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Psychological aspect of music

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botaanik

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How music influences our mood and emotions. For example you maybe in some nice place, but wheres play's crappy music. When you change music to it's atmosphere, this place get's amazing. Or another example... say you ask some girl to your place dinner and then put on romantic music. This changes whole scene and both's mind set.

Is it because we get set our mood to state better or worser than the sound/rythm/tone of music? How music influences our mood, mind set, creativity and emotions? Maybe theres some good research done that I'm not aware of? Or how we(mind?) decides what music he/she likes?
 
I very much agree to that - I dont know what it is that makes you like the music you do - but it can really heal or harm you. Music is often a trip down memory lane for some and so some music might trigger off some memory you like. Every different person is set for one reason or another to like different tones - some soothing, some banging - whatever - in the same way that we like different colours etc.

Personally I can usually gauge how I am feeling by the music I decide to listen to.

With regards to us maybe (sub)consciously (delete as applicable) setting our minds/moods to match the music - maybe to an extent, sure - music can lift you or make you energetic if you tell yourself that it will - but if cant always make you dance.
 
There has a been a fair amount of research done into this. I have a friend who's writing a paper on the aesthetics of music at the moment and it goes into some detail on some of the psychosomatic components of music and why they affect us how they do.
A lot of our appreciation of music is based on associations we develop as we grow up, but some are built in. The human ear is more sensitive at around 3KHz which is roughly the frequency a baby cries at. The relative pitches we use when we call someone's name vary depending on the reason we are calling them... a minor 3rd is common for the "come in for your dinner" type of voice your mum would have used when you were young. Time signatures based around a BPM of 120 tend to excite us and raise our own heart rates. This would come from when we were in the womb. An elevation in our mother's heart rate would be accompanied by an increase in adrenaline and thus increase our heart rates so our body would develop an association between a fast rythym and our own heart rates increasing.
I've heard of other studies on vocal patterns of animals and apparently they have a very basic language based on tonal changes similar to the "come for dinner" sound I described above.
 
^That's very interesting. So, as I understand, we get our rhythm sense and music appreciation when we grow up. But, how we get to like one music style? Because our mothers liked to listen classic music or metall? Metall is more rhythm and faster music so your mother body produces more adrenaline than when listing classic music? So, when we grow up, we like this more fast and metall kind of music?

And how our brain decides, that romantic music is romantic and is listened on nice dinner or at some restaurant. How, we get the feeling that, classic music is something deep and important that makes from it classic music? Every country has his own national/folk-dance and music or music that was played by grand->grand->grand->... parents. This is whole short of different music. It's like some other brain area is activated and we get the feeling that we are connected to it. This way I felt when I was younger and was dancing my country folk-dance.
 
"music is the gateway to the soul"

Music creates a familiarity of memories in my opinion.

When i hear certain music my memories sorta kick in and my head floats off.

Certain tones and sounds and pitches trigger times and spaces in our head.

When i listen to pink floyd 'dark side of the moon' i just zone out. I can't explain it, it just takes me somewhere i've never been before, and it can take me there time and time again.

Music is the soundtrack of our lives.

anyway i forgot what we were talkign about.
 
I'm very certain music and language are handled by the same office upstairs. They're probably two different kinds of some larger phenomenon. Although from what I've seen, linguistic talent and musical talent don't necessarily go together.

I think rhythm is rooted in not only heartbeat but the repetitive motion of sex too.
 
Hell yes, if im in a certain mood it can often be changed by the music i am listening to.
 
tell you what I find fun is just sticking some music in your ears and writing something - anything - a letter, a ...thing - but you'll find your words and thoughts changing with the music you listen to - sections of letter might be quite inspirational - some more introspective, some outright rubbish - but the music sways you even when you are not paying attention to it!
 
What about this:

Some people look for music that will put them in a preferred state of mind.

Others look for music that matches their *current* state of mind.

How come?
 
Nice!

There's some evidence that people at certain levels of depression tend to ruminate. If you're at a bad mood you think about those things over an over again. So maybe matching a depressed state with more depressed music would be an indication of this. However, there is also research that people in good moods will do things that keep them in those good moods. Of the research I'm aware of, the latter suggestion would work for each.

That extra part of people looking for something that would CHANGE their mood is interesting. You'd assume (possibly) that no one would want music that puts them in a bad mood, but that some people might want music that lifts their bad mood to a good one. Maybe those people are less depressed overall, or just have better coping mechanisms for it?

