Why we like music

[too-open-minded]

Our responce to music is different than if we were to hear a random assortment of noise but why?

I don't know the answer and can only speculate as to why we respond to music the way we do.

 

Could it be because sound travels in a wave, so when the wave has a pattern and is symmetrical we recognize differently than a random wave?

Humans are wired to recognize symmetry and patterns so could this be relevant when we recognize a sound wave?

 

I'm not saying this is why we like music only asking if theirs anything to it and if any of you know why we like music so much.

[Ben Banana]

Humans are wired to recognize symmetry and patterns so could this be relevant when we recognize a sound wave?

Human brains aren't hard-wired as anything. Are they? We develop. Don't we?

 

Could it be because sound travels in a wave, so when the wave has a pattern and is symmetrical we recognize differently than a...

Psh. I think sound rides boats! Its not a fish.

Serious Note: Do you also conclude that you can tell-out a person's face from a lamp because "their light looks different?"

 

random wave?

I don't have so good of social skills. When I see a random wave, I always assume that person was waving at me. Then I shout "Hi!", and everyone suddenly gets quiet... and then starts laughing.

 

symmetry and patterns

I see many tendencies regarding your vocabulary.

 

why we like music so much.

I like derps. Music is lame.

[too-open-minded]

Actually humans are wired to recognize a human face, we know this because infants are capable of this. We are born with certain abilities like that.

I'm sorry my vocabulary is not up to your standards

 

I'll take it that you did not read everything I wrote?

I tried to make it clear that I'm asking why we recognize music differently than other noise and that my own thoughts are only thoughts, I'm not proposing any theories here.

[Ben Banana]

Actually humans are wired to recognize a human face, we know this because infants are capable of this. We are born with certain abilities like that.

Where does this claim come from? I thought: we know that infants aren't instantly capable of this. Clearly, you must recognize what a ball is, just as a face. Recognition involves association: sometimes, balls "bounce" (when?), and they're often "round" ! Hitler has a face, so why aren't we born to perceive "Nazis" ?

 

I'm sorry my vocabulary is not up to your standards

I have no standards for vocabulary. I was noting your dull understanding of the topic.

 

I'll take it that you did not read everything I wrote?

You didn't write much, of which I did read all. I understood you, but I'm teasing you for a reason. If you give me a better response, you'll have thought more sharply about it. I hate giving plain comments. I always try to have an involving discussion.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[imatfaal]

Ben - if you have a point to make or a criticism of the OP please just make it; teasing, vague allusions and insulting characterisations don't really help.

Where does this claim come from? I thought: we know that infants aren't instantly capable of this. Clearly, you must recognize what a ball is, just as a face. Recognition involves association: sometimes, balls "bounce" (when?), and they're often "round" ! Hitler has a face, so why aren't we born to perceive "Nazis" ?

 

Googling on infant face recognition brings up the wikipage - and whilst it doesn't explicitly bear out the OP's claim, it is persuasive evidence that he/she is correct.

 

Too-open-minded Whilst I have never looked into it I agree I have always felt that there seems to be an (innate?) ability to discern the random from the designed especially in music and speech, in visual areas as well. If you do find any reading on it I would love to see it. On a lighter note - the differences between random noise and speech were used to great effect by China Mieville in Embassytown - a Sci-Fi novel by one of my favourite writers.

[Ben Banana]

it is persuasive evidence that he/she is correct.

More than anything, its evidence that I was correct. You, as well as too-open-minded, are making a critical mistake in your analysis. Hopefully, if you read over my elaboration a second time, and compare it with the wikipage, you might see my point. Keyword: recognition.

 

Where does this claim come from? I thought: we know that infants aren't instantly capable of this. Clearly, you must recognize what a ball is, just as a face. Recognition involves association: sometimes, balls "bounce" (when?), and they're often "round" ! Hitler has a face, so why aren't we born to perceive "Nazis" ?

 

From birth, infants possess rudimentary facial processing (generic) capacities. Infants as young as two days of age are capable of mimicking (not recognizing/associating) the facial expressions of an adult, displaying their capacity to note details like mouth and eye shape as well as to move their own muscles in a way that produces similar patterns in their faces. However, despite this ability, newborns are not yet aware of the emotional content encoded within facial expressions.

 

That is exactly what I was saying! Hence:

 

why we like music so much.

 

I like derps. Music is lame.

 

 

I've had a much more wholesome experience with derps.

 

teasing, vague allusions and insulting characterisations don't really help.

 

We'll have a nice day, and that's the problem.

[imatfaal]

More than anything, its evidence that I was correct. You, as well as too-open-minded, are making a critical mistake in your analysis. Hopefully, if you read over my elaboration a second time, and compare it with the wikipage, you might see my point. Keyword: recognition.

