Why do we like music? This question works on many levels, just like most great questions. There are answers to some questions, but not all.
Music makes us feel good. It makes us feel good. Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre, both neuroscientists at McGill University in Montreal, answered. They discovered that music could activate paralimbic and limbic brain regions. These brain regions are linked to a euphoric reward response, similar to those experienced from good food, sex, and addictive drugs. These rewards are attributed to a dopamine neurotransmitter. Music is the drug, as DJ Lee Haslam said.
But why? It is easy to see why food and sex are rewarded with dopamine rushes: they make us want more and contribute to our survival. Some drugs can subvert this survival instinct by stimulating dopamine production under pretenses. Why would a sequence containing sounds with no survival value do the same thing?
The truth is, no one knows. We now know a lot about why music can cause intense emotions. Scientists who study music cognition believe that the current favorite theory – how we perceive it mentally – is from 1956. It was suggested by Leonard Meyer, a philosopher, and composer, that emotion in music is about what we expect and whether we get it. Meyer used the psychological theory that feeling arises when we cannot satisfy a desire. This can lead to frustration and anger. But the reward is even sweeter if we find the right thing, whether it’s love or a cigarette or something else.
Meyer said that music also does this. It creates sonic patterns that allow us to predict what’s next. If we are right, our brain gets a reward, which is, as we now see, a dopamine surge. This constant dance between outcome and expectation energizes the brain with a joyous play of emotions.
What should we care about whether or not our musical expectations are correct? It’s not like our lives depend on them. Ah, says David Huron, a musicologist from Ohio State University. But maybe once it did. Predicting our environment, i.e., interpreting only a portion of what we see or hear, could have been crucial to our survival once. It is still possible, for example, when crossing the road. It could have been wise to include emotions in these anticipations. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of wondering if the screech was made innocently by a monkey or a prey animal on the African savannah. The primitive limbic circuits control our emotions and can be bypassed by the “logical brain.” This could trigger a rush of adrenalin that prepares us for leaving that place anyway.
Music is a direct link to emotions. Who hasn’t felt embarrassed by the emotional response to music? Even though the rational brain claims that it’s just cynical manipulation, the emotional reaction can be elicited through the strings of a sentimental film. Even though we know nothing is life-threatening about a Mozart sonata, we can’t ignore this anticipatory instinct. Huron says nature’s propensity to react too quickly is an excellent opportunity for musicians. “Composers can create passages that provoke powerful emotions with the most innocent stimuli possible.”
Soundcheck
Although the idea that musical emotion is created from minor violations and manipulations in our expectations seems like the best candidate theory, it isn’t easy to verify. Music offers so many opportunities for making and violating expectations that it is difficult to know what to measure and compare. We expect melodies rising to be more popular – but not constantly, as they rarely do. We are more interested in pleasing harmonies than dissonance. But what may sound lovely today might have been dissonant two hundred and fifty years ago. We expect consistent rhythms but are surprised when the rock’n’roll’s jumpy syncopation suddenly becomes four-square oompah. The expectation is a complex, constantly changing interplay of how the piece we are hearing has progressed, how it compares to similar articles, and how it compares to all other parts.
Meyer’s theory also states that emotions in music will be culturally specific. To have any expectations of where the music will go, it is essential to understand the rules and to be able to appreciate what is expected. These rules vary from one culture to the next. While Western Europeans believe that simple rhythms such as waltz time sound “natural,” Eastern Europeans are happy to dance to meters that seem incredibly complicated. We all have a solid subconscious sense of what notes sound “right,” regardless of whether they are in order in a melody or communicating together in harmony. These expectations are not universal because of the differences in scales and tunings between cultures – for instance, the Indian and Indonesian scales don’t recognize piano tunings. Westerners may interpret a jolly piece in Indonesian music as “sad” simply because it is close to the traditional “sad minor” scale.
This image also shows that music doesn’t have to be about positive vibrations. It can cause other emotions, like anxiety, boredom, and anger. Performers and composers must walk a fine line, adjusting expectations to the right level. Too much, and the music becomes predictable. It’s like nursery songs to adults. Too much, and we don’t have any expectations – this is why modernist atonal music is so difficult to accept.
This can explain a lot about how we feel emotions when listening to specific musical phrases or performances. A brain scanning study by Zatorre and co-workers further supported Meyer’s ideas. This study showed that rewards from music are dependent on communication between “emotional” and “logic” brain circuits.
It’s just one aspect of the story. It is possible that our emotional reaction to music can be affected by many other factors, such as whether we hear it in a group or alone or associate the piece with an unpleasant experience (the “Darling, they are playing our tune” theory).
All these thoughts cover the fact that we don’t know what emotion we’re talking about. It’s possible to recognize sad music and not feel sad. Even if we feel sad, it isn’t like bereavement’s sadness. It can still be enjoyable, even if it causes tears. Even though it’s difficult to put into words, some music, such as Bach’s, can elicit intense emotions. We will be able to understand why music triggers emotions once we better understand our emotional world.