Why do you like music?

[spacetoon]

Hi,

I was setting alone in my room and listenning to music. I asked myself why do I like music? And why music touches my emotion or provides my mind with new, inexplainable thoughts ? Such questions as these are hard to answer. It affects our thought, alright, but in what way and WHY?

Probably you can answer that......

[Maya_Amano]

For me music was always like a spring of life. Anywhere I go I have my player on. At home radio is on almost all day. For me music is something that can carry you away from the routine and provoke imagination. No matter if you listen or play it yourself. Not to mention the influence of different styles on a person - clothes, speech, attitude... Why? May be because of the enormous positive energy music spills over

[Skinner8]

Because it's fantastic for filling up your mind to help you use your brain for more important things than thinking, and because I can enjoy it while doing other stuff like reading and eating food.

[EGGO]

"The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context."

From wikipedia.

[Skinner8]

"EGGO is so dreamy."

From my diary.

[Dr Mario]

Intellect and Emotion, more or less. I'm probably something of an odd duck though because much of what I listen to is negative through to outright discomforting or even painful listening.

I won't waste time going over the positive and/or more conventional music. I think everyone groks the attraction there (whether it's atmospherics like Sigur Ros or party stuff like Motorhead). So I'll give a quick overview of why the more out-there stuff grasps me. (Arrogant I know)

I find artist like Ryoji Ikeda, Merzbow, and C.C.C.C (to name a few) to be rather interesting on an intellectual level rather than an emotional one, if that makes any sense. It's not something I can just have in the background like some disposable pop, but it isn't the sort of atmospheric "relax and let it take you in" either. It gets inside my head and has me wondering about the significance of the arrangements, the concept behind the ebb and flow of the rhythm and actively pondering the artists intent. Very different from how I approach most music.

On the other hand, certain recordings hit on a purely emotional level and it's a visceral one that I've never felt an "easy" atmosphere match. It's inspirational in a way, placing the mind in different outlooks that wouldn't normally be achieved. Groups like Deathspell Omega (Malevolent Strength), Khanate (Despair and Desperation) and The Axis of Perdition (Isolation and Paranoia) can put a whole different spin on the day and I find that intriguing. Even useful at times, if I'm trying to be creative.

[_M_]

Beautifully orchestrated rhythm, flow, beat, singing/screaming/rapping, instruments, and tone of the song is why I like music. How when each of these things piece together it creates this incredible sound like nothing else on the planet and it moves me, soothes me, and impresses me.

I don't judge people for listening to a certain kind of music, because that's being ignorant and a jackass. My musical likes ranges far and wide, from country to hip hop, Mo-Town to metal (from the last 3 decades), Reggaton to Classical. I'm open minded when it comes to music (and food).

The only thing I really don't have a taste for is disposable mainstream rap and pop. Mainly because a song will get played out throughout the country for a month or so and forgotten about the next month because someone else came out with a hotter track singing or rapping about the same shit. No instant classics any more. I don't get it the whole here and now popularity contest when it comes to those types of music. Bet hey, this is just my opinion and I'm not judging anyone because there are certain musicians that I like in those genres, mainly rap not pop.

I hated living back in L.A. but I love hip-hop because it's what I listened to when I was growing up and in keeps me in touch with my roots.

It'll take too long to explain why I am the way I am or why I listen to the music I listen to. I like music because nothing else sounds better to me. Besides maybe my 4 year old niece calling me Uncle Mikey.

[Chibi-Suke]

It's poetry, it... well, the feeling is indescribable. Anything I say here cannot do justice to it.

I guess, it's a kind of freedom. Music is the sound of freedom.

[juvenilesky]

Music is an expression of yourself with it, you can make your remembers and feels to come to the present, most of the writers use music to write... games need good music!!!

[Chibi-Suke]

Music is an expression of yourself with it, you can make your remembers and feels to come to the present, most of the writers use music to write... games need good music!!!

Exactly, the type of music you like is an expression of yourself, making music is an expression of yourself, and listening to music helps you to express yourself. My drawings are ten times better when I listen to a song that conveys the emotion I'm going for.

[svorax]

I was setting alone in my room and listenning to music. I asked myself why do I like music? And why music touches my emotion or provides my mind with new, inexplainable thoughts ? Such questions as these are hard to answer. It affects our thought, alright, but in what way and WHY?

Music is simply a phenomenon. The fact that certain chords sound pleasant to the ear while others are piercing clashes is a mere coincidence. It's something neurologists, still, cannot solve. Music has an effect not on the ears, but on the brain much like our other senses do, such as smell, taste, and touch. Theres just something in the human psychology that appeals to counter-acting sound waves...

(I tried to make it sound as smart as i could! )

[Mistral]

Difficult to say. I didn't really listen to music at all as a child, except for what I played on the piano or what was in the background courtesy of other people. I didn't really take it seriously at all until I heard Hiro no Tsuki and Tsuki no Le, both by Arai Akino. Now, I do listen to music quite a bit, but usually only when I'm on forums or working on homework. Artists who have made some songs that affect me strongly, like Kajiura Yuki, Sakamoto Maaya, Sasaki Yuuko, Arai Akino, or Origa, rank highly for my favourites, certainly; I think we all love songs that seem closest to us, or how we wish to be, or how we wish to feel. I think our music brings us into sharper focus, lets us control that which we feel and think to a degree. To the degree as Skinner said, it makes it easier to avoid thinking, more particularly about certain things.

Certainly, though, our answers will not be your answers, necessarily, and certainly my answers will not be your answers. A question about how something affects you personally is something only you can answer in full. People who barely know you at all won't be able to answer such a thing in your stead.

Fiction. Ring. I Throw a Vase from Atop a Hill. Pure Snow. House of the Moon. La Ronde Lunaire.
...
Oh, six to the five?

[SA-X]

Music reflects emotions and moods, and can release others. It embodies certain things that we cannot achieve ourselves, giving us satisfaction from listening.

Everything about music is just fantastic. I'd gladly give up sight and taste before hearing.

[Mistral]

Music is simply a phenomenon. The fact that certain chords sound pleasant to the ear while others are piercing clashes is a mere coincidence. It's something neurologists, still, cannot solve. Music has an effect not on the ears, but on the brain much like our other senses do, such as smell, taste, and touch. Theres just something in the human psychology that appeals to counter-acting sound waves...

Oh? Certainly, from a strictly functionalist standpoint, one could make the case that music is simply an aural stimulus. However, I am uncertain that you entirely considered the societal and cultural framework in which such an interplay of cognitive function can occur. It is through both this framework and the native biology of the genome that the unique individual known as the "human" can exist, and it is through both this framework and the native biology of the genome that can create such cultural ephemera as music (though ephemera may be a lacking term for the entirety of the phenomenon). Naturally, this interplay between the cognitive basis of the individual and the cultural mores created from the the sum cognitive behavior of the group (insofar as a unitary "cognitive behavior" can be defined) leads to the rise of music and other methods of expression, to communicate and pass on to another the key messages of the individual within the society. "Good" music, insofar as the term can be defined, is that which communicates these messages, these feelings and emotions and thoughts and wishes, in a way that carries strongly.

Also, naturally, no information taken in by the senses plays upon the sensory organ itself: cognitive function is well-understood to be the domain of the higher brain. It is rather literalist to take the term "an influence on the ears" so directly, and it is especially unusual to do so in light of the fact that the OP never alluded to the sensory organ itself at all.

Oh, dear...you did that on purpose, didn't you?

[Evans]

Cheapest time machine, that's why.