Culture: Music: Style
Experiment To Find If Music Has Intrinsic Emotional Triggers Or Uses Programmed Association   (+1)  [vote for, against]
Test subjects spend a year with horror music as soundtrack to happy fun cartoons, "fun, happy" music to horror movies to see if it's solely association that causes music to invoke moods.

We hear diffent types of music and it triggers certain types of feelings. I tell people that here's all you need to know about song writing. (besides needing to be talented to do it) Major cords are happy and positive, minor chords are sad or spooky, they're colors in your pallet to paint a picture.

But why? Is this intrinsic or are we just conditioned to react that way when we hear certain chords? First order of business might be to explore music of different cultures and see what they consider happy or sad, but from what I see, there seems to be a pretty universal human response to sad, happy or scary music.

Have the test subjects watch only entertainment for a year with flipped soundtracks. As the chainsaw wielding psycho bursts into the room play the Benny Hill theme and in the cartoon where the happy bunny wins the race against the mean old tortoise play the theme from Friday the 13th.

Then, after several months of Clockwork Orange style association manipulation ask them what kind of moods these swapped styles invoke when they hear them.

Any volunteers?
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021

This: https://www.123rf.c...-with-his-hand.html
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

associated with this soundtrack. https://www.youtube...watch?v=wP8_mhRkkfc
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

While this: https://www.bigbadt...ationDetails/153386
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

associated with this. https://youtu.be/MK6TXMsvgQg
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

Inspired by this. The_20Day_20the_20Music_20Turned
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

Iain Morley, The Prehistory of Music https://global.oup....7269?cc=gb&lang=en&
Explains in overwhelmingly technical detail how music developed within Human evolution, and basically concludes that it is closely related to emotional expression and vocalisation and gesture in animals in general [pocmloc, Nov 21 2021]

Go to 2:05 https://www.youtube...watch?v=OxAjXtJf5AE
This is fascinating, I'm digging it then they change the beat, much faster and the chimp seems to stop rocking about just like I did. Then they settle into a groove and he gets back into it. [doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

Interesting, but doesn't address the major vs minor chord thing. https://www.youtube...watch?v=5NfLKoq9PeA
[doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021]

<shrugs> you tell me https://www.reddit....ore_his_rallies_to/
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 22 2021]

Iain Morley online lecture http://podcasts.ox....pening-presentation
Hope this stands in as an audiobook substitute. [pocmloc, Nov 22 2021]

That's getting very deep into "nature vs. nurture" territory. But a very interesting idea, nonetheless.
-- neutrinos_shadow, Nov 21 2021


Yes music is very low level emotional signalling. See Iain Morley's book <link>
-- pocmloc, Nov 21 2021


Well here's one thing we know for sure, bobbing to rhythms is something that's not just a human thing.

Wonder if there's an audio of that book. I don't read but it looks like an interesting subject.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021


You may find this interesting. There are certain notes which even at barely audible levels produce unease or discomfort in humans across the board so I imagine the same holds true in reverse.
Apparently Hitlers boys knew this and would broadcast these negative sounds prior to his appearance in front of crowds so that when the noise ceased his arrival coincided with feelings of mass relief and well being.

...and then there's the brown note.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 21 2021


//would broadcast these negative sounds prior to his appearance in front of crowds so that when the noise ceased his arrival coincided with feelings of mass relief and well being.//

So like when a Nirvana song ends?
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 21 2021


...or Nickleback. Exactly!
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 21 2021


//Apparently//

Might be true, but sounds to me like an urban myth.
-- pertinax, Nov 21 2021


Let me look, it's Sunday, I'm taking a day off <gasp> true story.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 21 2021


Okay. <shrugs> Here's Reddit historian's take on it. [link] I just know it was something I read on here years ago.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 22 2021


I was going to suggest you just write to Morley and ask, but I found out that he died earlier this year at the age of 46. But I found a lecture that he did shortly before his book came out <link>
-- pocmloc, Nov 22 2021


Cool, thanks poc. I'll check it out.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2021


As a musician, it's an intriguing idea, but I'm not sure it'd do much more than confirm that people can be conditioned. I don't see it having much bearing on the emotions we associate with music when _not_ conditioned in unusual ways.
-- Ander, Nov 28 2021


I guess as a former musician myself (still get royalty checks so I guess I'm still a musician) I wonder why I feel one thing with one chord and another with a different one. Minor chords are sad or spooky, major are happy.

And jazz chords are on cocaine.
-- doctorremulac3, Nov 28 2021


// Any volunteers?

No. Instead, I suggest community radio station, where participants can push updates to playlist, and vote for what's next, that helps set community mood, and participants can tune-in as they desire.

Regarding the 1-year experiment - I'm sure it's being done by certain media corporations.
-- Mindey, Nov 28 2021



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