It’s just rhythms and pitches really, in a sequence. But we don’t love patterns, a scale sounds boring. It’s the breaking of the patterns that sound good in music, but only in specific ways. Other ways sound discordant. What the duck is going on?

  • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    4 days ago

    I don’t know anything about specifics, or actual explanations, but I once heard it said that Art decorates space and music decorates time.

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
    12·
    6 days ago

    But we don’t love patterns

    I would disagree with that somewhat - I think we do love patterns, but the more complex and intricate the better.

    Which is why music appeals so much - it’s chock full of patterns overlaying each other, echoing and counterpointing each other, contrasting each other in ways that are both conflicting and harmonious. Good music is like seeing the rhythms of the world all around you.

  • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
    8·
    6 days ago

    Because at it’s core, music is a beautiful lack of auditory dissonance. See this minutephysics episode for an in depth explanation why. It’s fundamental. (to music itself, not to any particular style of music) https://youtu.be/tCsl6ZcY9ag

  • pwnicholson@lemmy.world
    7·
    6 days ago

    “Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hail souls from mens’ bodies?” – Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

    (Guitar/lute strings used to be made from sheep gut, for anyone confused)

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    To drown out the sound of your brain counting the moments until your next shift at work.

    13 hours 50 minutes…

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
    6·
    6 days ago

    The answer is we don’t know unfortunately. I dont think scientists have found a definitive answer on this one. The theory tho is that it had some evolutionary benefit in the past, but we dont know why that would be either.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
    6·
    6 days ago

    I don’t. And I don’t understand why I’m the only one who just in general would rather hear silence then music.

    • jago@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      I too like silence, then music, when the album I’m listening to intended to have a break between songs.

      However, if the songs’ tracks are meant to fade from one to the next without a break, it’s annoying and distracting if I can hear a silence between them, however small – even just a click – then music.

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    My pet theory is that our brain rewards us for interpreting clues correctly, because this is crucial for survival. And patterns make it easy to do this interpretation correctly, therefore triggering the reward system frequently.

    But if it is too easy to interpret a pattern correctly, the reward will be lessened, because the challenge you succeeded in was lesser. And it was also crucial to survival to fade out patterns which don’t change, so that e.g. the wind brushing through leaves doesn’t drown out the noises from a predator approaching.

    That’s why patterns which don’t change every so often stop triggering the reward system and therefore bore us.

  • otacon239@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    I think all experience of art, enjoyable for us or not, is something the brain adheres to because it is unlike nature. Nature tries to all blend together in a very loose way. We categorize many things like animals, land, the stars… but it all is really just one thing. Art is the ability to purposefully change that continuity with intent. To see something sitting there, doing nothing, and you feel the desire to arrange it in some way.

    Music is no different. We realized sound was one of our senses and most of nature’s songs are chaotic, outside the rare particularly talented bird.

    We’ve found ways to harness sound into whatever we found is most pleasing. And it seems what it pleasing is different from one person to the next, but also shares ground through the instruments we use.

    I imagine when we first started rhythmically hitting sticks on rocks, it wasn’t long before we had an arrangement of our favorite sticks and rocks to hit together. And we just kept getting more creative from there.