the article, but the Wikipedia link sounds they are conflating "enjoying" and "responding to". Instead, I'm assuming musical anhedonia is referring more to "apathy of sound".

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#77

Post by dan-robertson »

tsumnia wrote: post #76
munificent wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was riding with a new coworker to lunch. Trying to get to know him better, I asked what kind of music he likes. Music is such an important part of many people's life that this is often a good opener. He hesitated for a while and said, "I don't know... quiet I guess?" I think his response caused a full hard reboot of my cranial OS. It was the first time I'd ever met anyone whose relationship to music was so fundamen…

I'd argue enjoying the absence of music doesn't qualify as musical anhedonia. "Enjoyment" is a valent measure so "negative enjoyment" is still enjoyment, but negatively impacted. If the absence of music is pleasurable, then you are perceiving and responding to the sound. Otherwise you could argue there exists "silence anhedonia", "cake anhedonia", or that everyone has passive "breathing anhedonia". I'd need to read t…

I disagree. For an example I would say that roadworks or traffic or other people’s conversations do not really elicit an emotional response however many people would likely prefer quiet.

I think it is unreasonable to assume that if someone were to say “well I prefer quiet, I guess,” they mean that they have some great emotional response to being in the quiet making them love it. It would be more reasonable to assume that they are basically indifferent and would rather not have the distraction/noise.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#78

Post by KozmoNau7 »

lqet wrote: post #2

Related: recent studies have shown that there are people with "musical anhedonia", and that this condition may affect 3 to 5% of the world population [1]. These people "get" music, meaning that they can learn to sing or play an instrument, remember and recognize melodies etc., but they are completely unable to receive any pleasure from it. As someone who gets a significant amount of his daily joy from listening to mu…

I absolutely love music as well, I can't imagine living without it, and I generally go to 4-5 concerts every month.

The idea that something I find so pleasurable does absolutely nothing to some people is really interesting to me.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#79

Post by scns »

Music touches me deeply. It gives me joy when it matches my mood but makes it nearly intolerable noise when it does not.

I feel great excitement when i discover new music like, endorphins en masse.

I think we do not derive pleasure from music but the feeling that there is another human being that feels the same way we do.

Re: We know music is pleasurable, the question is why?

#80

Post by tsumnia »

dan-robertson wrote: post #77
tsumnia wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue enjoying the absence of music doesn't qualify as musical anhedonia. "Enjoyment" is a valent measure so "negative enjoyment" is still enjoyment, but negatively impacted. If the absence of music is pleasurable, then you are perceiving and responding to the sound. Otherwise you could argue there exists "silence anhedonia", "cake anhedonia", or that everyone has passive "breathing anhedonia". I'd need to read t…

I disagree. For an example I would say that roadworks or traffic or other people’s conversations do not really elicit an emotional response however many people would likely prefer quiet. I think it is unreasonable to assume that if someone were to say “well I prefer quiet, I guess,” they mean that they have some great emotional response to being in the quiet making them love it. It would be more reasonable to assume…

> It would be more reasonable to assume that they are basically indifferent and would rather not have the distraction/noise.

We are actually agreeing; however I'm saying that this is a preference. Wikipedia refers to anhedonia as an inability to have pleasure about something. However, valence [1] as a measurement identifies affect dimensions as a polar system - (to quote Wikipedia) "Stress is negative valence and opposite of this is pleasure or happiness." My claim is that "pleasure" can be positive or negative - in that music would cause happiness or stress. Adding genre only furthers my statement that you could claim someone is "R&B anhedonia", "death metal anhedonia", or "classical anhedonia" if anhedonia only refers to positive affects. I, however, am saying anhedonia should be for the positive and negative degrees of an affect.

"No sound" is still sound - its the difference between null and zero. My original post says I'd say anhedonia is more linked to "null", while preferring no sound is more linked to "zero". Holding a positive or negative preference is a measurable attribute and therefore not what I would claim anhedonia; however, being purely apathetic (void) of preference would.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_(psychology)

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