 

 

 

 

 

That is exactly what I was saying! Hence:

 

 

 

 

I've had a much more wholesome experience with derps.

 

 

 

We'll have a nice day, and that's the problem.

 

Interesting use of language that to recognize necessarily entails to be aware of the emotional content - you're grasping at straws. Whilst a human face may be able to convey far more information than the mere fact that it is a human face, comprehending the less overt symbols is not part of recognizing a human face. It is quite possible to recognize objects and have a clear subjective awareness of the differentiation between objects whilst not having a clue about the use, emotional content, provenance etc of those objects.

[Ben Banana]

Interesting use of language that to recognize necessarily entails to be aware of the emotional content - you're grasping at straws. Whilst a human face may be able to convey far more information than the mere fact that it is a human face, comprehending the less overt symbols is not part of recognizing a human face. It is quite possible to recognize objects and have a clear subjective awareness of the differentiation between objects whilst not having a clue about the use, emotional content, provenance etc of those objects.

 

Yes, that's obvious. But the question is not "Why can we tell between the sound of bongos and violins?"

 

Interesting use of language that to recognize necessarily entails to be aware of the emotional content

My point was to the contrary. I was illustrating how "liking music" has nothing to do with recognizing "sound waves," and how the process is not "hard wired."

 

Clarification (italicized):

Clearly, you must recognize what a ball is, just as a face. Recognition (especially with relevance to this context, music) involves association: sometimes, balls "bounce" (when?), and they're often "round" (regarding the dynamics of music, and corresponding emotion)! Hitler has a face, so why aren't we born to perceive "Nazis" (I was having fun here, with regards to being "hard wired to like music." This is a badly broken analogy, but I think you get it.) ?

Edited June 19, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[imatfaal]

Yes, that's obvious. But the question is not "Why can we tell between the sound of bongos and violins?"

Quite - but this was in response to your claim that wiki supported your counter to the OPs assertion about infant face recognition

 

My point was to the contrary. I was illustrating how "liking music" has nothing to do with recognizing "sound waves," and how the process is not "hard wired."

Agree completely regarding recognition; but there is a cognisance of something - I don't know how much is to do with learned associations (we listen to birdsong and smile, yet scowl at very similar noises when they are generated by a mobile phone) and how much is innate. on the proclivity amongst humans to appreciate and desire music - the plasticity of the brain is such that not much is hardwired; but it strikes me to be too common and widespread throughout time and culture to be a merely a learned trait.

[too-open-minded]

Imatfaal, your only feeding the fire. The best you can do is ignore him, I could have proved him wrong with more than one statement but i don't like to belittle people. Satisfaction is not something I feel when its at the cost of others. Although it is to him and being that kind of person means in his mind; he is always right. just ignore him.

 

But thankyou for not jumping to conclusions on my statement and for taking it at face value.

[Ben Banana]

but this was in response to your claim that wiki supported your counter to the OPs assertion about infant face recognition

With their mention of facial recognition in regards to this statement: "Human brains aren't hard-wired as anything. Are they? We develop. Don't we?", a statement which was intended to improve the depth of his evaluations (note how I added "Are they? Don't we?"), I hadn't realized we were actually going off topic. I assumed our relevance to the original question had persisted. I'm being quite normative about the quality of our discussion. I've been bummed out here, and it's affected my responsive behavior. Sorry.

 

we listen to birdsong and smile, yet scowl at very similar noises when they are generated by a mobile phone

I smile at the low-quality ambient birdsong in classic video games too. Phone-ringing is meant to be loud and capture attention. It can annoy people who have no regards for the call, but people who expect information by a phone call will appreciate the ringing. The same goes for certain types of music, such as rap. And some people hate classical (I don't )...

 

Although this is a roughly relevant matter, we've approached too provincially. If you would like a reason for the nature of my first response to this topic: a lot of its silliness is due to my inability to cover every damn issue I want to. I decided I would stimulate the original poster to respond aggressively as if I were offensive, and hopefully we could make a decent approach to this challenging question. I know that its not appreciated. I expected the reputation kicks. I consciously sacrificed my social stability for the condition of the latter discussion. I hope we progress into it soon.

 

I ducked around and found this awesome sauce by Marvin Minksy: http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/MusicMindMeaning.html

Oh, and it does have a section which corresponds to our current matters; "Sentic Significance." I hope we discuss it more deeply than we have yet; but most of all, we should discuss the other parts. What do you think?

 

Imatfaal, your only feeding the fire.

Don't we need a fire? Are we just going to settle on thin speculations? Such an interesting topic deserves more fire!

 

The best you can do is ignore him

Has this discussion been satisfied yet? Will it ever be, and will that satisfaction count?

 

I could have proved him wrong with more than one statement but i don't like to belittle people... means in his mind; he is always right.

