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Avichal
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Why music causes emotions in our mind? They are just sound waves interpreted by our brain? But what causes it to trigger emotions? Do scientists have an answer for this yet?
The words can be sad and/or evoke unhappy memories or thoughts.Avichal said:Why music causes emotions in our mind? They are just sound waves interpreted by our brain? But what causes it to trigger emotions? Do scientists have an answer for this yet?
Avichal said:Why music causes emotions in our mind? They are just sound waves interpreted by our brain? But what causes it to trigger emotions? Do scientists have an answer for this yet?
Pythagorean said:I saw a presentation by a neuroscience professor who studies the neuroscience of music (don't remember the name or the venue now) and his (speculative) suggestion was that music was about expectation. Often, when our expectations are met in a timely manner, we are satisfied.
glb_lub said:Does the expectation factor explain why certain piece of music has a tendency to 'grow' on one ?
Often one hears a piece of music and it doesn't quite impress one. But on repeated hearings one tends to enjoy it.
Adyssa said:I'd rather listen to the blues sung by an incomprehensibly sad man, fumbling on the fretboard. I can feel that.
I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts ...
Drakkith said:Perhaps the blues sung like that just doesn't do anything for me because I don't WANT to feel that way?
Avichal said:Why music causes emotions in our mind? They are just sound waves interpreted by our brain? But what causes it to trigger emotions? Do scientists have an answer for this yet?
BenG549 said:It's all learned behaviour. We all did music to some extent at school and we are told that a minor chord sounds sad and major chord sounds happy etc... If you travel around the world different cultures all have very different musical styles, a lot of them would not even be perceived as music per se, just random incoherent sounds to people that grew up listening to western music, and the same may be heard when these cultures hear our music. A minor chord may not sound sad to someone raised with completely different cultural understanding. I'll have a look for some examples to post if I have a bit of time free in the next couple of days but just as we do, these "unusual sounds" in other cultures are used in much the same way we use music i.e. certain differences for different occasions, like funerals for example. I'm no neurobiology but I doubt that due to a massive fundamental difference in brain chemistry. They have just learned to associate different sounds and sound combinations with different thoughts and behaviours.
Drakkith said:Plus I know I was never told that certain chords sound sad/happy. Heck, I don't even know what a minor and major chord even are.
Drakkith said:I don't know, I've heard some music from other cultures before, and while it's different, I wouldn't say it's so different I can't associate with it.
zoobyshoe said:... He believes our response to music is deeply hardwired in the cerebellum ...
If someone wanted to argue that speech is a form of music, I think they could make a good case for it.AnTiFreeze3 said:While the exact time and origin of humanities' ability to speak isn't clear at all, I have heard (which, is of course the most-esteemed source of evidence) that music existed before speech did, which would imply that music holds a deep resonance (lul) within humanities' past.
Nova did a thing on the Neanderthals last night. Apparently the current trend is to try and prove they had some rudimentary art. They've found what could well be pigments in association with Neanderthal sites.There are also incredibly old cave paintings in Africa, and art is often thought to be beautiful and inspiring. We don't necessarily know why that's what it is, or even why it began or has continued, but we can at least appreciate it and try to learn more about it's origins.
BenG549 said:We all did music to some extent at school and we are told that a minor chord sounds sad and major chords sound happy etc
...
A minor chord may not sound sad to someone raised with completely different cultural understanding.
AlephZero said:You don't need to look further that Country and Western to disprove the theory that major chords sound happy.
But you might counter that argument by claiming that "cultural understanding" doesn't compute in the context of C&W - or even than C&W isn't music.
zoobyshoe said:If someone wanted to argue that speech is a form of music, I think they could make a good case for it.
zoobyshoe said:What you seem to be saying is that all sound = music. I would have to disagree with that 100%. At the same time I haven't bothered to work up a rigorous definition of music by which we could put up a fence between that which is just sound and that which is authentically music, I am confident such a fence could be erected based on non-arbitrary criteria. (Maybe AlephZero, who seems pretty conversant with music qua music and also with the physics of sound might offer some guidelines.)
