Why Do Certain Songs Make You Feel Emotional?

Have you ever noticed how certain specific songs make you feel emotional? Typically, different songs bring about different emotions in different people. It is just the song lyrics for some people. For others, it is the music or melody embedded in the song. What’s fascinating about this phenomenon is that it is a universal experience; meaning almost everyone experiences it. What’s even more fascinating is that it’s a very subjective experience; meaning each person’s experience feels unique and personal. So, what causes this emotional reaction to music in human beings? Why do we react so to music? In this article, we try to explore answers to these questions.

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A Short History of Music

The word music is derived from the Greek word mousikē, meaning “art of the Muses.” In modern language, we use the term ‘musical’ for a composition that involves singing or playing instruments. Music has been a part of human life since time immemorial. The earliest written records of music date back to 4,000 years B.C. during the Neolithic period in places like China and Mesopotamia.

Archaeological evidence from this period shows flutes made from bone and pottery shards scratched with notches to indicate the frequency of the notes. This shows that even before writing was invented, people were making music and keeping records of it. In fact, it was only after inventing writing, that humans began to record their history. The first writings that have been found are math and astronomy texts, followed by musical scores and other writings that have been discovered in many parts of the world.

In Music, Humanity Stands as One

There are several hypotheses about why people create music and why they enjoy listening to it. One theory says that an emotional response to music evolved as a way for humans to bond; i.e., sung by groups of people who shared similar experiences and values. Other theories say that our ancestors sang when they were hunting animals, when they were farming or when they were doing other tasks like building homes or making clothes. Still others argue that our ancestors danced in groups during rituals to communicate with their gods; i.e., dance is a form of religious worship where music is an integral part of it.

Whatever its origin may be, we can safely claim that music is a universal phenomenon in all cultures across the globe at different points in time and in different forms and genres (classical, folk, pop, etc.). People listen to music both alone and with others; at home or in public spaces such as restaurants, malls, concert halls, etc.; sing along with recordings or live bands; play instruments or dance with them; dance to live bands or watch them perform on television; etc. Almost every culture has its own set of musical instruments and its own style(s) of singing and dancing — sometimes done together — which helps it preserve its identity and sense of belonging to its own group(s).

A Scientific Explanation

More recently, it has been discovered that the emotional effect of music is due to a combination of various elements which make up a song or a musical piece: lyrics, rhythm, melody, instrumentation, etc. In order to study this phenomenon scientifically, researchers first had to find a way to separate out these individual components from one another. In other words, they needed some way to quantify the effects of the individual components of a song or musical piece as opposed to it as a whole. By doing this, they could see whether each component contributes equally to the emotional effect as a whole or whether one or more components play a bigger role than others in eliciting an emotional response from subjects (people) listening to it.

The way they did this was by conducting experiments with volunteers who were asked to listen to various pieces of music which were electronically manipulated so that each component could be isolated separately from all the others. For example, in one experiment participants were exposed either only to lyrics or only to music without lyrics; or even just exposed to speech with no music at all; or exposed only to just instrumental music; i.e., without any lyrics at all. In each experiment, participants were asked questions about their emotions while they listened to the songs containing manipulated components alone as compared with when they listened to them in combination with other components.

The Experimental Results Are Very Interesting

The results of these experiments showed that music with lyrics is more effective than just instrumental music. However, the actual words in the lyrics do not matter as much as whether they are sung or spoken; i.e., it is not the words themselves but the act of singing or speaking them (by a relatable human being) that causes an emotional response to occur.

The other components (besides lyrics) which had an effect on listeners’ emotions were rhythm and melody. While not as strong as lyrics, rhythm and melody also had an impact on how people felt when listening to music.

As for instrumentation (the arrangement of musical instruments), there was no direct correlation between it and participants’ emotional response to the song, except in the case where a solo instrument was being played by itself without any other instruments being played at all. In this case, participants tended to feel sad while listening to it. One reason for this observation could be that a solo instrument is usually associated with the sound of mourning or funerals, which cause us to feel sad.

Humanity’s Obsession with Patterns and Deceptions

In a universe filled with randomness and entropy, for evolutionary reasons and via genetic traits, it appears that human beings are hard-wired to seek out patterns. If you think about it, this quirk is what enabled our forefathers to successfully survive difficult situations. If one was not quick enough to relate and match dangerous patterns with past experiences, one likely did not survive. The converse holds true for positive experiences. Whether it be differentiating between edible berries or poisonous mushrooms or fear of heights, pattern recognition is at play.

Furthering this line of thought, it appears to be the case that this human quirk further developed as a social phenomenon. People who reacted similarly to similar patterns seemed to like each other and form groups. In a vague sense, this explains part of the success of religion. However, religion goes into causality (attributed to a God or higher being). We are not interested in causality of patterns in this particular article; so, we’ll leave religion be for now. What’s more interesting for us is art. Art is characterized by recognizing patterns that are unique and resonate subjectively. Art is also closely associated with deception; observers are often pleasantly tricked by the deceptive nature of art. Art often conveys hidden meanings: art lovers engage in arguments over what a medieval piece of art is trying to convey, while the objective meaning remains elusive and deceptive. Art is often visual.

If human beings are fascinated and emotionally affected by visual patterns (what we call art), can the other human senses be emotionally linked as well? That question brings us directly to wave patterns, and in turn, to audio patterns, which we might as well call music. Our hard-wired nature towards pattern recognition and our ability to use our pattern recognition traits for social cues and emotional bonding may explain why we are so emotionally connected to songs and other forms of audio patterns.

Music and songs are an indispensable part of humanity and offer a universal emotional experience. Combined with today’s densely inter-connected internet age, who knows where our neo-network-driven musical-emotional experiences are taking us as a species. Hopefully, it’s a pleasant-sounding future that awaits us.

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Further reading that might interest you: Why Do We Keep Missing Goals? and Are We Living In A Simulation?