Psychological
functions of music (and why music can make us angry).
These psychological functions generally fall into three
types, intellectual, emotional and physical. There are of course many functions
to music, generating income, drawing attention to an event etc. but this blog
is concerned with interactions between music and its audience, individually or
in groups. The word function has a number of definitions for the moment I will
take one which has a bias to our sensibility (sensitivity
to sensory stimuli.)
Function: an activity that is natural to or
the purpose of a person or thing
On an intuitive basis one would assume that listeners are
rarely participants of one type only – trying to force individuals into one
group is rarely helpful, as e.g. educationalists discovered when trying to
educate people as visual, aural and kinetic learners. A table is offered below
of characteristics belonging to each listening type and each reader can pick
characteristics which relate to themselves. It was while drawing up the table
that two more interesting questions came to mind, what purpose do these
psychological functions serve, and where in the listening process do they take
place?
On the latter question I determined that one required a
three part model that consisted of
Frequency Process Response
Frequency was used in place of music as these days a
composition can consist of any combinations of sound sources from highly
organised to chaotic. Once we have an input the listener must consider the
material, sort it, chunk it, store it, compare it…all in real time, like a
surfer adjusting all the time to the whims of the sea. There are some who would
prefer the terms thinking, sensing, evaluating and perhaps include the use of
intuition too, but it all comes down to process in the end. Response is our
evaluation of the experience and will take the form of acceptance or rejection
(or various degrees between the two). Response also brings into play bias, an
issue which requires a few comments, but will be considered a little later in
the blog.
Turning to the first question what purpose do these
psychological functions serve there seemed to be only one answer, they are for
self-regulation. Self-regulation is the fine art of keeping our personality in
good condition, making adjustments to improve our perspectives and
life-balance. As one ponders this the role of bias becomes increasingly clear
and opens the possibility of understanding why certain individuals are so
abusive and combative when discussing music.
We are at least in some measure consciously aware of these psychological
functions when we reach out for a disc, a score or even a pen to compose some
music. The performer similarly will, through experience, understand the
expectations of the audience, and may even enhance these through dress codes
and mannerisms.
When we examine the responses of people to music we will
see that the three functions can occur simultaneously if not equally. We may well eagerly await a cocktail of
different responses, and respond accordingly if these expectations are not met.
The research into the psychological functions of music is ongoing and there are
a wealth of different responses and expectations, but the consensus is that
these can be reduced to the following categories;
·
Emotional regulation
·
Awareness and intellect
·
Physical responses
·
Creating social relationships (intellectual or
emotional)
This
table is not exhaustive, but if offers sufficient scope to illustrate types of
expectations. Let us take a few examples, social contact through music can be
seen in sports (singing of national anthems), work songs (weaving, planting),
military (marching, war songs, protest songs). Music can be used to stimulate
action or reduce it, religious music can be of either sort. Music also assists
people on the individual level, it may help reduce the anxiety regarding death
or understanding our mortality. On a lighter note we all understand that music
brings pleasure, both on emotional and physical levels.
As
we develop our inner library of musical works and styles functions become
expectations, and as stated these expectations can have both positive and
negative outcomes, most music lovers have been asked (or asked) in their past,
“how can you listen to that?”
Since
music recordings became available at a reasonable price the vast majority of
teenagers have been subjected to this question, usually followed by a demand to
turn the volume down. All music enthusiasts know that this statement can be
highly charged and lead to rifts and arguments. We sometimes forget that while music
may enable social wellbeing it can also be intrusive and become a socially
negative experience.
A
better version of this usually rhetorical question is “why do you listen to
that….?” It brings into play the above
discussed psychological factors.
As
we increase our scope of listening we also develop expectations about what we
are about to experience. When these experiences are fulfilled we feel positive
emotions, when they are not the reactions are negative and may become
aggressive. Our expectations can encompass different types of sound, e.g.
acoustic v electronic, the length of engagement, tempo and a myriad of other
factors on their own or in combination. Little wonder then that cliques build
up around specific genres, which in turn consolidate expectations. Members of
such groups often generate the most aggressive criticisms of other styles,
particularly closely related styles.
