Why do people listen to music?
Dear Ms. VanHandel:
-Mia
My name is Mia, and I am a student at [junior high school]. I am reaching out to you because I am working on a Passion Project in English class about how music affects psychology. My Inquiry-based question is “Why do people listen to music?” I would love to learn more about music theory and how the brain processes music. My reason for contacting you is I consider you an expert on my topic.
I realize you are busy, but I would appreciate any information you can share with me. Please respond as soon as possible to my request in order that I may continue with my project. Thank you for your time and assistance in this matter.
Hi, Mia!
Your question is a REALLY big one, and not one that’s easily answered. In fact, it’s sort of THE question — why do all human groups that we know of have some form of music? Music has served a lot of different purposes for different communities: it might be for communication reasons, it might be for celebration or to increase enthusiasm or inflame emotions in warriors, or it might be used to woo a potential mate! Or, it might just be because music is enjoyable. Those are all reasons why people might listen to music.
Since your question is SO big, it’s really hard for me to answer it, but I can recommend a very reasonably priced book that might help you out; it’s by an author named Dan Levitin, called “This is Your Brain on Music.” It’s typically available for about $8 in paperback, and is a great introduction to the discipline of music psychology, which is exactly what you say you’re interested in! It’s a very readable book, aimed at people who are asking the same types of questions that you are, so it may be a help to you.
If you’re able to narrow your question down a little bit, I may be able to help more. Good luck with your project!
-Dr. Van
Hi, Dr. VanHandel:
-Mia
Thank you for responding! I suppose a more specific question would be: What parts of music can attract listeners?
Mia;
That’s still a huge question! In general, we can be drawn to a number of different characteristics of music — the melody, which is the part that you can sing; the rhythm, which is how the music is organized in time; or the harmony, which is how notes work together. Not all types of music contain all three of these characteristics, though, so each one works both on its own and in conjunction with the others!
We tend to like, or be attracted to, music that we are at least kind of familiar with — not necessarily music that we know already, but music that is *similar* — in style, or a similar genre — to music that we know already. It’s because we learn how a style of music works through listening to it, and we develop an ‘expectation’ for that music — we know what’s likely to happen.
When we don’t know much about a style of music, it can be harder to understand it, which makes it harder to like it. Think about people who like the pop music they hear on the radio, and say something like, “I don’t like _______ music” — maybe they’re saying country, maybe rap, maybe opera. It’s because they’re not as familiar with the other genre.
As before, these are really big and important questions that you’re asking, and are questions that lots of people have been working on for a while! The field of music cognition has grown a lot in the last fifteen or twenty years, and it sounds like you have a natural interest in that area. The fact that I can’t answer your question definitively shows that there’s still so much work to do, so I hope you keep your interest going and someday help us to research and answer these questions.
-Dr. Van
Dr. VanHandel:
-Mia
I really appreciate your assistance so far and thank you for taking time out of your day to respond. I myself would like to work in the field of psychology when I am older and find the topic of music therapy to be quite fascinating. Our Inquiry-based questions were supposed to be broad so that we could appreciate the depths of our topics as well occupy ourselves with non-stop research. However, you have worked very hard in trying to answer my question in a way that I could understand.
If I may, I would like to ask a few more questions. I would like to know how you chose your career path and, in your expert opinion, what genre of music has provided the most contribution to modern standards of what music should be.
Mia,
I was really involved in music when I was in junior high and high school, but I didn’t really want to be a music teacher in elementary, junior high, or high school. So I started college with a science major — I wanted to do genetic engineering. I realized pretty quickly that I missed music too much, and managed to get accepted to be a music major during my first year of college.
I signed up for a double major in music ed and music performance, because that’s all I thought you could do with a degree in music, and even though I wasn’t sure about teaching at the elementary/secondary level, I thought that was better than not doing music at all. But I was extremely fortunate to have some wonderful theory professors as role models, and they encouraged my interest and creativity early on and told me that music theory was an option, and that I could do research and teach college students, which sounded a lot more exciting to me.
I was also very fortunate as I went through school to have some mentors recognize that I was also interested in psychology and language, and they encouraged me to connect the dots in the different disciplines and find a place for myself in the emerging field of music cognition.
I always say that I think I have the best job in the world — I get to learn about things for a living, and I get to get excited about a topic and learn about it, and then I get to teach other people about the things I’m excited about and get them excited about it as well. And I get to recognize and encourage creativity and interest in a growing field, just like my mentors did for me.
For your second question, “what genre of music has provided the most contribution to modern standards of what music should be,” there’s no possible way to answer that. There isn’t a “modern standard” of what music “should” be — there are lots of different types of music, and no one version of music is “standard.” In fact, I think one the hallmarks of music these days is that every genre is influencing every other genre! I know that sounds like I just don’t want to pick one, and maybe that’s a little bit true, but I honestly believe that when you consider all of the different types of music that exists — and remembering that there is music that is completely separate from the Western tradition, whether that tradition is classical, jazz, popular, rap/R&B, or what have you — there is such a global influence of all types of music that there’s no way to say that one genre has contributed the most.
I appreciate your questions, and I’m enjoying our conversation. I hope I haven’t simplified anything too much — it’s always hard to know how in detail I can go in a response like this. Thank you for making me think about some things!
-Dr. Van