Why people enjoy music
There is a lot of mystification on this topic. I have a theory, which I think is more plausible than the other theories I have seen:
* People love predictability, music is predictable, which people enjoy
- Obviously not! To say music is "predictable" is not praise it, quite the opposite
* Music is an extrapolation of the musical sequences heard in everyday spoken language (i.e. "hel-loo-ooo!").
- I think this is closer. But these sequences are more convention than anything, they do not excite people to anything like the ecstasy music can induce.
My answer:
Look at the original music: singing. What was the original context of singing? Religious and community rituals.
[s]In a song[/s] In ordinary speech, the words are the nominal message, and sound is the medium of that message, the carrier of that signal. But in a song, that carrier was repurposed to transmit another signal, by varying the pitch and tempo of the spoken words.
Unlike the words, this signal is not informational, it is emotional. When a listener hears a song, he is receiving two simultaneous, distinct signals, symbolic and emotional. The purpose of the second, emotional signal, is to reinforce the message of the first, symbolic one. By manipulating pitch and tempo the singer is able to induce an ecstasy in the listener which he could not otherwise achieve with mere words. Music is an evolutionary assist in transmitting religious exaltation, which ultimately reinforces the control of the religious leader.
Every music lover will agree that their favorite music places them in a spiritual, exalted state. This concords with the function of music: to place the listener in a state of spiritual ecstasy, and impart the impression of meaning and significance which the words of the song would not otherwise possess.
The reason why one sequence of notes may excite this, and another may not, is both personally idiosyncratic and culturally bound.
Music has now outgrown its original function, so that an entire industry exists to stimulate the ecstasy, without the religious/spiritual content. Only the emotion remains, grasping at something which isn't there.
* People love predictability, music is predictable, which people enjoy
- Obviously not! To say music is "predictable" is not praise it, quite the opposite
* Music is an extrapolation of the musical sequences heard in everyday spoken language (i.e. "hel-loo-ooo!").
- I think this is closer. But these sequences are more convention than anything, they do not excite people to anything like the ecstasy music can induce.
My answer:
Look at the original music: singing. What was the original context of singing? Religious and community rituals.
[s]In a song[/s] In ordinary speech, the words are the nominal message, and sound is the medium of that message, the carrier of that signal. But in a song, that carrier was repurposed to transmit another signal, by varying the pitch and tempo of the spoken words.
Unlike the words, this signal is not informational, it is emotional. When a listener hears a song, he is receiving two simultaneous, distinct signals, symbolic and emotional. The purpose of the second, emotional signal, is to reinforce the message of the first, symbolic one. By manipulating pitch and tempo the singer is able to induce an ecstasy in the listener which he could not otherwise achieve with mere words. Music is an evolutionary assist in transmitting religious exaltation, which ultimately reinforces the control of the religious leader.
Every music lover will agree that their favorite music places them in a spiritual, exalted state. This concords with the function of music: to place the listener in a state of spiritual ecstasy, and impart the impression of meaning and significance which the words of the song would not otherwise possess.
The reason why one sequence of notes may excite this, and another may not, is both personally idiosyncratic and culturally bound.
Music has now outgrown its original function, so that an entire industry exists to stimulate the ecstasy, without the religious/spiritual content. Only the emotion remains, grasping at something which isn't there.
Comments (54)
I see analogues of musical concepts in all manner of time-based phenomena, and I think the first hypothesis about predictability was on the right track. When things happen over and over again people can get bored and annoyed but also sometimes comforted. When patterns suddenly change that can be surprising in either an exciting or frightening way. When things happen in an entirely unstructured way that can be anxiety inducing but then if pattern emerge out of that structure there’s a pleasant feeling of discovery. If multiple patterns interact with each other in different ways that’s likewise a pleasant thing to realize, to feel like you’re noticing the connections between these things.
Sound is all about patterns of changes over time (pitch is just frequency), and all kinds of musical concepts are further refinements upon that (harmony is when multiple frequencies share certain relationships, rhythm and tempo are also all about frequency of notes). Musical ups and downs, breaks and shifts, all all about establishing and then changing patterns over time.
I think we’re wired to have emotional responses to patterns like that more generally, to get bored of repetition but also to fear unpredictable change, to get intrigued by noticing patterns and the relationships between patterns, etc, and music just directly pushes all those emotional buttons in the most straightforward way divorced from any broader real-world context.
Conversely, applying musical concepts to the real world can be a way to make life more pleasant. Comforting patterns but with interesting change-ups, allowing one movement to complete before beginning another, etc. (Likewise, applying musical concepts to other forms of art, like fiction writing, can make it more interesting and pleasant as well).
