Why do we listen to sad music? Surely, among your favorite songs, there are some sad ones. And, if you think about it, it is very possible that you don’t know how to explain why you listen to it. What is the reason? Luckily, science comes to the rescue and provides an explanation with which you can understand the reasons that lead you to listen to this type of music.
Throughout life we encounter tons of paradoxes that we think too much about, but that are all around us. Sad music is one of them. Because nobody likes to be sad, but we listen to sad music non-stop and we even sing it. It is something that also happens with other forms of art, such as movies or video games. Why some of the best works are those that end badly?
It is a permanent unknown
There have been many philosophers who have tried to explain the allure of sad things. Aristotle, a long time ago, already tried to find an explanation for this dilemma. But he did not. Many theories are being considered, such as that sad music can produce hormones that help us feel better on the inside. There is also talk about reaching an emotional state in which a catharsis makes us feel good because we have reached a higher level of sadness due to exposure to that music. How to know?
At Yale University they wanted go further and study this phenomenon. Dr. Knobe leads research that seems like he’s been doing his entire life ever since, one day, he was caught listening to sad music on YouTube from an indie artist. Surprisingly, years later he would marry the singer who had made such an impact on him. And now he wants to better understand what are the reasons that led him to feel so good listening to a type of music that should only have conveyed emotions of sadness.
A multidimensional response
What he has discovered is that when you listen to sad music, what reaches your brain are several emotions and not just one of them. Neither when you listen to sad music do you feel bad, nor do you feel only happy when what you listen to is a song that transmits positive feelings. There are several sensations that are combined and that make your mind react in different ways, but always with more depth than you can imagine.
Different factors influence whether the song impacts you in one way or another. Several studies have concluded that the rhythm they have the melodies, the tempo or the timbre, change the way in which music is received and the reaction to it. These faculties are built into the songs in a way that musicians can benefit from. For this reason, for example, those who compose lullabies to sleep know that if they follow the classic patterns of their composition, they will be able to convey the sensations that children need to rest peacefully.
Other of the theories that are covered suggest that listening to sad music makes you feel better because you flee from the loneliness in which you may find yourself, you connect with the pain of the person who is singing or touching and you can get to have a very special social experience. In addition, there is evidence that the brain generates a series of unconscious reflexes that connect rhythm and music with much more than our mind. Music also comes to have a connection with the heartbeat or with memory. A sad song could inadvertently remind you of something that makes you happy, and perhaps the positive feelings you receive are a response to this type of activation.
Connect with other people
In the end, everything is about the connection that human beings have with each other through any type of artistic work or initiative. Music is a medium transmission and connectivity between people who may not know each other, who have never seen each other, but who come to connect so that their feelings, whether good or bad, make sense. Perhaps, in this regard, what Dr. Knobe did when he ended up marrying that singer who inspired so many emotions with his music, is the greatest representation of the connection that can be generated through a conductive medium such as sound. .
All this would explain the reason why, in different studies, the most empathetic people are the ones who always enjoy sad music to a greater extent. Those individuals with less capacity for connection may not get to glimpse the potential of this type of songs, but those who do connect do so in a way in which those songs mark them. That leads us to conclude that, if you are one of those people who likes sad songs, possibly you too you are someone with a high level of empathy. Is it so? There may still be aspects to explore further, but these latest theories on sad music make a lot of sense. What do you think?