All right Mr. Need, and all my other
fellow classmates that are reading this, this will be my last post. I’ve had a
very fun time writing this and would like to thank you Mr. Need for the opportunity
to actually try this out. I’ve hoped you’ve actually learned something and now
know that when expressing chills while listening to music you know what is
going on in your body and know why you have the reaction you do. I love music
and I wanted to share my love with you, so I left one of my favorite songs
ever up at the top of this. If any of you are wondering if I am pulling
all of this stuff out of my but I actually do have sources. They will be the
final post. I hope that no matter what you go through during life you always remember
that you have music to turn too. It can change your life, and help you in so
many ways possible. Don’t ever doubt the ability that a symphony or a melody
can have on you, because in the end you’ll be the one regretting it. Music is self-expression,
and in self-expression there are feelings. So in the end music is really just
what feelings sound like right?
Have you ever listened to a song that
gave you so much emotion that you started to get chills and all of sudden you felt
like you could do anything? Yeah I have too, actually a lot of times now that I
think of it. It’s a frequent occurrence for me. I’ll listen to a song or watch
someone perform on stage and all of sudden it’s like something connects and
each hair on my body is standing. Sometimes it will be quicker than others, it
won’t last as long. But then sometimes I get so overwhelmed that the chills
will last for 30 seconds or even up for a minute. There’s a name for this and
it’s called Musical Frisson. There’s a reason for my madness, and why I picked
this certain subject for my blog. Music is a big part of my life. When I get
chills while listening to a song or watching someone perform, I know in my
heart that it’s something that I want to be doing. I want be performing, I want
be up there giving my all. The energy you get performing in front of a crowd is
incredible. It’s like all of sudden it’s just you up there and that’s all that
matters in the world. That’s how I feel while listening to certain types of
songs. For everyone a certain type of song can induce these chills or musical
frisson. It might be that a certain type of song can spark an old memory, or
that just watching someone perform with so much emotion is enough to generate these
chills. According Science Daily, the neurological spectrum of this is pretty
easy to understand. The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill
said that when you get chills from the pleasure of listening to music, dopamine
releases in the blood stream. I know that I said in my last post that most
studies are not able to help the music and emotion theories but a study done by
Neural Institute and Hospital at McGill actually seemed to benefit the from
this study and it helped the world a bit more when it comes to this theory. The
Neural Institute measured the amount of dopamine that was being released in
response to certain types of songs. The song that they chose have been reported
of eliciting chills, changes in heart rate, skin conductance, breathing, and
temperature. When they actually did the study they put the patient through a “combination
of PET and fMRI brain imaging techniques”. Neural Institute said that the
imaging techniques “revealed that dopamine release is greater for pleasurable
versus neutral music, and that levels of release are correlated with the extent
of emotional arousal and pleasurability ratings” (Musical Chills: Why They Give
Us Thrills). Dr. Robert Zatorre who is a neurologist at the Neural Institute
has said that from theses findings that we can see that "music is unique
in the sense that we can measure all reward phases in real-time, as it
progresses from baseline neutral to anticipation to peak pleasure all during
scanning." From just this little bit of information we can see that even
though music and emotion studies are hard to obtain and collect it can be done.
Were getting farther in technology and the ability to examine dopamine and
record levels of it is incredible (Musical Chills: Why They Give Us
Thrills). Just because it might take a
certain song for person to get chills doesn’t mean that we can’t study the
person that is experiencing them. From this study we found out just what makes
the body respond the way it does when listening to music. Dopamine is
neurotransmitter in our body that is said to help control the “brains reward
center and pleasure center”. In times when you experience a dopamine release
you might have the sudden urge to take action and move toward the reward you
are seeking (Psychology Today). So the next time you get chills from watching
T.V., listening to music, or doing something that makes you happy, think about
the neurotransmitter called dopamine that cause you to have emotional responses.
Take a listen to the song I posted at the top of this. It’s called “Iris” by
Goo Goo Dolls. It’s one of the many songs I have listened to that elicits dopamine
neurotransmitters in my brain. I hope it has the same effect on you. Enjoy!
