Musical mystery: why do we have different musical tastes?

Fact Checked

Under review

Rock, pop, classical, jazz, reggae, blues, salsa, etc. There are as many types of music as there are people. But what defines what we hear?

Music is culture, it is pleasure, it is a language capable of developing different moods in people, It is a type of code that enchants our senses. But why do we gravitate towards different types of music? In this article we are going to try to answer this question.

The musical genre breaks any cultural, economic, social and geographical barrier, always responding to a subjective and, above all, emotional inclination.

Thus, since ancient Greece, for example, human beings had a special inclination for harmonic music. However, today musical culture has advanced in a prodigious and wonderful way. We have so many styles at our disposal that preferences have changed quite a bit since the times of Aristotle and Plato. Let’s see more data about it.

“Music expresses everything that cannot be said in words and cannot remain silent.”

-Victor Hugo-

Why do we like different types of music?

Many researchers have studied, over the years, what determines musical tastes. Thus, studies such as the one carried out by Professor Josh McDermott from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), tell us that these preferences are related to our daily exposure to certain musical stimuli.

The music industry and advertising make up those variables that would explain in many cases why we lean towards certain styles and not others. There is therefore no biological explanation, it is a social construct.

Read Also: People with courage are those who see hope where others see darkness

There are stereotypes that relate certain personality characteristics with certain musical styles. For example, reggae is linked to people with high self-esteem, creative, relaxed, and extroverted and relaxed. Classical music, for its part, is related to personalities with high self-esteem, creatives and introverts. Pop music, with personalities with high self-esteem, hard-working, docile and extroverted.

But, everyday experience tells us that these parameters are not met in all cases. Therefore, Musical tastes depend on our exposure to media and emotional experiences that provides us with a type of music at a given time.

“One advantage that music has over poetry is that while the poet spends hours and days making the material of language magical, in music the material is already magical.”

-Jorge Luis Borges-

Types of music and mood

We pointed it out a moment ago: Mood is directly related to our musical tastes. What’s more, studies like the one published in the journal Frontierstells us that human beings love, on average, sad music.

This style has a cathartic power. It connects us with our most complex emotions to drain them, to remember events from the past, to evoke certain sensations, etc. However, far from intensifying the sadness even more, Sad music generates the opposite: calm, well-being and happiness.

Music, in addition to being an art, is a sensation, which generates, in approximately 4 minutes of composed sounds, important psychological and even physical benefits.

Thanks to the different types of pulsations it emits, its sound frequencies, and the endorphins it allows us to produce, improves heart rate and induces adequate calm in the nervous system central.

Music is a gift

Definitely, music should always be present in the life of every human beingsince even nature itself is full of its own melodies for our delight and to strengthen our spirit, mind and body, no matter how different they are.

“Music is like rain, when you listen to it, your heart feels that passion and feelings of greatness that cannot be explained with words, you will only know it by feeling it.”

-Marta Iris Rodríguez-