why do our brain like music and it has the power to change our mood?

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why do our brain like music and it has the power to change our mood?

In: Biology

Anonymous 0 Comments

Your auditory nerves are tied *really* deeply into the oldest/most basic parts of our brain. This is an evolutionary survival thing…hearing is the most effective of the senses at keeping us alive. It works in the dark/fog/murk, unlike sight. It works at a distance, unlike touch/taste. So it’s almost directly wired to your fight/flight sense at fundamental level, which can trigger all kinds of emotions. This is why we startle at loud noises.

Then add on that we evolved speech as our primary means of communication, which required really tight attention and sensitivity to tone/rhythm/pace to convey emotion and intent (this is why we suck at conveying emotion over written commutation and why emojis exist).

Essentially as a side-effect, music is basically a hack on a very effective sense-to-emotion pathway. Smell actually works better biologically but we never developed effective & widespread “smell instruments”.