Humans and Music

[RainGame53]

Why is music so pleasing to humans? Almost any person you find will have some sort of music they enjoy. Is it the varying tones? The solid beat syncing with your own pulse? The memorys of first hearing the song and what was going on during that time? What music or lyrics stand for? It boggles me.

I think I enjoy music because it triggers my imagination. As I listen to music, I develop ideas, movies, images, animations in my mind. I also like how predictable it is sometimes. In music you can feel the changes coming before they do, you can predict melodies in advance.

Overall though I can't explain why I or so anyone else enjoys music so much. In reality isn't it only a combination of certain sounds in a rhythum? It just makes me feel like at ease and happy, content. And I have no way to explain it. Does anyone?

[Yesssss]

Re: Humans and Music

I would say it's the combination of sounds that make it great. Compare it to food where you need certain combination of ingredients done in a certain way to get a the best taste.

As far as beats and repetitiveness goes, you need to have some kind of structure in order for it to be enjoyable. Random sounds wouldn't sound all that great. Comparing it to taste, random ingredients like, say, mangoes, peppers, ice cream, and orange juice wouldn't taste good all together, but they all would taste great in their associated dishes, but you wouldn't get the best result if it was just alone. It's the same with music, I can't imagine speedcore beats combined with violin concertos, hip hop, and metal being enjoyable, but each kind of music is enjoyable in itself (each to different people at least).

As far as predictability goes, how predictable a song is, is just another taste. I'm personally fond of jazz and progressive music, and I enjoy it when the music throws unpredictable twists at me. Except I wouldn't like it if suddenly changed to a completely different genre, so it still at least needs structure. Some people enjoy their music to be very predictable (see: trance), I just like my music to be complicated. Predictability also has something to do with mathematics, where the sounds need to have some kind of order. The brain enjoys order like symmetry and shapes.

Everything else you mentioned is simply individual taste.

That's my take on what I have observed.

[cal607]

Re: Humans and Music

One reason might be because everyone else enjoys music, so people's brains naturally follow the flow and think they also enjoy it.

I do believe though, that some people among the millions that are just following and getting in with the 'trends' and 'popular music', are people that feel the music for what it is. The vibrations in your skull, the different melodies flowing from one to the next. Perhaps the lyrics and what they say to you. If a person plays and enjoys playing music, they can better appreciate when others play, and the skill it takes, so that may also be a factor into it.

<3 music xD

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Humans and Music

To me, good music or bad music (no matter what type) has a certain vibe to it. For example, the song you might listen to next could portray a certain type of setting like a forest. Some songs might simply make a different connection to the emotions of a person like having anger or being hyped up by a song like Dragon Force or even those fast DDR songs like Legend of Max. Music itself is another way of making a picture or explaining a thousand words in a simple or complicated melody. Of course, the type of music you listen to might change if you want another image in your mind.

[MixMasterLar]

Re: Humans and Music

Music is all about Rythm, and Life has it's own Rythm if you think about it.

Your heart beats to a rythm, for example.

[lord_carbo]

Re: Humans and Music

One reason might be because everyone else enjoys music, so people's brains naturally follow the flow and think they also enjoy it.

A) You're assuming everyone conforms.
B) Then who started the trend?

[RainGame53]

Re: Humans and Music

I agree, I don't think most people listen to music because others do. Even from a very young age, children attach to music. From bedtime lullabys to the opening theme of jeopardy (a personal favorite of mine as a 2 year old), music is a part of us from near the beginning.

[EvilFluXPad]

Re: Humans and Music

Music is pleasing to the brain.

[Yesssss]

Re: Humans and Music

The lyrics in music just depends on how poetic that person is.

Most of the time I prefer music without lyrics, and I rarely ever read anything for poetic value.

Music is pleasing to the brain.

This is a given. The question is why, and to what extents.

[devonin]

Re: Humans and Music

The human mind is built to seek out patterns. Finding patterns in order to create learned behavior, in order to be able to devote less power to processing each individual stimulus each and every time the mind it exposed to it.

Music is intrinsically mathematical, and intrinsically patterened. This is why consonant sounds appeal to us, and dissonant sounds do not. We prefer predicitability and patterns. This is why "catchy" songs are all very repetitive with simple patterns and easy to remember lyrics.

[Reach]

Re: Humans and Music

Interesting question.