zoobyshoe said:If you listen to early recordings of the Beatles before their Liverpool accent was toned down, you are struck by the musical/lyrical properties of their speech patterns. They are halfway toward singing when they speak.
zoobyshoe said:I think their native accent was the bedrock of their music, why they had music in their blood, so to speak. That particular accent lent itself beautifully to the pop genre they received and contributed so much to. I honestly believe that, had they grown up in London or Manchester or Sheffield their tunes would never have been so infectious and catchy.
zoobyshoe said:When someone speaks, there are two things going on: the words, and how they say the words. You can vastly change the meaning of an utterance by changing the tone of voice, rhythm, word emphasis, etc. Imagine removing the words, replacing them with non-significant gibberish, and being left only with tone of voice, rhythm, emotional emphasis. In the absence of words, what is communicated? Huge amounts about the mood, attitude, and personality texture of the speaker. What you'd be hearing, in the absence of understandable words, is that person's personal music.
zoobyshoe said:Ever notice that you just love the sound of a certain person's voice? Math Is Hard once said she loved Morgan Freeman's voice so much she could sit and listen to him read the phone book. The opposite's also true: some people's personal music is quite ugly, and you can't stand the very sound of their voice. There's everything in between and more gradients along all other axes.
zoobyshoe said:That's my personal take on why we respond so strongly to music. We recognize the texture, tone, color, line, and rhythm of the human speaking voice in it, greatly enhanced and concentrated, polished, formalized, and otherwise artistically edited.
zoobyshoe said:If someone wanted to argue that speech is a form of music, I think they could make a good case for it.
Evo said:Bird songs. Some are very pretty. Random thought.
zoobyshoe said:What you seem to be saying is that all sound = music. I would have to disagree with that 100%. At the same time I haven't bothered to work up a rigorous definition of music by which we could put up a fence between that which is just sound and that which is authentically music, I am confident such a fence could be erected based on non-arbitrary criteria. (Maybe AlephZero, who seems pretty conversant with music qua music and also with the physics of sound might offer some guidelines.)
AlephZero said:You don't need to look further that Country and Western to disprove the theory that major chords sound happy.
AlephZero said:I wouldn't attempt to define it, beyond "music is whatever a particular group of people, at a particular time, call music"
AlephZero said:it leads to nonsense conclusions, like the fact that if you marked J S Bach by the standards of Cherubini's 19th century "rules for writing fugues", which was one of the classic texts for teaching composition in every music conservatiore in Europe, he would have failed the course.
AlephZero said:Is it "music", or 45 minutes of random noise made by somebody horsing around in an organ loft?
zoobyshoe said:When someone speaks, there are two things going on: the words, and how they say the words. You can vastly change the meaning of an utterance by changing the tone of voice, rhythm, word emphasis, etc. Imagine removing the words, replacing them with non-significant gibberish, and being left only with tone of voice, rhythm, emotional emphasis. In the absence of words, what is communicated? Huge amounts about the mood, attitude, and personality texture of the speaker. What you'd be hearing, in the absence of understandable words, is that person's personal music.
Ever notice that you just love the sound of a certain person's voice? Math Is Hard once said she loved Morgan Freeman's voice so much she could sit and listen to him read the phone book. The opposite's also true: some people's personal music is quite ugly, and you can't stand the very sound of their voice. There's everything in between and more gradients along all other axes.
BenG549 said:I'm not sure what your point is here. If it is that information content (in the sense of communicating speech) is not an important part of music, I totally agree. Some of my favourite music is instrumental, but again in the context of this discussion I'm not sure of the point. When a said "It just happens to be useful for communicating information as well" I was mealy saying that we can use our vocals for both music and communication of ideas, or both.
Forget that you might be criticized by someone who disagrees with your definition and define what you personally respond to as being "music". (Like: If you know something is pornography, you don't have to pretend it's art just because that label could be upheld in court with enough insistence and recourse to legal technicality here.)AlephZero said:I wouldn't attempt to define it, beyond "music is whatever a particular group of people, at a particular time, call music"
zoobyshoe said:I didn't say it, but what you might infer from that is that sound which does not ultimately reference the non-verbal aspects of human speech is not music, and that that which is music is so because it references the non-verbal aspects of human speech.