I agree with this, rhythm is basically a repetition, and without rhythm there would not be music. The average piece of music takes a fundamental rhythm and experiments with variations. When you hear music played the variations create emotion and interest. But the artist must stay within a range of acceptability with the variations employed, or else the piece will be rejected by the potential audience as incoherent.
Quoting Pfhorrest
We could think of frequency as a very fast rhythm, perceptible only subconsciously, and apply the same principle stated above. The average piece of music takes a fundamental frequency (key) and experiments with variations, harmonies. The artist must stay within an accepted range of experimentation or else the audience will dismiss the piece as dissonance.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Notice, that in my description above, the audience's response to frequency is fundamentally subconscious, while the response to rhythm is more conscious. The subconscious does not "understand" things in the way that the conscious mind does, so it does not enforce the same strict rules or principles of predictability which the conscious mind enforces. Consequently the artist is allowed a lot more freedom of experimentation within a piece, with frequencies than with rhythm.
I believe that emotion arises from the interaction between the subconscious and the conscious, and it often involves agreement and disagreement between the two with respect to what is acceptable in relation to predictability. It may be the case that the subconscious does not require predictability, being incapable of understanding it. But more likely, the subconscious really has extremely rigid rules of acceptability, as evidenced by songbirds singing almost the exact same thing. The subconscious would apprehend predictability only in precise repetition. So it's quite possible that the conscious mind must override the rigidity of the subconscious, allowing the subconscious wide open freedom, as a prerequisite for the enjoyment of music. This would make the emotions involved with listening to music somewhat trained, or controlled at a fundamental level because the conscious mind would then have influence over the development of the subconscious, in this artificial freedom.
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“Plato’s teaching about music is, put simply, that rhythm and melody...are the barbarous expression of the soul...Music is the medium of the...soul in its most ecstatic condition of wonder and terror. Nietzsche, who in large measure agrees with Plato’s analysis, says In the Birth of Tragedy...that a mixture of cruelty and coarse sensuality characterized this state, which of course was religious, in the service of gods. Music is the soul’s primitive and primary speech, and it is...without articulate speech or reason. Even when articulate speech is added, it is utterly subordinate to and determined by the music and the passions it expresses.”
Together, they capture our attention and can either match, enhance or change our mood. It can make us go from sitting quietly to dancing. Sometimes, the musicianship alone is enough to put us in a trance like state.
Music can convey so much emotional depth and nuance in just a few minutes that would require a writer to use many pages to capture if they only had words to work with.
How do you know this? Why not percussion first? Could we have sung before we gave meaning? If not, why not?
The ability to like music was a lucky mutation. We still reap the benefit of it, even if not religious.
I've experienced this :I write black metal music, and my dad heard a song. He knows nothing about the genre, but he said it made him think of a burning red sky. That is exactly what I experienced when I wrote it,(I can only get lucky, I can't deliberately embed an image like this), hence the name, "Extinguish the Sun".
I thought that was great, but I don't think these images are truly "inside" the music. That seems as absurd as saying the concept (ice) is contained in the word "ice". But least within a culture, the emotional piano which music plays in us is similar. And the emotions we feel when contemplating the planets or an apocalyptic red sky are also similar. Therefore, it is possible, but not easy, to communicate images in music.
I really like this elaboration of the predictability theory.
Note that it is not exclusive with mine: they can both be true, and modulate each other.
I also don't think this theory can stand on its own. This way, music might be as much as a fascinating novelty, but no more. It cannot explain how the most dramatic and exalted emotional states we can experience can be evoked by music.
I am glad that someone on this site understands(and makes) black metal music. I enjoy this genre, including bands like Envy and Isis. Perhaps it is an underrated genre. I think that black metal enables us to touch the depths of beauty arising in the depths of chaos and darkness.
Good point, I didn't think about percussion. Note that percussion also serves a spiritual function in primordial cultures. Also it is hard to imagine percussion without at least chanting.
It seems highly unlikely song as we know it came first. We would expect to observe this behavior in at least one nonlinguistic animal.
But I do definitely see the connection with religion as well, and I think religions have applied "musical" concepts (figuratively as well as literally musical ones) to other aspects of life exactly like I was discussing in my last paragraph. For example, ritual creates a sense of comfort, because it's a predictable pattern, so religious rituals make people feel comforted. (See also how people under severe emotional distress will tend to rock themselves, because the repetition there also creates a sense of comfort).
Quoting hypericin
I'm not sure exactly how this connects, but apparently the human brain has a different function for singing than for speaking, because there are people with neurological disorders that leave them unable to speak, but they can still sing.