We
know that exposure helps us to adjust to new ideas, and the internet has
brought innovations in music directly into our homes. This is not without
problems, addiction to newness for its own sake may be found to have short-life
satisfaction. The music industry also plays with our expectations from the
quality of sound we experience to alternative performances and arrangements of
well-known works. Research has opened up alternative methods of performance and
timbres in early, Baroque and Classical music, all of which have altered
expectations and sometimes redirected our preferences, making once favoured
recordings into music that fails to meet the authenticity test.
It is possible that even within a specific social gathering
that participants expectations may be wide and varied. Let us consider music used in funerals, the
music can be stylistically extensive. One person would find a hymn acceptable,
another a piece of dance music, a third a popular song and a fourth a serious
work. In each case the focus is on engagement with the deceased with the understanding
that the celebration of that life reduces the anxiety felt by the participant.
We intuitively understand that music activates associations, memories,
experiences, moods, and emotions and as such it has a natural function at the
end of our lives. There is no single piece of music that can be the perfect
model for an individual’s passing, satisfying our expectations in such a case
is very personal; for some the choices made may seem inappropriate.
Let us return for a moment to bias, and consider some
recent research, the wiki entry for bias blind spot is helpful:
In simple terms we believe that we can evaluate the degree of bias we
apply to art, music, film etc. and that we are wholly aware of all the factors
that sway us to one preference over another. The truth of the matter is far
from intuitive and should leads us to some soul-searching.
On a practical level awareness of the main types of
psychological functions can assist the composer, let us take the example of
writing a piece of music for education, say a work for small ensemble with
moderately challenging demands on technique. There is always the possibility of
making it socially inclusive through audience participation and include
physically stimulating characteristics by clapping or singing to an arranged
melody. A recent Proms performance with the Dunedin Consort had the audience
engaged with Bach’s Passion through an invitation to sing three sections of the
chorales, while this was a part of Bach’s expectations its inclusion in a
concert hall setting is unusual, it alters perceptions and challenges some expectations.
Understanding audience expectations can be to the
composer’s advantage as it permits the element of surprise. One may argue that
the surprise arises out of convention, only when we understand the rules do we
respond fully to their being broken. However there are times when the composer
feels inclined to break with expectation on a far more radical level. Those who
have followed the tonal to atonal argument understand the gradual progression
that took place, but to ease the change some composers made the intellectual
blend more palatable by including dance elements (social interaction/ physical
functions) within the new tonality. Stockhausen’s most popular work is (in my
opinion) Stimmung, which meets all three functions, it is something to consider
when reaching out for pen and manuscript.
In recent weeks Nurtan and I have been
paying more attention to the first part of the listening process, the input. At
the moment we are considering the term random
in relation to music. It has already taken us many e-mails to clarify this
starting point. At one point Nurtan said
….totally random sequences
(white noise) is not recognisable as means of communication.
While I wholly agree with his point we are both aware that people
choose to listen to random signals. Try typing in white noise on You Tube for a
variety of results including keeping a baby quiet during a night’s sleep! All
of this suggests only one thing to me, a recognition of sound as a means of self-regulation.
An earlier blog asked the question Why do we listen to
music, the blog is now deleted but I include it below as it relates to the
above:
Why do we derive pleasure from listening to
music?
Music has existed in human
societies since prehistory, perhaps because it allows expression and regulation
of emotion and evokes pleasure.
The observations made in
this blog owes much to the observations made in the article:
From perception to
pleasure: Music and its neural substrates: Robert J. Zatorre and Valorie N.
Salimpoor. It may be read in full at:
In order to answer
the question of why we derive pleasure from listening to music we must consider
several aspects including physiological ones. We now understand that humans
naturally produce dopamine when listening to music, this is a substance that
creates in us a sense of wellbeing and pleasure.
If some readers found
the previous blog on motivation difficult as it sometimes focused on our basic
responses (such as our need for group recognition and a desire for leadership)
the notion that pleasure in listening to music arises from the same source as
sex, drugs, gambling and even food may not please everybody either. Research on
brain activity notes that when you engage with music your brain releases the
chemical responsible for motivation and addiction. So powerful is the effect of
music that even the anticipation of listening releases dopamine.