I could call out hypocrisy here. I don't like to belittle people with hypocrisy, because all of us, we hypocrites, are all hypocritical; at least extending from our emotions. In hypo-criticism, I did not appropriately respond to you in my first response (neither did I in a few others); as I did not believe you had an appropriate basis for meaningful resolution. Tell me why I'm wrong. My problem remains: I don't believe we, in this topic, are approaching the question appropriately.

 

Thanks.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[md65536]

Our responce to music is different than if we were to hear a random assortment of noise but why?

I don't know the answer and can only speculate as to why we respond to music the way we do.

 

Could it be because sound travels in a wave, so when the wave has a pattern and is symmetrical we recognize differently than a random wave?

Humans are wired to recognize symmetry and patterns so could this be relevant when we recognize a sound wave?

 

I'm not saying this is why we like music only asking if theirs anything to it and if any of you know why we like music so much.

 

Yes patterns are probably a big part of it. http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/04/2027250/mathematically-pattern-free-music

"Scott Rickard set out [...] to make the world's ugliest piece of music"

 

 

I suspect there may also be some connection with breathing or heartbeats, making consistent and appropriately timed beats more appealing.

 

"In tune" notes resonate or whatever... out of tune notes cause interference and junk... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)

The human ear I think has hair follicles that respond to different frequencies.

I would think that if you're triggering them in a consistent pattern that is easy to process and stimulates the right parts of the brain, to illicit some emotion (conscious or subconscious) then the sound is pleasant. If the follicles and brain are being stimulated in a way that is taxing or hard to process or something, the sound may be unpleasant.

[Joatmon]

Some people who like a strong rhythm in their music (and I am one) feel it may be linked to heartbeat. Perhaps if the beat of the music is a bit faster than a heartbeat it tends to excite you and if a bit slower it tends to relax you. Perhaps this explains the success of Rock and Roll, the rhythm being both strong and on the fast side!

 

Interestingly Frank Sinatra seems to see such a link:-

 

"During these years, Sinatra perfected the heartbeat rhythm - just what it implies, a tempo neither swing fast nor ballad slow - of a persona who made every song a story".

http://www.nj.com/si...ries/voice.html

Edited June 25, 2012 by Joatmon

[tomgwyther]

Generally speaking, the human brain responds better to simple ratios in sound, this appears to be hard wired, although exactly why, I couldn't tell you.

Some examples:

the ratio 1:2 is probably the most simple. This ratio gives us the octave (e.g 220Hz : 440Hz. or A to A n a piano)

The next most simple is the ratio 3:2, this ratio gives us the Fifth (e.g 220Hz : 330 or A to E on a piano)

The next is 4:3 which gives us the Forth (e.g 220Hz : 294Hz or A to D on a piano)

 

Interestingly if we start from 'A' and go up a fifth we get the same note - albeit in a different octave - as if we started at 'A' and went down a forth.

These three ratios either played together or separately will sound pleasing to human ears. Even populations and cultures which (until recently) had never met; use these ratios in their music. The drone note in Northern Indian music and the drone note in Gregorian plain chant both use the 3:2 ratio.

Nearly every catchy pop song will use the ratios 1:2 - 3:2 - 4:3 otherwise know as the '1, 4, 5' chord progression.

Moreover, to get more tonally pleasing results, one can use derivatives of these ratios.

i.e. go from 1:1 to 3:2 then 4:3 then take that 4:3 note and use it as the basis to start the process again, assuming 4:3 is now 1:1, you just repeat the process. The song 'everything i do, I do it for you.' by Bryan Adams used this throughout the whole song, bouncing around all over the place in different keys but only arriving at said keys from previous simple ratios.

Conversely, complex ratios tend not to sound as nice, for example, the ratio 1024:729 is a far bigger number then the simple ratios discussed earlier, and consequently, the resulting sound isn't as pleasing to the ear.

The ratio 1024:729 is more commonly know as a diminished 5th, it is most notably used at the beginning of 'The Simpsons' theme music, giving at a discordant, jarring feel.

In short, our brains seem to like nice, simple numbers.

When it comes to rhythm, our brains tend toward simple ratios again. most songs can be rhythmically divided by 4, or 3.

have a listen to some pop songs and counts the beats in the verse, chorus, bridge etc they almost always divide or multiply by 4. Square numbers seem to be the most natural timing. When a song has say 15 or 17 groups of 4 beats, one gets the inate feeling that it is the wrong length.

this is not to say that all music must obey these rues; far from it. A lot of very interesting and innovative music has been produced by breaking or at least tinkering with these rules.

 

I hope this has been of some help to you sir.

As to exactly why our brains/we like these square numbers and simple ratios; I can only speculate.

 

 

Further reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning

Edited June 25, 2012 by tomgwyther

[Ben Banana]

We are not hard wired...

