Why Does Music Feel So Good?

Somewhat tangential, somewhat related: people listen to music a lot, and yet the great majority of people do so with their stock iPod earbuds - or cheap alternatives.<p>I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or cheap speakers. I personally think I listen to music more than I watch TV shows or movies - and I reckon this is true for many others as well. Why don't other people spend money on good sound equipment to have a better listening experience?<p>For example, I have a pair of Sennheiser HD600s which MSRP at about $400 I think. My friends find this ridiculous. I also have a $100 amp and a $70 DAC. So I've spend almost $600 on this audio equipment. I bought these 2.5 years ago and don't plan on replacing them any time soon (definitely content with what I have).<p>I don't really expect my friends to immediately plunge into what I have ($600) but they could try out a more 'beginner' pair like Sennheiser HD 555s which cost like $120.<p>$120 is, I think, more than reasonable for the sound difference you'd get using those headphones. Those are what I had prior to my HD 600s for close to five years and then decided I wanted to try something even better.<p>I suppose some of my friends HAVE spent ~$100 on Beats headphones, though this just makes me sad as they're complete crap compared to other headphones you could get for $100.<p>I dunno. I'm not trying to sound like I'm ranting but I do find it interesting that so many people find it wasteful to spend money on audio equipment when they spend so much time listening to music.

My largely uninformed guess: Music is so massively rewarding because it trains/fuzzes our pattern matching engines, in a particularly effective and advantageous way that cannot be found "in nature". This is the same reason why jokes/humour are so enormously valued by the brain.<p>It also explains why only nerds like listening to breakcore.

I recently read a piece that I feel explains the phenomenon quite well [1]. In short: we evolved rhythmic music as a defense mechanism, to unify the tribe into acting a large meta-organism for the purpose of aggression displays against predators and other tribes. As with a lot of other social behavior, it feels good to be part of something larger than yourself, and music connects us emotionally, physically and rhythmically to one another.<p>This may not tell the whole story, but I believe it's a strong component, particularly given the historical relationship between religion and music.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/</a>

There have been several pieces (from classical to classic rock) that have actually caused me to break out in tears. Not teary eyes mind you; gushing waterworks at specific resolution points. Amazingly, this is reproducible, but the severity of the effect depends on my mood. After reading this, my best guess is that this is tied to an especially intense release of dopamine. My maternal grandfather shared this peculiarity and both of us have had awkward moments where we try to explain that we are quite OK -- "it was just the music" (an explanation often met with puzzled expressions).

The question that has always puzzled me is why do we feel compelled to <i>sing along</i> to music?<p>I mean, we are invariably worse singers so it surely makes it sound worse and this is besides the fact that signing ourselves drowns out much of the original sound anyway!<p>(Note: this is not to say I'm a silent listener, i'm a big fan of singing to myself ! :)

I like how an undergraduate neuroscientist takes the same approach I would to learning about the brain. Throw that fucker in Google.

Read "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel Levitin.<p>Some interesting points/arguments that I remember from reading it several years ago:<p>- In many languages, the word "sing" is the same as the word "dance".<p>- It's relatively recently in our history that the majority of people have become only listeners of music, instead of creators.<p>- As humans evolved, one's ability to sing, dance, and play instruments well displayed good physical, intellectual, and emotional health to the opposite sex, and so gave you an evolutionary edge.<p>- Something about how even the most non-musically-inclined people can extract the beat from a song better than a computer and repeat it later perfectly (memory is hazy on this one...I'm probably saying something stupid here).<p>That's all I remember for now...references are in the book of course. Very good read.

People like to guess a pattern (i.e. "from the first 5 secs I think the song will go like this and I'll like it") and like when they're right. That's also why we tend to like more songs we've already heard several times (even though we didn't like them a lot in the beginning).<p>Summary of the article: <a href="http://tldr.io/tldrs/516bfd54649fcf9e0a000de0/why-does-music-feel-so-good-phenomena" rel="nofollow">http://tldr.io/tldrs/516bfd54649fcf9e0a000de0/why-does-music...</a>

Interesting reading. I have always loved music, pretty much anything. I just wonder if our genetics and DNA plays a large part in this. I often observe my little daughter's reaction to music, and its truly amazing to see how she will spontaneously smile and dance when a really good piece of music comes on. First time I really noticed big time was when the opening bars of Bruce Hornsby's "The way it is" came on the radio, she just loved it :-)<p>I wonder if we all get beginners templates of what we will like via our gene pool :-)

Someone needs to put together a Spotify playlist of these 60 songs.

Thank you! Updating my Spotify list now. I was looking for tips from SXSW but am tired of whiny indie rock, this works much better.<p>Just noticed #4 swapped artist and title.

I thought this was a closely related article that got more into the actual science behind our predilection for music <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/news/why-we-buy-music-225868" rel="nofollow">http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/news/why-we-buy-music-225868</a>

While there may be no scientific basis, I do like the explanation I read on another site: Mating calls. While we can certainly form relationships without music, music does often seem to play a large role in our mating processes.

playing music also makes you feel a lot better