But then you are not explaining how music is able to "directly push emotional buttons". The last time you were saying that it is explained by our responses to recognizing patterns. This time, it seems like you are saying music somehow has direct access to emotions.
That's why I used the analogy with adding sweeteners to food. Adding a ton of sugar to something can make the experience of it much more enjoyable than any food that you could possibly find in nature. Likewise, producing a bunch of the right kinds of patterns in sounds can make an experience much more intense than the kinds we would often find in nature.
The relationship between various pitches is also important. The major keys in music are usually associated as being upbeat whereas the minor keys have more of a sadness to them.
Lyrics added to music may paint a more vivid image in the listeners mind and may become much more powerful then just music alone.
Nietzsche tackled this topic and wrote something similar. Here are some of my notes on Birth of Tragedy
Quoting myself on a previous discussion:
Quoting Nagel
I doubt this is accurate. I think a lot of people listen to music so they don't have to think. They like the pop music of their time and while the sounds give them pleasure, they never feel a sense of the numinous or much more than a base level tingle.
I think that you are mistaken to see listening to music as simply a means of not having to think. Probably some people use it in this way. I listen to a lot of rock, and alternative music, even some pop and use it as a means of inspiration. I read a lot, but can't do that all day everyday. Just thinking all day everyday, can lead to creating mental knots, or in my case, the creation of endless impossible thread questions. I would say that music, can lead to a certain amount of balance, but also, a way of appreciating, involving the sensory level, hearing, but also invoking other aspects of sensory imagination.
:smile:
I think we like or dislike music because we were made this way.
A high percentage of water in our body is high and when we are children even higher.
Water is known to propagate sounds and vibrations to great distances, because of this we "feel" sounds and vibrations.
Life was made millions years ago by explosions of stars, planets and collisions with meteorites, asteroids etc .... collisions produce sound waves and vibrations which where "felt and stored" into water .. so practically humans were made by sound waves and vibrations with water and a mix of chemical elements.
There was a documentary experiment where they put 2-3 years old children to listen to music.Because of high water percentage that is present in children, their sensitivity increase .
They started to move and to dance out of nowhere, without being told to do so.
For them the music vibrations is like someone is doing little electric shocks and they need to move :).
That's all I said and this corresponds to my experience of many others.
I used to agree with this idea that the emotional charge of a given piece of music was "obvious" or "objective" for all to hear but it is not the case. There are tunes that one listener finds sad and another finds happy. It still surprises me when it happens. So counter-intuitive!
Another interesting experience is the sharp differences of musical taste that can exist between friends. You get to ask yourself: how could anyone in his right mind find this beautiful? Like Collingwood who found the Albert Memorial ugly and struggled to understand how one could find it beautiful.
I suppose with the decline of religion and spiritualism and the rise of the materialstic spirit musicians have had to adapt and explore other avenues of clicking with their audience - politics, social issues, romance, philosophy, etc. all are now game so long as there's a willing audience ready to listen and, most importantly, ready to pay the price for the performance.
Quite possibly this is a sign that a sizeable number of people have come to some sort of realization that spiritualism isn't necessarily a divine affair i.e. god(s) maybe, in a sense, "photoshopped out of the picture" with no downsides to the overall aesthetics of the human story.
Yes, and I also think that marketing - which has infested everything, including religion and spirituality - plays an instrumental (no pun intended) role.
I don't see it that way. Marketing is the business analog of what we recognize as rhetoric in philosophy. I recall coming across an article or video, I forget, about how people aren't really listening to or paying attention to arguments when they decide to lend their ears to a cause/proposition. People, according to this source, are swayed more by the persuasive power of a speaker/writer than by how good/bad the arguments are if any have been offered in the first place. I don't have an issue with marketing tactics if that's what you're alluding to because one, a competent adversary is a good thing, keeps us on our toes ,and two, good arguments when well written/spoken are a treat to listen to or read through.
I think that there is definitely a spiritual and ecstatic side to music, including the shamanic one. This includes the whole of psychedelic and dance culture too. Okay, people may say that substances play a role, but not for everyone and the music is essential.
I even find a spiritual side to metal music, because it is about living with aspects of selves which are often repressed, and explore our own black holes, but not get stuck in them, hopefully. Prog music and psych-rock can also help us to voyage into inner space. Of course, it is quite possible to get into dangerous territories, as indeed has happened to some of the rock stars...
There are also some possibilities for meditation and music, especially the musician, Tim Wheater, who has developed and performed sound healing.