[too-open-minded]

We recognize patterns. Our brains register and interpret information based off of thousands and thousands of years of evolutionary success. The success I am going to argue is somewhat passed down to each generation. We like music because our brains interpret and recognize patterns. Our brains recognize the pattern and we interpret music differently than random noise. To me this is evidence that our brains learn and not to the 100% extent but do pass down learned information to the next procreated brain. Memories, not so much. repetition of certain sights and sounds for survival, maybe.

[Ringer]

We recognize patterns. Our brains register and interpret information based off of thousands and thousands of years of evolutionary success. The success I am going to argue is somewhat passed down to each generation. We like music because our brains interpret and recognize patterns. Our brains recognize the pattern and we interpret music differently than random noise. To me this is evidence that our brains learn and not to the 100% extent but do pass down learned information to the next procreated brain. Memories, not so much. repetition of certain sights and sounds for survival, maybe.

It's very unlikely learned behavior is passed down genetically, but certain genetic predispositions will be passed down to offspring. One hypothesis about music is that those who enjoyed melodic tones of birds survived better, because if birds were around there usually weren't predators in the area. I personally think that idea is incorrect, but Evo-Psych is extremely speculative and has so many crap ideas it's hard to find the good ones.

[michel123456]

To the OP:

 

The ear is an organ we use constantly as a warning mechanism. Even when sleeping we are hearing sounds that wake us as an alert. The ears have no eyelids, they never stop functioning.

I suspect that we like music because it covers the noise of danger.

Edited February 27, 2013 by michel123456

[tomgwyther]

I found this article in New Scientist. It gives a plausible explanation as to why or brains seem to prefer simple harmonic ratios, as opposed to more complex ones. here are a few excerpts.

 

 

The key to pleasant music may be that it pleases our neurons. A new model suggests that harmonious musical intervals trigger a rhythmically consistent firing pattern in certain auditory neurons, and that sweet sounds carry more information than harsh ones.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, we have known that two tones whose frequencies were related by a simple ratio like 2:1 (an octave) or 3:2 (a perfect fifth) produce the most pleasing, or consonant, musical intervals. This effect doesn't depend on musical training – infants and even monkeys can hear the difference.

Signals from the sensory neurons arrive at the same time if the tone is consonant, and so the interneuron still fires just once, then waits until it "recharges" before it fires again. The result is a regular train of pulses.

By contrast, the signals from dissonant tones arrive at different times and so generate an irregularly spaced train of pulses in the interneuron.

[too-open-minded]

Ever seen the optical illusions where you see 3 arrows and it forms a triangle? Our brains assimilate patterns and recognize them, its part of interpreting information. Patterns and symmetry are a part of nature. I think the only thing significant about music is that its a pattern. Our brains interpret it differently than random noise.

 

What is passed down to the offspring is argued, I will propose that children are afraid of the dark for a reason. Everything in our reality that we perceive has a reason behind it.

 

Birds do get quiet when predators are present, this could have something to do with why we like music although I feel its just another way of our brain recognizing a pattern mostly.

[Delta1212]

 

We are not hard wired...

Yes, yes we are.

[too-open-minded]

Well lets define what hard wired means, to those who say it is might mean something very different to those who say it isn't.

 

His "hardwired" might be different than mine and yours.

 

To me hardwired is.... well lets see if I can explain this with an analogy. Computers process information, they do so because that is what they have been designed to do. We have been "designed" by our environment with the goal of surviving and procreating. The newer computers have advanced and surpassed the old computers, they still share some of the same characteristics but have made changes and are more advanced.

 

Hardwire in the sense that i'm speaking, is what the evolutionary success for thousands of years instilled in our brains, the things that make us process information. The nucleus to a single celled organism.

- Has learned, has evolved, has advanced, what perceives reality and has "Consciousness." That is to me what "Hardwired" has to mean when speaking of it in the sense that I am.

 

What does "Hardwired" mean to you?

[Ben Banana]

It doesn't mean a single thing to me. You should have clarified yourself sooner.

Edited March 12, 2013 by ydoaPs
profanity removed

[Popcorn Sutton]

I'll make note first that I haven't read the entire thread, and that being said, heres my thoughts.

 

We are pattern finding machines.

Different waves are like different forms of input.

Our interlocutors maximize our knowledge, knowledge that would else wise remain in seperate units.

The units are anything observable, but the most important unit is the one that does the observing, because that unit is what makes sense. If music just happens to tell one maximal, predictable, epic sequence of concepts, then we may have a psychlognic orgasm because of it. Sometimes it can be a perfectly defined unit that is simply inexpressible in any other way.

 

And when I use the term "defined", I mean that it is efficiently associated with proximal concepts.

[too-open-minded]

I like that Sutton