What about people that are able to separate their emotions from the music to some extent. I love the Cure, I listen to the Cure a lot, but if I waited on a sad mood to do it, that would greatly decrease what I could listen to ;) Maybe at some point you're just comparing particular past circumstances and reminiscing instead of thinking "my whole life is like this"...
 
Nice thread, guys. :)

Yea, I will sometimes use music to match the mood I'm in, and also sometimes play a certain music to put me in a better mood.

I like to play Nirvana and follow it up with Grateful Dead when I'm not in the greatest mood just to show me "here is what shit feels like...here is what serenity feels like...what do you like better?"

Ya know...gets you thinking. Or feeling, rather.

I think a way of looking at it, from a musician's viewpoint, is that music is expressing a feeling/emotion/attitude in a different way than words, facial expression, etc...at least that's what I try for when I play it.

I definitely think it's closely linked to speech, and all noises, in general.
The part about the baby + heartbeat was really interesting, btw.
 
riddle me this.
I tend to dislike, on a basic level, major chords and major scalar progressions. they just seem flat...cant get into them.
wonder why.
 
^Thanks everybody for different view points and explanations. I have one other question...

How different geographical background "races" have different music sense? For example indians, south-europe, africa(aborigines?), south-americans, india, china, mongolia, tai, north-america and north-europes? From what this differents comes. Is it from different background(pre-historical gens?) genotypes have different background? Like they sense music differently and so they play different music?
 
^^^^^
We would be on firmer ground arguing that musical taste and perception varies from culture to culture rather than from genotype to genotype. Musical perception is a very high-level (ie, complex) behavior, and the genes governing these high-level behaviors have thus far been very ellusive indeed.

the surrounding cultural context will serve to help determine which serieses (sp??? help!!) of notes will be perceived as melodious and which intervals will be perceived as harmonious. Through these primitive relationships among tones, culturally specific scales will be built.

That being said, there is one trend that underlies the relationship between tones found in the music of all cultures. Namely, the simpler the ratio (that is, the smaller the numerator and denominator in the fraction that symbolizes that ratio) between frequency of two notes, the more likely they are to be perceived as melodious/harmonious.

ebola
 
Well, there is a definite relationship between music preference and the level of sensation-seeking in the listener.

And as far as cultural variation goes, there are more similarities than ebola! might have you believe. For example, while different cultures may use distinct scales or different rhythms, the distinctions between individual types of music in all cultures are quite similar. For instance, take the difference between lullabies and battle songs. In every musical culture, the difference between these sub-types is virtually identical.

Culture is responsible mainly for differing rhythms, and I think it is probably random. For example, lots of music throughout the world is played in the time signature 4/4, as in, you can count 1...2...3...4... over it and it fits. But Latin-American culture has produced an oddity....called "Clave." It's time signature could technically be counted in 4/4 but in practice it is totally irrelevant. You must count it as 1.....2......3.......1...2. It is 3 and then 2. I'd like to learn more about the origins of rhymthic fundamentals, but as of right now I have no idea why it happens differently for different cultures. My best guess is that it's random, but that it will never vary outside of certain parameters which are determined by our preferences (duh). :)
 
ebola! said:
riddle me this.
I tend to dislike, on a basic level, major chords and major scalar progressions. they just seem flat...cant get into them.
wonder why.
Click to expand...

me too - although being a smily sunshine girl, I still prefer minor chords and I listen to alot of dark music - though I do not feel it.

Sometimes the music matches a side to my personality - that is maybe not my mood, but is a side to me that I maybe dont show often. A way of releasing anger without being angry - or for indulging in melancholy without crying - let the music do it for me so that I can stay chirpy for other people.

Music was my first looooove, and music was the laaaaaast...

:D
 
>>And as far as cultural variation goes, there are more similarities than ebola! might have you believe.>>

as far as cultural variation goes, there are fewer similarities than protovack may have you believe. For example, why is it that "arabic" scales employ quarter-tones while other do not? Why do scales from other cultures sound exotic or even random?

that being said, protovack is correct in that music carries experiential content and that similarities in musical content belie similarities in the human experience.

ebola
 
Good thread.

I can't for the life of me understand how some people can not like music, or barely be into it.

When I hear good music, I dance on the inside. I get hypnotized.

When I hear shitty music, I can't stand it. I've walked long distances before, when I could have gotten a ride with somebody instead.

But that somebody was someone with a shitty taste in music, and I just couldn't stand it.

I'm so glad to have my own car now, NO bullshit music goes in there.

But yeah, music is magical. Its not even natural but yet every culture knows of it, and it has the power to do many things.

I wonder how music affects animals, I know that classical music soothes my cat.
 
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