Why do people enjoy music?

I heart MUSIC

Why do humans enjoy music? What is it about the brain that makes sounds translate into pleasure and other emotions?

 According to studies, music is sometimes called the "language of the emotions." If you ask people why they listen to music, they most often say it is for its emotional effects.

Some CDs are geared to particular emotions. I you have one called "Classic Weepies," a selection of instrumental pieces without words. It raises two more questions: Why would someone want to listen to sad music? What is it about musical instrument sounds that can make someone sad, or happy, or whatever?

Consider this case: You hear a song for the first time on a day when something very special happens. Very likely, you will remember that day whenever you hear that song again. That song and the events of the day are associated with one another in your memory.

Here is another idea about why music causes emotions. By listening to music, you develop expectations about what will happen next in the music you are listening to - even if you have never heard it before. The idea is that emotion is produced when the music violates your expectations. This can cause surprise, frustration, amusement, wonder, excitement, sadness - a wide range of emotions.

Finally, let us turn to the brain. Brain imaging techniques (especially fMRI, which stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging) are being used to discover which parts of the brain are responding when people listen to music.

We are finding that many of the brain areas for music are the same as those for hearing speech - although language areas tend to be stronger in the left hemisphere, whereas music areas tend to be stronger in the right.

And - back to music and expectation and emotion. I recently did an fMRI study looking for brain areas that respond to violations of musical expectations. I compared normal melodies with the same melodies changed to have some unexpected rhythms and notes. Areas in the secondary auditory cortex responded much more strongly to the changed melodies. This suggests that violations of musical expectations produce responses at early stages of processing in the brain.

source: http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/?quid=769

MUsic is LIFE

 Music :)

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence.

To many people in many cultures, music is an important part of their way of life. Musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez summarizes the relativist, post-modern viewpoint:

"The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus ... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be."

It is often thought that music has the ability to affect our emotions, intellect, and psychology; it can assuage our loneliness or incite our passions.

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

- Bob Marley

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

-    --Ludwig van Beethoven

I don't make music for eyes. I make music for ears.

-      Adele