Was just listening to Hans Zimmer’s Time, which inspired this question.
In: 856
Another answer that isn’t covered as much atm is expectations. In the US, EU, etc, you grow up listening to western inspired music, which has clear chord progressions, dissonances, and cadences that end up being associated with various forms of media and scenes over time.
If you were to take someone who’s never been exposed to western music and have them listen, they wouldn’t experience the same type of response.
All i have to do is think about Bladerunner 2049 Mesa by Hanz or Bladerunner Blues by Vangelis and i get the goosebumps.
Feel special. Not everyone has the emotional response. I will usually almost tear up when I hear a crowd singing a song I like at a concert or sometimes it will be at a spot where the music builds and then releases all that tension and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Edit: good quick example if you look up demon slayer opening 4, the part where the 2 vocalists harmonize does it to me every time. https://youtu.be/MOtmdgVuOuc
Chatgpt says….
Music has the ability to evoke powerful emotional and physiological responses in humans, and the experience of getting goosebumps while listening to music is one such response. Goosebumps, scientifically known as piloerection or cutis anserina, are small raised bumps on the skin that occur when tiny muscles called arrector pili contract and cause hairs to stand on end. This physical response is a vestigial reflex inherited from our animal ancestors and serves various purposes, such as generating heat or making an animal appear larger when threatened.
In the context of music, goosebumps are often associated with intense emotional reactions. When we listen to music that we find particularly moving, beautiful, or emotionally charged, it can trigger a release of neurotransmitters like dopamine, which are associated with pleasure and reward. This release of neurotransmitters can create a physiological response that includes the contraction of the arrector pili muscles, resulting in goosebumps.
The specific reasons why certain musical passages or genres can elicit goosebumps can vary from person to person. However, there are some common factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Here are a few:
1. Emotional resonance: Music has the power to tap into our emotions and convey a wide range of feelings. Certain melodies, harmonies, or lyrics can resonate deeply with our personal experiences, memories, or aspirations, creating a strong emotional response that manifests as goosebumps.
2. Musical tension and release: Music often utilizes tension and release techniques, such as building up anticipation and then resolving it. These dynamic shifts can create a sense of climax or resolution, leading to an intense emotional reaction and goosebumps.
3. Unexpected or surprising elements: Music that incorporates unexpected or novel elements, such as sudden key changes, intricate harmonies, or unexpected pauses, can catch our attention and stimulate our senses. These surprises can trigger a heightened emotional response and goosebumps.
4. Cultural and social conditioning: Our personal experiences, cultural background, and social context shape our musical preferences and associations. If we have been exposed to certain genres or specific songs that have cultural or personal significance, they may have a greater potential to evoke goosebumps due to their emotional and nostalgic connections.
It’s important to note that not everyone experiences goosebumps while listening to music, and the intensity of the response can vary. Furthermore, individual preferences, mood, and the overall context in which the music is experienced can influence the likelihood of experiencing goosebumps.
It’s a pretty well known industry secret that they put crack in most of Hans Zimmer’s soundtracks.
Monkey brain says sound is good. We like hearing. We like patterns, so sounds to a beat sound REALLY good. Now add a story to invest into (lyrics, film the score is from, or general “mood” of the song) and like others have said, the emotional response can for some be better than drugs.
The truth is that no one is quite sure. The sensation you’re describing is called “frisson”. We can predict what is likely to cause it (though the specifics vary from person to person) and we can measure it happening, why can chemically or physically increase someone’s susceptibility to it, but *why* it happens is a bit of a mystery.
Frisson is a set of real physical responses by the body to something it experiences. In music, there are lots of characteristics that often lead to someone experiencing frisson, but they can often be generalised as the music doing something slightly different to what we’re lead to expect. Music is all about patterns and predictability and sometimes breaking the patterns and doing something unexpected. Our brain is essentially a machine designed to recognise patterns, so something like an unexpected key shift really stands out and our body responds to it – sometimes with excitement/pleasure reactions like those associated with frisson.
“Epic” music often produces frisson because it’s very climatical – you’re brain *knows* there’s a change coming and the anticiption and final surprise/relief when it does produces pleasurable body sensations. It’s no accident that this sort of music is used in cinema, or indeed religion! I think it’s also part of the appeal of dubstep (where the listener is constantly surprised by changes in key, interjections of new beats, etc).
It’s something that’s parodied [in this SNL clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoUV7Q1C1SU) – there’s a continuous build up to “the bass drop” and the crowd goes crazy because their brain is constantly telling them “This is it – here it comes – next time – nearly here”, and after all that build up the eventual shift in the music creates such a powerful physiological reaction that they can’t handle it.
But *why* does our body associate this kind of build-up then change with the sensation of frisson? No one knows for sure.
This happens to me during “inspirational” speeches in movies. I know Mel Gibson isn’t very popular on reddit, but the “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom” speech in Braveheart gives me this reaction every time I watch it.
Link for those curious:
Some believe music is a kind of proto-language, and that although even babies respond to music, they also learn what their culture’s music means as they grow older. Even those of us who are not musicians hear music all our lives and associate certain music with certain experiences and memories.
If we hear music from another culture, or even a subculture of our own community that is unfamiliar to us, it may take us a while to get used to it and appreciate it. We have to learn the language, so to speak. And that could account for why different generations, even in the same household, may like different styles of music.
There’s a whole frisson subreddit where people post songs that give them frisson. Radiohead motion picture soundtrack got me good recently.
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