What do you think?

[Jay]

I'm interested in your answers to this question:

Why do you think it is that the human brain can tell what music sounds sad and what music sounds joyful? Is it learned, or natural? Logical, or spiritual?

As bigtime music fans, I'm interested to see what people have to say about this.

[Aims]

I'm sure there'll be great debate over it, but my personal view is: I don't care. It works, and I'm glad about that

[Natasha~]

I'm not sure. That's a very philosophical question. You've got me stumped. I'd like to think it's spiritual, but then again, it could be cultural.
xo

[DaturaFae]

hmmm... good question!

My mother, the psychologist, has told me all my life to stop listening to "sad" music as she is certain that it worsens and possibly causes depression. I never really asked her if she meant the lyrics or the music itself.

Personally I am inclined to say that it is based on a natural and spiritual connection. However I'm sure that a great amount of it must be attached to learned behavior and logical association with our own experiences and memories. Certain sounds, just as certain sights or smells or any other stimuli can trigger very different responses based on our past experiences.

So, I suppose that I would theorize that elements of both nature and nuture are involved -- that at a base level we innately respond to it with a general emotion, but the complexities of how we respond to the little details are learned.

[Natasha~]

^ Good explaination Lau!
xo

[Undo]

I think that it's part natural and part depends on feelings of every-one.

[Jay being lazy]

Great answer Lau

I wonder if a minor chord would sound sad to a tribal child from jungles in Asia? I really don't know. It could be that that some element of the chord, some physical element like wavelength or dissonance or whatever, automatically triggers something the human ear doesn't like. But even if it is biological like that, then why have we adapted such a structure?

It's just so fascinating to ponder, and I can't believe I never asked myself this question until last night.

[matzy]

i'm sure that biology plays a great role in perceiving music as happy or sad (just as you just mentioned jay, dissonances will in a way always be perceived as unpleasant just because of our physiology which has a hard time "digesting" disharmonies), but i think that the core of it is cultural.
i think that at some point in our growing-up we are TOLD that a certain piece of music is sad, and that a different piece of music is happy or joyful. that could be connected to early children's songs which are always associated with the lyrics that came with them. there's this one song in german about a prince and a princess who lived on two sides of a river and the prince wanted to swim to the other shore and drowned... of course, this song has the major characteristics of "sadness" in music - minor chords, tight intervals, etc. - but if it wasn't for the lyrics, i doubt a child would perceive it as sad.

in other cultural circles, the perceptions might even be vice-versa. would be interesting to have a field study in this area.

great topic, jay!

[P a t r i c k]

I think it's a combination of both nature and nuture. People can influence our music tastes, and our own personal attachments and experiences can draw certain kinds of music to us as well.

I don't know if that answers your question to how one can tell how music is depressing or not, but I gave it a shot.

[sweetsangria]

nattie said:

^ Good explaination Lau!
xo

I agree!

I'm such a slacker.

[Koalapupu]

I'm in the "learned via culture" camp. As an example, a lot of Finnish mainstream music doesn't sound sad at all to me, although most of them are in a minor key. But once my boyfriend pointed out that they sound very melancholic, like Russian folk songs, I went... hey. Never noticed that. But I do feel that Russian folk songs mostly sound sad. I think one part of it is to do with language--if I can understand the lyrics and they are more prominent than the melody, I'll go with their flow. Another thing that effects me is the stories behind the songs.

One of the saddest classical pieces I can think of (personally) is the third movement in the Moonlight Sonata. I didn't used to think that it was sad until I heard a background story to it. Then, all I could hear in the notes was all those feelings the composer was going through at that time. So... I guess I was just projecting then something from myself onto the piece.

What a lot of British pop does is to take a happy-sounding melody and put very sad lyrics to it. That plays tricks on the mind, for sure!

It would be cool to conduct an experiment like what you described, Jason! When I have time online, I'll do some asking about to see whether something like that has been done.

Just as an apropos: in my Finnish class a researcher came to visit the group to play them varieties of Finnish dialects. The less vocabulary the people could understand, the better, because they were supposed to listen to only the sounds etc. That was to see whether someone, who has no historical background of Finnish dialects and thus no prejudices would actually form the same opinions as Finns. (That a people who speak certain dialect are slow and dumb, or very jovial, etc). I'll probably see the researcher when I get back--I really want to hear the results! Wonder if language and music could be connected in that way.

[grrrlriot]

This is a good and hard question. I really don't know to be honest. You've got me stumped.