Music Musical Chills: Do You Experience Them?

[fuzzyfelt]

I am a musician, in fact my paternal ancestry were all very musical. I do experience the chill sensation with many genres of music, but realize, after listening to several suggested pieces mentioned on this thread, it depends on your own personal taste. I want to also mention, these emotions were not as pronounced in my formative years, but have become more intense in adulthood.

We realize, music covers more than melody and harmony. I am not a percussionist, yet when I watch Phil Collins casually walk up to his drum set and bang out those familiar beats during 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYV6KZpnEak"', it is spine chilling. The audience also weighs in on this. Watching it performed live (even over the net) generates a shared experience and response.

Whenever I watch "Copying Beethoven", the scenes where he is conducting his 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9DWiUp2oQ" are mesmerizing. No doubt, watching the hardships he overcomes, leading up to the performance, builds intensity leading to a spine tingling performance. You are not just enjoying the music but feeling the intense emotion the composer has put into his piece. My eyes well up with tears and overflow when the full chorus joins in. You can get 'just a taste', from the above referenced clip.

Watching the film, 'Music of the Heart' which features a piece by Bach, his 'Concerto in D minor for Two Violins'. Again, it is all the hard work and hardships overcome, culminates in a heartfelt performance which induce chills and tears of joy.

When I am performing either vocal or playing an instrument in ensemble, certain passages generate a chilling emotion which feeds back and often allow me to convey this emotion through my instrument. You can see this on the faces of any of the great blues guitarists (e.g. BB King, Eric Clapton) during their solos or Itzhak Perlman while playing a sensitive violin piece.

Apparently the synergy of visual and auditory stimulation, heighten these emotions.

I’ve really enjoyed this post.

I agree that a lot depends on personal taste, although wonder how so.

Percussion hasn't been considered enough. I think personally I like percussion when it can stand out amongst a rather monotonous melody with strong rhythm, like in Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Stooges, sorts of songs, but I'll consider it further. I think Turbo likes cowbell

About the "Copying Beethoven" scene- Wow!

I'm pleased you've mentioned tears of joy, and find ideas the ideas about visual and auditory stimulation really interesting.

 

[turbo]

My favorite Led Zep member was Bonham. He MADE that band. When I took up drumming, I started listening to drummers a lot more intently, and he really stood out from the pack, as did Corky Laing of Mountain.

 

[Ouabache]

I know this feeling well and had avoided mentioning it because it might make the thread too complicated. I remember writing a long time ago here that Beethoven’s 7th symphony makes me cry- it still does, and other pieces do too.

I haven’t been able to pin-point the emotion, sometimes I think it is just awe, other times it seems to accentuate an emotion I’m already feeling, especially sadness. It seems cathartic.

Good to hear you enjoyed the Copying Beethoven clip. It is only a small taste of the powerful scenes in this film. And quite interesting you mention Beethoven's 7th Symph and reference the Allegretto (2nd mvmt). In the film, an older woman who lives down the hall from Ludwig relates to his copyist Anna, why she would never move. She says, she is the envy of all Vienna. She gets to hear all his symphonies before anyone. For instance in his 7th, in her thin elderly voice she sings several lines of the same movement you referenced. As you hear her sing, in our mind we fill in all the lush harmonies and full orchestration. I agree it's a very moving portion of this piece, and stirs a well of emotions. I sense you may enjoy viewing this film. (I borrowed a copy from the public library).

 

[Loren Booda]

Superb music gives me a chill, but different than when seeing my girlfriend.

Such music gives me flashbacks with profound emotions; my girlfriend sends chills up my spine while keeping me warm.

 

[alt]

I have a friend that is deaf in one ear. He has a KILLER stereo. Why?

He's just dying to get the vibes ?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Good to hear you enjoyed the Copying Beethoven clip. It is only a small taste of the powerful scenes in this film. And quite interesting you mention Beethoven's 7th Symph and reference the Allegretto (2nd mvmt). In the film, an older woman who lives down the hall from Ludwig relates to his copyist Anna, why she would never move. She says, she is the envy of all Vienna. She gets to hear all his symphonies before anyone. For instance in his 7th, in her thin elderly voice she sings several lines of the same movement you referenced. As you hear her sing, in our mind we fill in all the lush harmonies and full orchestration. I agree it's a very moving portion of this piece, and stirs a well of emotions. I sense you may enjoy viewing this film. (I borrowed a copy from the public library).

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll find it and am sure I'll enjoy it.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I have a friend that is deaf in one ear. He has a KILLER stereo. Why?

Maybe you're mixing the causations up here? If it's a KILLER stereo, it would make sense if it deafened one of his ears.

 

[brainstorm]

I believe I have read that Hollywood scoring evolved a vocabulary of evocative emotional techniques from the ragtime piano that was used to accompany silent movies before the music could be recorded and played back in sync with the video.

