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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?

#121

Post by garmaine »

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…

This is me. I can listen to and appreciate music in the same way regular people can learn to appreciate art or fine wine. But I usually prefer listening to silence, and really don't get why people on the whole are so obsessed with music. I've been to a concert exactly once, enough to know it's really not my thing.

Interestingly I'm also clinically tone-deaf, meaning that I'm utterly unable to tell what note is played or make anything resembling song with my voice. Don't invite me to karaoke. I cannot tell that the pitch of my voice doesn't match the song accompanying it.

But don't feel any pity: you guys are the weird ones :P

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

#122

Post by garmaine »

tmh88j wrote: post #118
sizzle wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy music but I realizes that the ROI of listening to music is on uplifting my mood. I rather listen to a podcast or NPR now cause I get something to ponder on or form an opinion about on my commute. I rather listen to music socially with people in the car though. From the field of neuroscience, we know that music affects the brain like a drug of sorts. I believe Steven Pinker said in a book of his that music rel…

That's understandable, but he specifically asked what kind of music his coworker likes. If you asked someone what their favorite movie is and they brought up a completely different activity they enjoy to pass the time, like programming, you'd find their response more than odd, no?

Listening to silence is different from listening to music? They're both categories of "things you'd want to hear."

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

#123

Post by irrational »

moyya wrote: post #98
irrational wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone. I'm just glad I now know the name for my "condition" (which I sincerely hope there is no cure for).

Just curious why you explicitly "hope there is no cure"? Seems like an odd wish. If music has little to no effect on you now, why would you even care? Furthermore if a "cure" did exist, what would be the downside of trying it?

From what I can see, there is no upside to enjoying music. People spend so much time and money (attending concerts, paying for streaming services, buying music, buying instruments, practicing instruments, listening to the music, etc.) that I'm able to happily use elsewhere. If I enjoyed music I might want to start using my time and money for those things.

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

#124

Post by tmh88j »

garmaine wrote: post #122
tmh88j wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's understandable, but he specifically asked what kind of music his coworker likes. If you asked someone what their favorite movie is and they brought up a completely different activity they enjoy to pass the time, like programming, you'd find their response more than odd, no?

Listening to silence is different from listening to music? They're both categories of "things you'd want to hear."

If you asked someone what their favorite kind of pizza is and they responded with "chocolate milkshake", you wouldn't be at a loss for words? They're both categories of food.

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

#125

Post by garmaine »

moyya wrote: post #98
irrational wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone. I'm just glad I now know the name for my "condition" (which I sincerely hope there is no cure for).

Just curious why you explicitly "hope there is no cure"? Seems like an odd wish. If music has little to no effect on you now, why would you even care? Furthermore if a "cure" did exist, what would be the downside of trying it?

I like who I am, and am perfectly happy the way I am. If you step back and look at it, letting vibrations in the air control your emotional state is kinda a scary proposition, no?

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

#126

Post by garmaine »

drblast wrote: post #52
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

This is fascinating! Can any of you with musical anhedonia watch either of these songs and explain how you feel? https://youtu.be/SS0NHlWgi5w?t=3m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi5A9OCAyIk

Felt probably the same as you would feel if I asked you to watch a youtube clip of paint drying to the din of a noisy train station or other public place.

Really it was just that, noise.

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

#127

Post by garmaine »

qznc wrote: post #73
philmcc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

Interesting. I also have mostly soundtracks in my playlists, for when I feel like listening to music at all (usually to drown out distractions). It's all soundtracks of things I've watched and enjoyed, and puts me in the mood of the memory of the movie or TV show its from. The music itself doesn't do very much at all for me directly.

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

#128

Post by crazynick4 »

soundwave106 wrote: post #74
chimeracoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cultur…

Scales in Indian music are also built around integer ratios.

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

#129

Post by vagab0nd »

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…

For people who are not familiar, there are 12 steps in an octave. The frequency of the note doubles for each octave. Thus, each "step" increase the frequency of the note by 2^(1/12) times. So you have the frequencies of each semitone as roughly:

1.00 1.06 1.12 1.19 1.26 1.33 1.41 1.50 1.59 1.68 1.78 1.89

This is the reason why "Do/Mi/So" (1/1.26/1.5, ~4/5/6) or "Do/Fa/La" (1/1.33/1.68, ~3/4/5) sound good to the ear.

Incidentally, the way the piano is tuned is different from guitar, where piano tuning is more precise (closer to the 2^(1/12) steps), and guitar more close to the integer relations.

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

#130

Post by yesenadam »

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…

jazz is said to approximate the scales that could be built off the '7-limit' intervals, which explains its more dissonant nature (heavy use of tritone which has a ratio of 7:5

That all sounds pretty baseless to me. is said to? By who? (Those people who find endless patterns in the measurements of the Egyptian pyramids, maybe.) I've never heard or read that. A tritone doesn't "have a ratio of 7:5", not in the equal temperament we use nowadays - 2^(6/12)=sqrt(2), or in its most literal/basic form of going up 6 perfect fifths i.e. (3/2)^6.

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