"Just as having sex and eating food stimulate reward centers in our brain (because such activities help us survive and pass on our genes), listening to music is about satisfying our desires. When we get what we want, such as food or sex, we are pleased. When we hear notes that follow patterns that make sense to us, we are similarly pleased."
Taken from Big Think http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-listening-to-music-makes-us-feel-so-good
Neuroscience is beginning to offer some explanations for why music can make us feel so good. Research carried out earlier this year, revealed that when we listen to music we love, the brain releases dopamine through ancient reward circuits. Powerful sensations of pleasure are created deep in the unconscious and scientists found that in particular, immediately before the climax of an emotional response, levels of dopamine peak, as we anticipate that special part of a song we're completely hooked on. While people have different tastes in music, it seems in the tests, most people experienced a dopamine hit when listening to "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees!
We know that music therapy seems to have a positive affect on the moods of people suffering from depression, and this research can perhaps play a vital role in trying to persuade the government to invest resources into music - from music therapy services to supporting new musicians trying to launch a career and funding venues to offer more live bands in our towns and cities - for it seems, we would all benefit from listening to much more music!
Midlake performing "Acts of Man" on Later with Jools Holland.
I am so in love with this song, I could marry it, settle down in a little house in the woods with it, get a dog and go for romantic strolls at dawn...
Music and Emotions
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult problem in answering the question of how music creates emotions is likely to be the fact that assignments of musical elements and emotions can never be defined clearly. The solution of this problem is the Theory of Musical Equilibration. It says that music can't convey any emotion at all, but merely volitional processes, the music listener identifies with. Then in the process of identifying the volitional processes are colored with emotions. The same happens when we watch an exciting film and identify with the volitional processes of our favorite figures. Here, too, just the process of identification generates emotions.
An example: If you perceive a major chord, you normally identify with the will "Yes, I want to...". If you perceive a minor chord, you identify normally with the will "I don't want any more...". If you play the minor chord softly, you connect the will "I don't want any more..." with a feeling of sadness. If you play the minor chord loudly, you connect the same will with a feeling of rage. You distinguish in the same way as you would distinguish, if someone would say the words "I don't want anymore..." the first time softly and the second time loudly.
Because this detour of emotions via volitional processes was not detected, also all music psychological and neurological experiments, to answer the question of the origin of the emotions in the music, failed.
But how music can convey volitional processes? These volitional processes have something to do with the phenomena which early music theorists called "lead", "leading tone" or "striving effects". If we reverse this musical phenomena in imagination into its opposite (not the sound wants to change - but the listener identifies with a will not to change the sound) we have found the contents of will, the music listener identifies with. In practice, everything becomes a bit more complicated, so that even more sophisticated volitional processes can be represented musically.
Further information is available via the free download of the e-book "Music and Emotion - Research on the Theory of Musical Equilibration:
www.willimekmusic.de/music-and-emotions.pdf
or on the online journal EUNOMIOS:
www.eunomios.org
Enjoy reading
Bernd Willimek, music theorist