It's interesting to pay attention to the musical score when you're watching a movie because you can look at the videography as punctuating the story of the music, even though in practice I think the music is usually written to go along with the edited finished product.

I believe I have also read that music evolved to take the place of the narration used in early cinema as explicit narration became unpopular. Music builds tension to tell the audience to get ready for something big to happen, or it sings for joy for you so that your heart can feel elated at a certain outcome.

Film music basically scripts the audience's emotions, which is sort of unsettling if you think about it, but probably many people's emotions are scripted by all types of music throughout their daily lives, not just film scores. I sometimes wonder what would happen to people if they had to drive around in their cars without radio or spend their days without an mp3 player.

 

[Negatron]

Yes and I find them frustrating. After longer listening sessions I get very clammy such that I just have to stop. I never really stopped to think how strange the causality here is. Sound causes perspiration.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Yes and I find them frustrating. After longer listening sessions I get very clammy such that I just have to stop. I never really stopped to think how strange the causality here is. Sound causes perspiration.

Wow, I haven't heard of that causality before! From what you say it seems to make it a less pleasant experience?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I believe I have read that Hollywood scoring evolved a vocabulary of evocative emotional techniques from the ragtime piano that was used to accompany silent movies before the music could be recorded and played back in sync with the video.

It's interesting to pay attention to the musical score when you're watching a movie because you can look at the videography as punctuating the story of the music, even though in practice I think the music is usually written to go along with the edited finished product.

I believe I have also read that music evolved to take the place of the narration used in early cinema as explicit narration became unpopular. Music builds tension to tell the audience to get ready for something big to happen, or it sings for joy for you so that your heart can feel elated at a certain outcome.

Film music basically scripts the audience's emotions, which is sort of unsettling if you think about it, but probably many people's emotions are scripted by all types of music throughout their daily lives, not just film scores. I sometimes wonder what would happen to people if they had to drive around in their cars without radio or spend their days without an mp3 player.

Thanks for this! It is fascinating that the discussion has moved toward emotions evoked by vision and sound combinations by watching performers play or in film. Rosen, 1980, reminds us that listening to music relatively autonomously is not an historical but recent development.

I think those successful at combining the two for advertising/marketing purposes are often successful with film scores, and seem able to convey more specific emotions, e.g.,
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/05/20/rsbl.2010.0333.full

A well known example of this combination in film would be the water shots in “Jaws”, and the accompanying music, building fearful tension, but which visually isolated could seem rather innocuous. I like brainstorm's mention of films singing for joy, too. There are many papers on music adding depth and meaning to vision, some mentioned in this paper, along with the reverse: the effect of vision on music-
http://thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/10066/1015/1/2007FieldB.pdf

From this, successful sound may direct more specific emotional or meaningful interpretation, from more ambiguous possibilities, and vice-versa, and possibly this may be an interpretation not likely to be evoked from only one stimulus.

Regarding music, Cross suggests music is “floating intentionality”, special in being a “medium for metaphor”, possibly crucial for the emergence of cross-domain activity in modern humans, to our advantage. http://www.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/PDF/IRMCMC03.pdf
Although, music might allow movement and comparison between domains, which may be vital for the ability to do this, which is in turn significant to human experience and survival, given things like the reverse effect paper, it could be that this possibly “floating intentionality” isn’t just limited to music.

 

[Logger]

I only get it when I listen to Prince and it happens on a regular occurance.

I don't play any musical instruments

 

[imiyakawa]

It gives me chills, but not if I listen to the same song more than 3 times. I even cried when listening to Sagan's science remixes (totally divorced from the feeling of the usual musical chills btw). My brain had some type of 'gasm'. I do not suffer from emotional instability.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I only get it when I listen to Prince and it happens on a regular occurance.

I don't play any musical instruments

Restricted to Prince? Interesting limitation.

It gives me chills, but not if I listen to the same song more than 3 times. I even cried when listening to Sagan's science remixes (totally divorced from the feeling of the usual musical chills btw). My brain had some type of 'gasm'. I do not suffer from emotional instability.

I think there may be at least two different things discussed in this thread, one being chills and another, emotion.

 

[Danger]

Glueball, I bet that you would love Marc Wood's stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Wood_(violinist )
"Monkeybats" from his "Voodoo Magic" album just blows my mind.

I am quoting my own post because it's far too late to edit the original and it needs to be corrected. Mark's album is "Voodoo Violence" rather than what I first posted. Sorry.

 

[billiards]

I get the musical chills. In particular with live music.

Interestingly, at a recent lecture I attended, the mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy compared his experience of musical chills to the chills he got when uncovering mathematical beauty. He said that most people can hear a piece of beautiful music and experience chills, but he can get the same feeling from just looking at a beautiful equation, and if he discovers an equation then that feeling is magnified greatly.