I would say music and language have a common origin. Interpreting sounds, rhythms, tones and harmony, and then using them to communicate with other people was a fundemental part of developing language in the brain. I would think that we like music percisely because of this key link. Music could be, in a sense described as 'language', since fundementally there is not a huge difference. It gives us an alternate medium of understanding and communication that also brings other benefits...such as increased arousal, a way to express creativity ect.

These things facilitate the survival of our species and mitigate the negative aspects of our lives...and therefore our brains are essentially hardwired to enjoy music. There are various things about music that different people appriciate, but we all like it because we're inherently human. Similiarly, as a comparison this is probably just like how my dog pays absolutely no attention to me when I'm playing Chopin, as it doesn't have the necessary cortex to process this kind of information in the way we understand it.

[RainGame53]

Re: Humans and Music

Reach: What you said makes a lot of sense, but i think there are a couple flaws in associating music with language and communication. Correct me if I misinterpretated what you said.

1. Most of the time, you listen to music by yourself. You don't connect with something else that is "alive". It is merely a combination of sounds you hear, you have no way to interact with them, and you just take them in. Many times when we listen to music, we don't connect with the musician, but the actual sounds that we are hearing.

2. But associating music language is even trickier. Sure, they are both a series of sounds that form patterns. But you don't enjoy hearing the same sentence over and over the way you hear the same rythum over and over in music. Also, this may be an opinion, but I feel that music gets more powerful and enveloping as it gets louder, but really loud words lack that appeal or even detract from it.

I think there are too many key differences in music and language to associate them as close as you have. Thoughts?

[Reach]

Re: Humans and Music

Reach: What you said makes a lot of sense, but i think there are a couple flaws in associating music with language and communication. Correct me if I misinterpretated what you said.

1. Most of the time, you listen to music by yourself. You don't connect with something else that is "alive". It is merely a combination of sounds you hear, you have no way to interact with them, and you just take them in. Many times when we listen to music, we don't connect with the musician, but the actual sounds that we are hearing.

2. But associating music language is even trickier. Sure, they are both a series of sounds that form patterns. But you don't enjoy hearing the same sentence over and over the way you hear the same rythum over and over in music. Also, this may be an opinion, but I feel that music gets more powerful and enveloping as it gets louder, but really loud words lack that appeal or even detract from it.

I think there are too many key differences in music and language to associate them as close as you have. Thoughts?

Well, I was dealing with the evolutionary factors of why we like music. Understanding why music exists and where it came from is the most important aspect of understanding why we enjoy it. Cultural factors are kind of irrelevant in explaining the real reasons why humans like music...as many people displayed here, it leads you into forming a thread full of tautologies >__>

But uh...

Music is merely a combination of sounds. But so is language. Rhythm, tone and harmony are all integral components of music and speech/speech interpretation.

However, I'm not implying that they're exactly the same thing. Just that they have they originate from the same thing, and follow the same rules to give a basis for where music really came from. I think this is where the misunderstanding is. I specifically labeled differences between music and speech, and these differences (some of which you pointed out) are why it plays such an key role in our lives. Through evolution music formed a key aspect of our lives that increased our survival rate by influencing various factors for the better good.


Either way, I suppose it's best to keep in mind that we don't know the full answer to this yet...other than that our brains are designed to interpret rhythm, harmony and tone...so our like for music has to be partially innate/evolutionary.

[lord_carbo]

Re: Humans and Music

Funny, on Tuesday our music theory teacher asked us the very question, "why do people like music?"

Pointless bump, I know. Sue me.

[Dark Ronin]

Re: Humans and Music

This is a very interesting question that I have been wondering for a long time now. Nearly all humans like some form of music, but why? Music is usless from an evolutionary standpoint. We like certain foods because they have important nutrients, certain types of people because of they way our brains preceive reproductive capabilities, even video games give us a sense of accomplishment that we desire because of things that are hardwired into our genetics. But music seems...pointless.

The human mind is built to seek out patterns. Finding patterns in order to create learned behavior, in order to be able to devote less power to processing each individual stimulus each and every time the mind it exposed to it.

Music is intrinsically mathematical, and intrinsically patterened. This is why consonant sounds appeal to us, and dissonant sounds do not. We prefer predicitability and patterns. This is why "catchy" songs are all very repetitive with simple patterns and easy to remember lyrics.

This is a great explination, best one I've seen thus far. But I recently started listeing to scremo bands like All That Remains and Poison the Well. They have little to no repitition and I dont know what their talking about, but I love it. You could dismiss me as a strange exception, but there are millions of people who like the same music I do.