Ask Lemmy

I assume it’s because we are great at recognizing patterns, and music is just that - patterns.

I think you pretty much got it there. It's more like, music is specifically tailord to sound like something we do enjoy.

Four four common time replicates the heartbeat and natural bodily rhythms but that does not really explain why music can so successfully alter emotional state in the listener. I think it is not really known why other than music connects with and is readily understood by organic brains, not just human in a very intimate way. For example a five minute piece of classical music is informationally very complex but a person is often able to hum it back after a single hearing and do so again years later. Repeating verbatim a five minute speech listened to is beyond most people and so it might be suspected that music is more native to the brain than is language.

Music seems to tap into something very primal and has a significant effect on my mood.

Music is one of my greatest joys in life.

No doubt because it increases our dopamine levels

Why do things turn us on?

Music is the same, it just has sex appeal.

The real answer is that no one knows. There's probably no single answer for something so complex and so intricately related to us as a species. It probably has multiple factors ranging from increased survival to just pure curiosity. It's personal, cultural, and yet still somehow universal. It's like any other form of artistic communication. We just do it bc we do

It's a form of communication that reaches us more fundamentally than words. I imagine it's like animal sounds - what does a dog's bark mean to another dog? Probably the same thing as when you tell someone "Stop!" or "Hey!" really loud. It don't carry a concrete meaning, but feeling. Music is taking that and turning it into language. It can have many different meanings and tell many different stories, even without lyrics. Although it'll never be as exact as written words, we can still enjoy the story.

I think it's a "glitch". Our brains are wired towards pattern recognitions, and this often manifests itself in recognizing seemingly random shapes as faces because of a vague resemblance.

It is my belief that music is a similar trait where we recognize patterns in rhythm, sound, and motifs as something pleasant because we are built to recognize and categorize so many things to the point where a series of sounds can give a pleasant feeling once we're able to "parse" it.

Source: None, really. Just me having given this a lot of thought in the past, as I'm very musically interested myself.

Our ancestors benefitted from recognizing the nuances in each other's vocalisations. How exactly that translates to enjoyment I'm not sure, but I guess enjoying listening to vocalisations means you focus more on it so you can recognize more nuance. Similar to why we enjoy looking at actors' faces and recognizing emotions that way.

I'll be honest with you. I love Michael Bolton's music! I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, it doesn't get any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman."

Yes patterns, but also basic physical resonance.

Sounds in harmony creates more powerful standing waves which will affect your cochlea more than noise.

Whether that is also more pleasant will depend on context, but music will definitely get your attention more easily than random sounds due to this basic physical property.

Pretty much everything in the universe are frequencies. Things that resonate are simply more powerful better than things that don't.

I vaguely remember someone saying that music is essentially brain massage. Pretty sure I got that from a sample used in a song.

I believe music is an extension of humming and singing. Pretty simple. We can make music with our voices, so it’s natural to expand that with instruments.

In 1975 Barry Manilow wrote the songs that made the whole world sing, the songs of love and special things.

We are not the only species on earth that enjoys music either, other animals do as well as plants.

I enjoy music though because I can use it as a mood regulator and/or drowned out the songs/noise in my head on a bad ADHD day. Jam bands for when I just need to get things done, sad/feels type tunes when I either want to steer into a different mood, or lean way into one. Then just "happy tunes" when I'm feeling good and just want to keep my brain mellow.

I think it’s because music enhances the ability to remember accompanying songs, which helped human groups preserve fitness-enhancing oral information.