That's the downside. See any benefits? Material that are a pleasure to view, read, listen to? Yes, in the wrong hands, "marketing" can be dangerous, lethal even but, in the right hands it's the proverbial cherry on top. I hope I got that right. Food for thought...why are educators so bent on making learning "fun" and why does "fun" in this case resemble marketing tactics?
You said this in response to a (by me true) claim by PfHorrest, "Music pushes emotional buttons." (Not quoted verbatim.)
It is true. PfH only states a fact, without any actual explanation why it is so.
Many other respondents made observations how we hear our mothers' heartbeats, how we hear rhythmic noises or sounds in nature, how bird songs are attractive, etc. They fail to say why it is attractive, while in the description, in the stating of facts, they are unerring.
I have an explanation. This is what it is:
[b]A mutation occurred at one point which manifested in music appreciation. What we call music from then onward to the mutant and to his or her offspring was pleasurable, and to a lesser degree, also useful in evolutionary terms. It turns out that texts are easier to memorize when in verse, and in meter, than straight prose. And it's even easier to memorize if it's to music.
So in those tens of thousands of years when accumulated knowledge, that helped the survival of communities and individuals within, was passed by word-of-mouth (prior to any ability to mark text on permanent text-carrier), it was extremely important to have it memorized well; and verses put to music made this possible. So the gene that manifested in the enjoyment of music, also survived, because it was an evolutionary advantage.[/b]
Hmmm.... I can't think of examples of educators making learning fun. I know they try sometimes. For me there's an issue with people only being aware of the things that are marketed at them and almost totally ignorant about anything else. So their choice, partly because of this, is almost always based on a tiny slither of potential experience that is mainstream and foisted on them.
. Why wouldn't they enjoy ... ?
The gods of music must be crazy
Quoting Olivier5
What I said was a gross generalization, but I would say that it's actually dependent on the dominant cultures of a certain period. Take cinematic music for example, maybe from Marvel. Ecstatic fight scenes will usually have this certain flavor, tragic scenes its own,..etc. Having watched some Filipino, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese films, I can say that films with similar themes also have similar musical flavors. This may be a result of economic and business factors, even traditional and dogmatic, but I won't say that there's an objectivity to music.
Yeah but then, isn't illusion your default explanation for pretty much everything?
Not really. It makes it more interesting.
Quoting bongo fury
I might (later) edit in the continuation that explains how emotional analysis of music should lead to structural.
Just because things have more than one aspect or dimension or even structure, doesn't mean that talking of their structure(s) is always specious. Otherwise, by the same token, Goodman's owns ideas of the whole shebang are specious...
People keep tripping on the same contradiction all the time. Eager to burn the fields they have once toiled in vain, they proclaim that all talk of X (metaphysics, structure, lolipops, whatever) is rubbish, not noticing the reflexivity entailed by such sweeping statements.
The correct conclusion is usually that SOME talk about X may well be rubbish, but NOT ALL talk about X is necessarily rubbish.
Interested in a non-illusionary theory of the correspondences between chords and emotions.
Metaphors are us, the way I see it. I let you decide if we are illusions or not.
It still does not explain why minor chords tend to be heard as more subdued and less assertive than major chords.
Sure it does, to the extent they do, which is grossly overstated.
It's because they have been used successfully to express sadness.
Path dependence.
Contingent on prior adoption of a classification into and of triads, as well.
... How have they been used successfully to express sadness? Good question, but a matter for analysis, which isn't at all obliged to implicate an innate correlation.
As language therefore: the phonetics of words are in an arbitrary, culturally-constructed relationship with their meaning.
Yet music is often seen as jumping through linguistic barriers. As universal in this sense.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon Shadow of the Wind
William Blake Tyger Tyger
Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, 'Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang'
Khachaturians Adagio of Spartacus
RHCP Otherside
Can they be put under the same umbrella? Where does music begin?
Once, on a high mountain, I met with a Gujur tribe. They are dark-skinned pastoralists situated at the lowest level in the tribal hierarchies of the Hindu Kuch, which means they live in the highest habitable region, in or above the pine forest. Over there, the poorer you are, the higher you live.
Their malek was most welcoming. We stayed in his camp for a couple of nights. At the time I was carrying around a Sony walkman as my escapist link to modernity. I would listen to it at night before sleep, specifically to Prince's Sign of the Times album. I had this cassette and Beggars' Banquet.
At some point the malek asked me if he could have the headphones. I handed them to him, a bit nervous due to his probably limited prior exposure to metrosexual electrofunk... He put the thing on his ears and I pressed Play. He listened to Prince for about twenty minutes, his dreamy eyes lost somewhere beyond the forest, shaking his heads once in a while.
At the end he took the headphones off and handing them to me he said: "It's interesting!"
I still wonder how he heard it.