Is the enjoyment of music sourced from the aural experiences of real life, which become associated with all kinds of emotional states? And music is a re-arrangement of different “conditioned sounds” gained from real life experience?
This would explain why some people cannot appreciate music (their minds have a poor memory of sound as it relates to experiences), why certain musical complexity is appreciated by older adults, why children have a primitive appreciation of music where they only like music that codes for basic happiness. And also why some people who have poor emotional intelligence appear to have a terrible taste in music (the other way is not necessarily the case).
Then I would also wonder:
is the music unsophistication of east asia the result of tonal language (where sound memory is encoded in logic rather than emotion), or the result of an actual mental de-prioritization of emotional states? For this last one, consider how European art and religion and poetry is so dramatic and sympathetic to strong emotional states of all sorts, and East Asian less so (emphasizing transience, stability, equanimity)
is sufficient music-listening necessary to fully appreciate complex music and why? Is there also an element of “learning the language of compositions”? This must be the case but how does it work?
what’s happening when we hear a song (for a lot of people: Satie’s gymnopedie) and it brings us a new emotional state?
is too much music bad because it desensitizes us to the significance of real life sound cues?
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Notes -
Is the enjoyment of music sourced from the aural experiences of real life, which become associated with all kinds of emotional states? And music is a re-arrangement of different “conditioned sounds” gained from real life experience?
This would explain why some people cannot appreciate music (their minds have a poor memory of sound as it relates to experiences), why certain musical complexity is appreciated by older adults, why children have a primitive appreciation of music where they only like music that codes for basic happiness. And also why some people who have poor emotional intelligence appear to have a terrible taste in music (the other way is not necessarily the case).
Then I would also wonder:
is the music unsophistication of east asia the result of tonal language (where sound memory is encoded in logic rather than emotion), or the result of an actual mental de-prioritization of emotional states? For this last one, consider how European art and religion and poetry is so dramatic and sympathetic to strong emotional states of all sorts, and East Asian less so (emphasizing transience, stability, equanimity)
is sufficient music-listening necessary to fully appreciate complex music and why? Is there also an element of “learning the language of compositions”? This must be the case but how does it work?
what’s happening when we hear a song (for a lot of people: Satie’s gymnopedie) and it brings us a new emotional state?
is too much music bad because it desensitizes us to the significance of real life sound cues?
Excellent topic and set of questions! Like really.
If I cut your question in half:
This is part of one of the most important utilitaristic question,
How and Why some kinds of Environmental Enrichments are much less sensitive to the hedonic treadmill/brain homeostasis?
What are surprising cross-tolerances between environmental enrichment X and Y?
What are surprising cross-tolerances between environmental enrichment Z and drug A?
The one that can answer this has unique key knowledge on how to maximize joy/happiness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_enrichment
Food for thought: how does the music and amphetamine high differ and similarise?
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