 

[rhody]

Being the scientific geek that I am, I would normally do the research and post, but I am curious of the brain areas, sensory maps involved. If anyone has such knowledge it would be appreciated.

Hi Fuzzy, I am handling organizing Mom's house in Colorado after her passing last week. I guess I just missed this place and had to post, lol.

Rhody...

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Hi Rhody, pleased to see you!

I don't have anything off hand, but will have a look, unless anyone else has anything. I've been meaning to look into Panksepp again and others mentioned in the papers in the OP.

I won't edit now, but I shouldn't have said "emotion" in my last post, I should have just mentioned there may be more than one thing discussed here.

 

[Loren Booda]

Anyone get a haunting musical "deja vu" feeling?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

It happens to me often and with asll sorts of music. I enjoy listening to all sorts of music though.

I do not play or sing and know little about music technically so some of my comments will be based on person wordings rather than proper technical terms.

To take my turn at sharing an evocative "chiller"...


I would say that I have a particular preference for female vocals, though this is in no way exclusive, and Nina has just has it.

As I have been scanning through the thread I have been considering what it is that may give me the "chills", the first and most appropriate response in my mind is "anticipation". Build ups and change ups, most significantly, as well as particularly evocative sounds and combinations of sounds.

Turbo mentions mostly blues which (if it is good) is built on the unconventional riffs and evocative lyrics.

Lisa mentioned "Zombie" which is chock full of contrast and evocative vocals, I took the time to listen to it for the first time in a while now and it definitely gave me "chills" particularly the vocals (note that this may be due to my female vocal affinity).

Galteeth mentions punk, which is a favourite of mine, and there is hardly a genre of music more geared towards build ups, change ups, and evocative vocals. There are also lyrics to consider (Galteeth and I have a favourite band in common and I am thinking that the partiality has to do with lyrics) but I will get to that later.

Someone mentioned a partiality to Beethoven who I believe was a very intense composer who apparently often broke his instruments seeking after the music he could "feel".

Then the counter point of Mozart who perhaps had a more subtle virtuosity akin the elegance of a mathematical formula which is perhaps more accessible to the more proficient and the connoisseurs. While I have not such knowledge of music myself I know that I have a great appreciation of subtle wit and get similar "chills" when I recognize this sort elegance in the written word. Satire is a great favourite of mine.

The juxtaposition of certain ideas and the turning of an elegant phrase are things I admire very much and I find that when I may not find a particular musical quaility of a song that strikes me it is often in the words. Galteeth and I both appreciate a band called Bad Religion whose lead singer, Greg Graffin, has a PhD and teaches at MIH's college. His lyrics are often very insightful and strike at ideas in just so many words.

An interesting genre of music is Rap. Good rap has witty lyrics and a musicality in the lyrics that blends and integrates beautifully with the music and beat which, if done well, should work on contrast and anticipation. See Gold Digger by Kanye West [feat. Jamie Foxx immitating Ray Charles (a great exploiter of contrast, highs, lows, ect)].

 

[turbo]

Strange Fruit is another one.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Ska's primary feature is the off beat which inherently depends on an anticipatory response.


I was going to link Samuel L Jackson singing Stack-O-Lee but there is too much profanity in it to that. A great example of anticipation and free form in blues though.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Rhody, I’ll look further, but this is a start.

This gives some background, including “chills”-

'Some authors speculate...“there is an even deeper mystery within brain organization to which all these cognitive issues
are subservient” (Panksepp & Bernatzky, 2002, p. 134).'

'Moreover, the findings of
studies seem to converge in suggesting the involvement of “limbic and paralimbic structures
(such as amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, insula, temporal poles, ventral
striatum, orbitofrontal cortex, and the cingulate cortex)” (Koelsch, 2005, p. 412) in musical
emotion processing. Note that none of these structures appears to be specialized exclusively
for music. However, the existence of music-specific modules for emotion processing remains
a plausible hypothesis for future research (Griffiths et al., 2004).'

'To summarize, the view of musical affect as subordinate to cognition is challenged by
the results of investigations into the neural correlates of musical experience that explicitly
address emotion. Whether emotional responses precede cognitions, or vice versa, or if music
(including aspects of emotion processing) represents an independent modality, are matters of
ongoing debate (Peretz & Zatorre, 2005). In any case, music seems an “excellent paradigm to explore the interactions between neocortically mediated cognitive processes and subcortically mediated affective responses” (Peretz & Sloboda, 2005, p. 410).'
http://www.baltic-imaging-center.de/images/130_135_Kreutz_Lotze_2007.pdf

