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Why Does Music Feel So Good?

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#31

Post by dougk16 »

Read "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel Levitin.

Some interesting points/arguments that I remember from reading it several years ago:

- In many languages, the word "sing" is the same as the word "dance".

- It's relatively recently in our history that the majority of people have become only listeners of music, instead of creators.

- As humans evolved, one's ability to sing, dance, and play instruments well displayed good physical, intellectual, and emotional health to the opposite sex, and so gave you an evolutionary edge.

- Something about how even the most non-musically-inclined people can extract the beat from a song better than a computer and repeat it later perfectly (memory is hazy on this one...I'm probably saying something stupid here).

That's all I remember for now...references are in the book of course. Very good read.

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#32

Post by gdsimoes »

rlu wrote: post #22

Somewhat tangential, somewhat related: people listen to music a lot, and yet the great majority of people do so with their stock iPod earbuds - or cheap alternatives. I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or c…

I completely agree with you. My friends love my expensive headphones but refuse to buy one. And I really think they value the quality of their music.

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#33

Post by meritt »

kafkaesque wrote: post #28
meritt wrote: post #17

Someone needs to put together a Spotify playlist of these 60 songs.

I put a Spotify playlist together but only found 56 songs. There were more than one version of a few songs, and I couldn't cross-reference the audio on the researcher's site. I'll do it tonight, unless anyone gets to it before I.

Link to playlist? :)

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#34

Post by bane »

saddino wrote: post #16

There have been several pieces (from classical to classic rock) that have actually caused me to break out in tears. Not teary eyes mind you; gushing waterworks at specific resolution points. Amazingly, this is reproducible, but the severity of the effect depends on my mood. After reading this, my best guess is that this is tied to an especially intense release of dopamine. My maternal grandfather shared this peculiar…

It's called Frisson (I have it also)

There used to be a great Wikipedia page on it, but the deletionists got to it at some point and turned it into this content free page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_chill

There's a slowly growing body of studies into it.

There's also a reddit devoted to it http://www.reddit.com/r/frisson but I've found that what causes one person to frisson doesn't necessarily cause another.

This book has a bit on it http://books.google.com/books?id=uyI_Cb8olkMC&lpg=PR5&#3...

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#35

Post by rlu »

fredsted wrote: post #25
rlu wrote: post #22

Somewhat tangential, somewhat related: people listen to music a lot, and yet the great majority of people do so with their stock iPod earbuds - or cheap alternatives. I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or c…

People have different interests. I know someone who spends thousands of dollars on coffee and coffee equipment. I think that's ridiculous. I think it's a cool hobby though. It sucks that your friends make you feel bad for things you enjoy! The new Apple Earpods are acceptable though (compared to the Sennheiser 429 I own which are too big to wear in public).

Haha, well to be fair..they don't make me feel bad. It was just an observation

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#36

Post by sliverstorm »

rlu wrote: post #22

Somewhat tangential, somewhat related: people listen to music a lot, and yet the great majority of people do so with their stock iPod earbuds - or cheap alternatives. I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or c…

IMO, people just don't see the increase in performance to be worth the increase in price.

Now, something like the Sony MDR-7506 has an excellent performance-vs-price ratio, but many people want to stuff their headphones in their pocket when they aren't using them, and it is hard to find the same performance-vs-price ratio for earbuds.

Personally, I'm at roughly the same spot as you. I have a DAC and amp, and two pairs of nice Senns.

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#37

Post by xnxn »

willismichael wrote: post #15
hobs wrote: post #2

I like how an undergraduate neuroscientist takes the same approach I would to learning about the brain. Throw that fucker in Google.

No! Please don't waste yet another super genius on an advertising company.

The fucker being referred to here is the research topic, not the neuroscientist:

> After Salimpoor had the car epiphany, she rushed home to her computer and Googled “music and the brain.”

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#38

Post by shaydoc »

Interesting reading. I have always loved music, pretty much anything. I just wonder if our genetics and DNA plays a large part in this. I often observe my little daughter's reaction to music, and its truly amazing to see how she will spontaneously smile and dance when a really good piece of music comes on. First time I really noticed big time was when the opening bars of Bruce Hornsby's "The way it is" came on the radio, she just loved it :-)

I wonder if we all get beginners templates of what we will like via our gene pool :-)

Re: Why Does Music Feel So Good?

#39

Post by JonnieCache »

oneiros wrote: post #30
thomseddon wrote: post #5

The question that has always puzzled me is why do we feel compelled to sing along to music? I mean, we are invariably worse singers so it surely makes it sound worse and this is besides the fact that signing ourselves drowns out much of the original sound anyway! (Note: this is not to say I'm a silent listener, i'm a big fan of singing to myself ! :)

I'd be interested to see the results of this study if the participants were exposed to ambient drone music, such as sounds of a didgeridoo or a Steve Roach piece, that music often consists of long drawn out tones that don't fluctuate frequently and often lack a "melody". For me, it puts me a deep trance like state of mind that is very calm and peaceful. Humming along to the long tones also feels good, it's like your…

>Steve Roach

Steve Reich

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