Why Does Music Feel So Good?

>I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or cheap speakers.

I cannot understand this myself. I mean, why pay thousands of dollars for HD TVs, period.

As for the cheap headphones part, who cares. They like the beat and the feeling of the music, not the details and the subtlety of the recording.

That's why they don't listen to jazz or classical that much.

What exactly musical subtlety do you miss on Justin Bieber, Metallica, Hip Hop, Skillrex, 99% of what passes for R&B today etc, by using cheap headphones? You'll miss some low-fi sampled, bit-crushed drum loops? Two-note synth motifs?

People have different interests. I know someone who spends thousands of dollars on coffee and coffee equipment. I think that's ridiculous. I think it's a cool hobby though.

It sucks that your friends make you feel bad for things you enjoy!

The new Apple Earpods are acceptable though (compared to the Sennheiser 429 I own which are too big to wear in public).

As someone who doesn't care much about audio quality I can try to explain. Part of it I suppose is that even though I like music, I don't _like_ like music as some people seem to do, like music is their life and a huge spare time interest. I just like to listen to some stuff sometimes, but sometimes I can go a week without listening to my Spotify account or the radio. Another part of it is that I feel like I get most of the benefit already with "regular" ear-phones, I don't need super duper audio quality to enjoy a song. The song is in your brain anyway, and your perceptions are not as perfect as you think. Think of it like suspension of disbelief in a video game. I used to play games with really shitty graphics, but that didn't affect the way I enjoyed the game because my brain fills in the rest.

You don't hear a difference when listening to music that is produced and edited with an assumption of crappy audio equipment. Many people have entire playlists of songs that they'll stream at 96kbps over shitty free headphones. 96kbps over 600$ of equipment wont change much.

IMO, people just don't see the increase in performance to be worth the increase in price.

Now, something like the Sony MDR-7506 has an excellent performance-vs-price ratio, but many people want to stuff their headphones in their pocket when they aren't using them, and it is hard to find the same performance-vs-price ratio for earbuds.

Personally, I'm at roughly the same spot as you. I have a DAC and amp, and two pairs of nice Senns.

I think the problem is perception. We're so used to coloured sound that without over exaggerated bass and treble, higher quality headphones feel very flat. I will admit myself, that I much prefer my consumer speakers (Cambridge Soundworks Air Minx 200) to my friend's studio monitor speakers (KRK Rokits I think) - despite being well aware that they're no doubt coloured.

Even the low end Sennheisers (like the HD202 on my head) offer a much better experience than earbuds. At 27 USD on Amazon, there's not much excuse for people who scoff at expensive audiophile headphones.

I completely agree with you. My friends love my expensive headphones but refuse to buy one. And I really think they value the quality of their music.

I got to watch Udo Dirkschneider (from U.D.O. and Accept) live on his North American tour last week in Poughkeepsie, NY. One thing I realized about him (apart from the obvious fact his voice is perfect for heavy metal even at age 61), is that he really enjoys listening to the other musicians (the rest of the band!) he has on stage with him, and he has hand motions that show he is following and anticipating the music in his head.

Or it might be because the beats and repetition help synchronize brain sectors. Allowing refined, less fuzzy, thinking.

I think Steven Pinker would agree: "...music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of at least six of our mental faculties" (How the Mind Works, p.534).

It's called Frisson (I have it also)

There used to be a great Wikipedia page on it, but the deletionists got to it at some point and turned it into this content free page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_chill

There's a slowly growing body of studies into it.

There's also a reddit devoted to it http://www.reddit.com/r/frisson but I've found that what causes one person to frisson doesn't necessarily cause another.

This book has a bit on it http://books.google.com/books?id=uyI_Cb8olkMC&lpg=PR5...

> Amazingly, this is reproducible

I have sobbed to so many shitty movies, that I have lost count.

In terms of my little framework, you're exercising the pattern engine by making predictions and immediately having them validated. Notice how some people will try to sing along to a song even when they've never heard it before, and how the best pop songs make this very easy to do.

Is this true for everyone, though? I've sung in choirs and played various instruments over the years, so my experience of music is almost always one of deconstructing it, and so my unconscious motivation to hum along (or tap my fingers or beatbox) is to facilitate picking apart the different voices and instruments.

But not everyone has that musical background, so maybe not everyone is so compelled as you or me to sing along.

>I mean, we are invariably worse singers so it surely makes it sound worse and this is besides the fact that signing ourselves drowns out much of the original sound anyway!

I like Chesterton's quote on the issue: "Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest".

See, this "I make the song worse" is a total cultural distortion, a byproduct of the rise of "specialists" (singers, artists, athletes) which other people passively admire.

In past human culture, for example, singing is a shared community experience that belongs to everyone, and all participate in. It doesn't matter if you do it better or worse than somebody else, because the joy is in doing it, and in the participation.

Another question that has puzzled me is why do we sometimes sing or hum a tune totally randomly?

And why do we choose to sing or hum that tune?

I'd be interested to see the results of this study if the participants were exposed to ambient drone music, such as sounds of a didgeridoo or a Steve Roach piece, that music often consists of long drawn out tones that don't fluctuate frequently and often lack a "melody". For me, it puts me a deep trance like state of mind that is very calm and peaceful. Humming along to the long tones also feels good, it's like your body resonates with the music.

No! Please don't waste yet another super genius on an advertising company.

I put a Spotify playlist together but only found 56 songs.

There were more than one version of a few songs, and I couldn't cross-reference the audio on the researcher's site. I'll do it tonight, unless anyone gets to it before I.

Or a grooveshark playlist.