Abstract of the Koelsch 2005 study mentioned above-
The present study used pleasant and unpleasant music to evoke emotion and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine neural correlates of emotion processing. Unpleasant (permanently dissonant) music contrasted with pleasant (consonant) music showed activations of amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles. These structures have previously been implicated in the emotional processing of stimuli with (negative) emotional valence; the present data show that a cerebral network comprising these structures can be activated during the perception of auditory (musical) information. Pleasant (contrasted to unpleasant) music showed activations of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, inferior Brodmann's area (BA) 44, BA 45, and BA 46), the anterior superior insula, the ventral striatum, Heschl's gyrus, and the Rolandic operculum. IFG activations appear to reflect processes of music-syntactic analysis and working memory operations. Activations of Rolandic opercular areas possibly reflect the activation of mirror-function mechanisms during the perception of the pleasant tunes. Rolandic operculum, anterior superior insula, and ventral striatum may form a motor-related circuitry that serves the formation of (premotor) representations for vocal sound production during the perception of pleasant auditory information. In all of the mentioned structures, except the hippocampus, activations increased over time during the presentation of the musical stimuli, indicating that the effects of emotion processing have temporal dynamics; the temporal dynamics of emotion have so far mainly been neglected in the functional imaging literature. Hum Brain Mapp 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/110575853/abstract

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Anyone get a haunting musical "deja vu" feeling?

Four inter-related threads?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I get the musical chills. In particular with live music.

Interestingly, at a recent lecture I attended, the mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy compared his experience of musical chills to the chills he got when uncovering mathematical beauty. He said that most people can hear a piece of beautiful music and experience chills, but he can get the same feeling from just looking at a beautiful equation, and if he discovers an equation then that feeling is magnified greatly.

Yes, there seem to be other inducers including maths.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Thanks, Stats for your re-cap and you and Turbo for more genres and music.

I had thought about ska and reggae when Oubache mentioned percussion, and couldn't decide when I listened to it if it was only the percussion that gave me chills so didn't write about it. Thanks for bringing it up.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Rhody, in my haste I hadn't noticed the first paper I linked to was published. I think it could have what you were after.

While I have not such knowledge of music myself I know that I have a great appreciation of subtle wit and get similar "chills" when I recognize this sort elegance in the written word. Satire is a great favourite of mine.

The juxtaposition of certain ideas and the turning of an elegant phrase are things I admire very much and I find that when I may not find a particular musical quaility of a song that strikes me it is often in the words. Galteeth and I both appreciate a band called Bad Religion whose lead singer, Greg Graffin, has a PhD and teaches at MIH's college. His lyrics are often very insightful and strike at ideas in just so many words.

An interesting genre of music is Rap. Good rap has witty lyrics and a musicality in the lyrics that blends and integrates beautifully with the music and beat which, if done well, should work on contrast and anticipation. See Gold Digger by Kanye West [feat. Jamie Foxx immitating Ray Charles (a great exploiter of contrast, highs, lows, ect)].

Others have mentioned other inducers, like maths on a maths and physics forum. Very interesting that you mention literature, and I recall you to be an avid reader.

Just btw, the comment about satire, and mentions of anticipation took me off on a tangent about irony and humour and to a Panksepp paper about rats squealing at 50hz in laughing anticipation of being tickled.

 

[leetchaos]

I too can frequently experience this 'frisson' when listening to music. I am male, age 22. I played music semi-seriously for 6 years when I was younger and listened to a hell of a lot of Classical music at the time. Nowadays I listen to much different music. Today I had one of the best experiences with of my life with frisson. I have to say it came really out of the blue, nothing especially emotional going on today or anything.

It feels like waves of electricity on the surface of my skin, it starts at the base of my neck and very quickly radiates out down my arms, back and legs. It takes about .5 to 3 seconds to fully radiate out and dissipate when it reaches my toes and wrists. Today while listening to a particular song it happened about 15-20 times in fairly rapid succession. Near the end it became so overwhelming I almost started crying and my eyes welled up. The song I was listening to was very upbeat not sad at all and the tears felt like tears of happiness/joy, it really was a skin orgasm.

I can't say I've experienced frisson from anything other than music, possibly but I can't recall a specific incident.

Thanks for the info, interesting read on those research documents

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I forgot to respond to mentions of the female voice. Generally it seems higher sounds a more likely to provoke responses.

That is a great description of a great experience of chills, leetchaos, and not at all, it was fun,

and thanks everyone for all the help and suggestions!

 

[Andre]

One more then, a new chilling experience for me,

I wasn't even aware of the existence of this composition. The Piet Hein Rhapsodie of Peter van Anrooy. So maybe one cannot accuse me of too much patriotism causing the chills.

Piet Hein was a most prominent national hero.

The music is inspired by an century's old and well known folk song performed here in a lovely way (ignore the first 27 seconds, that's something else).

Edit: fixed link