Submitted by [deleted] t3_yeoixm in explainlikeimfive
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love0_0all t1_itz7n9h wrote
We don’t know.
The part of the brain / nervous system that seems to respond most to music is located very near the center of our heads, making it really difficult to monitor in real time. As a result, we don’t have a good understanding of exactly why music makes us emotional because we have a hard time seeing what’s happening chemically and biologically when we listen to a song. However we’re working on this problem with AI and various ways of measuring our responses. Sounds are making physiological changes in our bodies, which can spur thoughts and feelings in ways which we don’t honestly understand exactly presently.
schoki560 t1_itzhgwb wrote
if our brains don't know why music makes us emotional how will AI find out?
beardyramen t1_itzx4q8 wrote
Because AI will not find out anything. It is not a sentient being.
AI is a tool that can be used to support our study of complex and intricate problems. With its data we can get to better understand our world.
It is not a brain, it is a "simulator" that delivers an output starting from an input that would be very similar to what a human would do with that same input, but AI does not think, feel or elaborate.
schoki560 t1_iu042ip wrote
that's literally my point
If we don't understand it how will we feed data to an AI to understand it
beardyramen t1_iu0k7uq wrote
I don't know sorry.
But i can try with an analogy:
Alexa/siri/whatever use AI to perform speech recognition. Nowhere in their software or hardware is anything that works remotely like the human ear or brain, but their response is human like. This human-likedness could be enough to open us to new understandings of the world.
Another one could be:
birds and planes, by no means the use the same processes to fly, still both do
Edit: It doesn't explain much, but consider that i have no idea what i am talking about, these are suppositions
Kaizenno t1_itzdpqt wrote
I believe that it all comes down to some subconscious reaction to musical intervals. Learning through modes of the major scale and you can feel this difference and get vastly different feelings.
Starting on the first note of a major scale (Ionian mode) and going through them one by one, it sounds like the Christmas song The First Noel.
Going through the exact same notes but starting the third note puts it in Phrygian mode and sounds like something from the Middle East.
The notes are the exact same, it's just anchored to a different note and starting different pattern of whole steps and half steps. Taking it further to creating full songs, songwriters are just playing off those feelings of jumps between notes (intervals) to create tension and resolution.
musecorn t1_itzqkoq wrote
Key Notes podcast (by Cole Cuchna) explored some of this in 2 episodes that really stood out to me
Why does music give us chills?:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mzKfzWfVZnJyldEPTDRwp?si=c0089b3606874520
The most beautiful chord ever?:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zFYICP6bDYGrqQGDGsS1F?si=c4dc46adaff34cfb
It's not specific to vocal-less music but I think the same concepts apply. Music has the power to evoke emotion based on how we perceive patterns, and with different notes relations to one another. A minor chord will make us feel sad and a major chord will make us feel happy, and enough of these together will form patterns that put in the right context will make us feel things.
Subverted expectations also play a big part as he talks about in the 2nd episode for what creates beautiful sequences too
Flair_Helper t1_iu0bp2h wrote
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nmxt t1_itz6n43 wrote
Music is similar to the patterns of speech, and speech contains tonal cues (prosody) which reflect the emotions of the speaker. Figuring out other people’s emotions is very important for us, so we are primed to hear and discern these prosodies in speech, and, as a side effect, also in music. And discerning other people’s emotions involves feeling the same emotions ourselves (empathy). Therefore music makes us feel emotions.