The Neuroscience Behind the Musicgasm

Jonah Lehrer at Wired dissects how the brain reacts to the music we love, and why we sometimes get chills (and an accompanying massive dopamine release) from it:

One way to answer these questions is to zoom out, to look at the music and not the neuron. While music can often seem (at least to the outsider) like a labyrinth of intricate patterns — it’s art at its most mathematical — it turns out that the most important part of every song or symphony is when the patterns break down, when the sound becomes unpredictable. If the music is too obvious, it is annoyingly boring, like an alarm clock. (Numerous studies, after all, have demonstrated that dopamine neurons quickly adapt to predictable rewards. If we know what’s going to happen next, then we don’t get excited.) This is why composers introduce the tonic note in the beginning of the song and then studiously avoid it until the end. The longer we are denied the pattern we expect, the greater the emotional release when the pattern returns, safe and sound. That is when we get the chills. (via wired)

This jives perfectly with how and when music gives me the chills.

When I’m listening to music, it’s the feeling of being surrounded by the unfamiliar, wondering where the composer is going and how he’s going to tie everything back together. Then, suddenly, the answer is revealed when I least expected it. I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t have been — I knew the main theme would come back. The chills usually come with a bit of a chuckle, almost like I’m saying to the composer, “good one, you got me there.”

When performing, especially fairly modern choral music, the feeling is completely related, but manifests itself somewhat differently for me.

In 20th- and 21st-century choral music, the wandering away from the tonic note often means that you, the performer, are off on your own. You’re out on a limb, perhaps the only one singing your part, in a tone cluster that somehow makes the noise you get when a child hits every note on the piano sound and feel like art. You know, hopefully, what you should be singing, and how far out that limb to stray, but you’re constantly hoping you don’t stray too far to come back when the time has come.

Those notes, often dissonant and “ugly” in a pop music context, are your responsibility, and you feel the burden of their weight on your shoulders as you sing them.

Then the moment comes. It’s time for you to move from that random pitch back to the tonic, a rather unforgiving leap from chaos back into order. You land firmly, squarely, where you think you should be, toes crossed but outwardly displaying complete self-confidence. Then you listen. You hear the sound from the other voices in your group make their way to your ears and beyond, out into the hall.

As your ears confirm that you, and everyone else, made it to your proper tonal positions, you realize that the responsibility you were feeling pales in comparison to the responsibility shared equally by everyone in making it back to that moment together. You realize that taking a leap alone is boring, but taking a leap alongside others is what really gives you chills.

Originally published January 21st, 2011 on Posterous.