By now you should have figured out
whether or not you’re an emotivist or cognivist, if not go back and read my
first post. In this post were going to dig deep down and find what really
happens during a study of music and emotion. There’s also a link at the bottom
of this post of the song “The Scientist” by Coldplay. I figured it would be appropriate
to what we are discussing. If you would like, take a listen while reading this
article.
Like I was saying, there are a lot of
ongoing studies and previously done studies that deal with music and the affect
that it has on our emotions. One of the most common tests is called ‘self
reports’. During the self-report the person is asked to listen to a certain
type of music and then asked to rate the extent of feelings they were having.
Another common type of self-report is when the researcher provides the listener
with a list of possible emotions and ask them which one were they experiencing
while listening to the music (Hunter 140). Now some of you may be thinking that
this isn’t a really valid study. We don’t really know if the listener was
telling the truth or not. Not to fear, there are also psychological studies
that are going on too. Two studies, which were done in 1997, attempted to
measure the emotional and psychological effects of certain types of music. A
researcher named Krumhansl’s had his patients listen to six songs that sounded
happy, sad, and scary. While the patients listened to the songs, Krumhansl was
studying 12 different things. Seven of the things he was studying were related
to blood flow; three of them were related to respiration. Along with those he
studied skin conductance, and finger temperature. During Krumhansl’s study
another study was going on as well, one done by the researcher Nyklíček. Nyklíček
was also measuring cardiac and respiratory functions. During the study the patient’s
listened to music experts that were happy, agitated, sad, or serene (Hunter
141). Both studies found similar results. Krumhansl’s and Nyklíček study both
found that there was a difference between high and low arousal emotions.
Krumhansl’s reported that there were also different responses to happy and sad
songs. Because of these studies we can see that a certain type of song like a
sad song might induce a sad or dreary emotion (Hunter 141).
The problem with these studies is that everyone
has different styles of music. What might give me chills might bore you. But
still we have this nagging need to find out why music helps calm us down, pump
us up, and bring tears. Which helps me bring me to my next point. We can do
studies all day long; we can record blood pressure, temperature, and even study
skin conductance to certain types of music. But it won’t really help any. Each
one us is our own person, that means that we have our own taste in music and
our own memories. We were brought up differently and no matter what DNA will
always separate us. You can’t really study if a certain type of song has an
effect on one person or the next because what might really hit home for me and
make me ball my eyes out, just might be nice and soothing for you (Music,
Emotion and the Brain). If you have a certain song that really hits home and
reminds you of a certain memory, than comment and tell me what that certain
song might be. And remember that just because I get emotional listening to “The
Scientist” by Coldplay doesn’t mean it will have the same effect on other
people.
There is no doubt that
everyone loves to listen to music, but what kinds of music people are listening
to makes the difference. Music has shown to induce emotions such as every day
feelings like anger, sadness, and happiness (Hunter, 131). People who believe
that music induces emotions are usually called emotivists. Emotivists believe
that a certain song can induce certain types of emotions. For example the song
“Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO may activate an emotion such as joy or happiness. I
am defiantly an emotivist. When I listen to “Party Rock Anthem” your going to
see me jumping around and shuffling like a crazy woman, even if a second before
I was feeling down. But there are also people who believe that music cannot
lead to a certain emotions and that the song is either happy or sad. Listeners
who believe this may call songs happy or sad because the song expresses happiness
or sadness. A person who believes this would be called a cognitivist.
Cognitivists believe that just because the song that they are listening to at
the time is sad doesn’t mean that they are sad. They think that the only time a
person would be sad while listening to music is if it is a bad song. Kivy, a
music philosopher who is also a cognitivist said “I experience unalloyed joy when I listen
to sad music that is great music, utter boredom when it is sad music that is
bad music” (Hunter, 131). If Kivy were to listen to the song “Party Rock Anthem”
and didn’t like it he would be feeling hatred, even though the song is very
happy and outgoing. I believe also it has to do whether or not you like the
type of song you are listening too. But it is up to you to decide whether or
not you are an emotivist or a cognitivist. For my next blog post I will be
posting studies that music philosophers have done on music emotions, until next
time! And if you would like to listen to the song “Party Rock Anthem” please
select the play button down at the bottom of this post. Comment and
tell me what type of emotion you experienced while listen to the song!