Musicians might find
happier ground in discussing the pleasure of creating their own narrative about
a piece of music, be it on the level of hearing the sounds of nature in
Beethoven’s Pastoral or following a process through in Sibelius’s 5th
symphony. Researchers note that the process of engagement through anticipation
of events – and their resolution – acts as a major source of stimulation.
(The) perception of … a melody does not proceed in
a simple sequential manner. It also involves an active component, such (as)
expectancies generated based upon a listener’s implicit knowledge about musical
rules that have been acquired by previous exposure to music of that culture.
This phenomenon is significant because it points to our highly adaptive ability
to predict future events based on past regularities.
The argument is expanded into other methods of
structure:
In metrically organized music, a listener develops
predictions about when to expect sounds to occur (a parallel to how tonality provides
the listener with a structure to make predictions about what pitches to
expect).
It should be evident to most musicians that
listening over many years builds up a lexicon of expectations, these may be
built on rules of harmony, outcomes from the use of tonality, or a knowledge of
rhythmic devices (e.g. in dance) all of which leads to a refined level of
expectation and can create a surprise element when the unexpected occurs.
Performers in
particular will be aware of the physical effects of engaging with music,
increased heart rate, respiration etc, all of which indicate levels of
“self-reported pleasure” but this is equally experienced by listeners. What may
be more surprising is that a physiological explanation can also be ascribed to
our sensation of goose bumps which happens as a second event stimulating the
brain in a separate area of cognizance.
In observing physiological
effects on the enjoyment of music (and art forms like poetry readings) the work
of the auditory system cannot be overlooked, but we may not always consider the
way that both external sounds and their recollection as internal states permit
us to recreate emotions, and not just pleasurable emotions.
Nurtan has often
elaborated on the fleeting quality of music and our ability to hold such events
is truly remarkable as well as pleasurable:
Humans have excellent ability to maintain auditory
information as it comes in, which accounts for our ability to relate one sound
to another that came many seconds or minutes earlier...
This ability may well have developed from our
earliest survival skills; when we combine it with the desire to belong to a
group where we may discuss and reinforce our perceptions and understanding of
music, then we may see a progression from survival to enriched living.
Aesthetic rewards are often highly abstract in
nature and generally involve important cognitive components. In particular,
they are highly culture-dependent and therefore imply a critical role for
learning and social influences. These features suggest that they may involve
the “higher-order” and more complex regions of the brain that are more evolved
in humans.
I cannot leave this blog without putting in this
extended quotation from the paper. It concerns some of the differences between
humans and our near neighbours:
When given a choice between listening to music
versus silence, our close evolutionary relatives (tamarins and marmosets)
generally prefer silence. Some animals may be capable of processing basic
aspects of sound with relevance for music. For example, rhesus monkeys do
demonstrate an ability to judge that two melodies are the same when they are
transposed by one or two octaves. However, this ability is limited: the monkeys
failed to perform this task if melodies were transposed by 0.5 or 1.5 octaves.
There is also some evidence that monkeys can distinguish between consonance and
dissonance. However, they do not seem to consider consonant sounds more
pleasurable, based on the finding that cotton-top tamarins showed a clear
preference for species-specific feeding chirps over distress calls, but no
preference for consonant versus dissonant intervals.
The 1K word limitation for our main blogs prevents
the examination of why we prefer certain types of music over others, e.g. there
is much to be said about why we like sad music in relation to the question of
pleasure.
Perhaps I should finish on a personal note and
explain why I like listening to music. I enjoy the physical aspect of playing
(how well is not relevant). I love exploring sounds and feel like a pioneer
when using samplers to create never before heard or used sounds. I love the
sense of playfulness that is open to me when composing, the fact that I can
make several choices before I determine the outcomes that make a written piece
of music. I could carry on for some time. I have no objection to my body
producing a substance which increases my sense of pleasure, I should be
thankful that it is there, along with the willingness to study and work hard
with the elements of music.
