Why music?
by lizabernstein
As I began reviewing for the midterm, I couldn’t help but return back to our initial question: why do we listen to music?
Music is everywhere. And it isn’t a new phenomenon. Music seems to be the most ancient of human activities with rituals from thousands of years ago containing musical components. It makes us happy; it makes us depressed; it makes us laugh. It makes us remember our wedding; it makes us remember a friend; it makes us remember our first kiss. But why? Evolutionarily, it makes no sense. Cravings of sex and food are vital to our survival; thus, their survival over the years makes sense to us. Their occurrence is intuitive. So why has music survived? Science may have an answer for us.
It turns out that music may be triggering two different parts of our brain: the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala. The first is the same part of the brain that releases dopamine, while the second is the part of our brain commonly associated with processing emotion. Thus, it seems there may be a scientific reason for our overwhelming intrigue for music. An experiment was recently performed in order to determine how much a subject would pay for a song and if this number was dependent on how much activation occurred within their amygdala. The subjects were put in an MRI scanner in order to measure the amount of activation that occurred within their amygdala when a song was played. They were played songs they had never heard before but that they would presumably like based off of a Pandora-like algorithm. The reason for the songs being previously unknown to the subjects was to avoid them having automatic emotional responses that had been previously created to songs they already knew. The subjects were then asked how much they would pay for the song on a scale of 0-2 dollars. The data showed that the subjects whose amygdala was more active for a certain song were willing to pay more for that song. Thus, the scientists determined that we receive an intellectual reward while listening to music that stimulates our amygdala.
The scientific effects of music have always interested me. In our culture, music is everywhere. It is the way we express our emotions, the way we feel our emotions, the way we are. And it seems to have always been this way. Maybe eventually we will understand what it is that is so compelling about music. But for now, all we can do is enjoy.
If you’re interested in learning more about the experiment, I read about it in this article: http://science.time.com/2013/04/15/music/
The Thousand-Year Ears 
Looking at research from a few years ago, there was a huge wave of research in infant listening capacity. As music expands more and more into the world of science, one wonders what the criteria for “good” music will be. Will this be the same music that people loved before scientific thought was considered or will the science behind the sounds change the music? Hindsight bias makes this an even more interesting concept to consider. Though artists might base the music off of pre-existing music that evokes certain emotions, new music might actually not do this but still create those same emotions.
Pretty interesting study. I recall reading once that some scientists theorized that our love of music originates in the womb. Music reminds us of the rhythmic heartbeat of the mother, and brings us back to that nice cozy place. Not sure how valid that really is, but it struck me as an intriguing hypothesis.
Easy counterexample: odd time. Consider “Limelight” by Rush. If your heart beats in the (shifting) time signatures they’re using, you’re in ventricular fibrillation.
Good point. I don’t think they meant that literally all musical appreciation was derived from the heartbeat, though. Just a starting point.
The primary reason why music is so appealing to me is simply because it sounds good. Though there are plenty of other factors such as motivation, lyrics, and nostalgia that contribute to the overall reason of why I listen to music, I can concretely say that when I listen to good music, I feel happy. And I think a lot of others can agree that this is quite important. Disregarding the other factors for a second, we can see that at its core, music that we enjoy must sound good. In essence, we must be inclined towards its tune/melody. Hardly anyone would jump at the opportunity to say that their favorite piece of music is a song that they do not particularly enjoy listening to. That in essence, their favorite song sounds bad. One can argue that “oh well it has meaningful lyrics” or that “oh it reminds me of a time in my past”; these are all important, yes, but i claim that above all, the piece of music must be favored by your ear (and brain). Do you agree?
I wonder what causes people to like certain types of music. There are so many differences in preferences one has to wonder what the biological basis of it is… do we release dopamine because we like it or vice versa?
This is very interesting. This may also be why people play some sort of soothing music when they’re doing yoga. Music can really help us relieve our stress!
This reminds me of the amazing studies that have been done on stroke patients. Often, these patients learn to speak through music before regular speech. This form of rehabilitation, as well as the study mentioned above, shows that music is something that triggers different and many parts of the mind.
Please clarify what you mean by speaking through music?
I really like this post, especially because I understand things better by looking at the scientific aspects of them. I find it interesting when certain sensations can be traced back to the brain and never really thought about music’s effect on the brain until reading this.