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In Reply to: RE: Why we are audiophiles.... posted by slapshot on January 04, 2017 at 21:00:55
To me, it sounds more Tangerine Dream than Pink Floyd, but the point is that it does work - the song is relaxing, quieting. I (and don't you cringe at what that pronoun implies) whipped myself into a cacophony of mental voices, arguing over the merits of the article, even though I already knew it to be true (one of the voices in the argument) - have been using music for that very purpose (and many others) for decades. Anyway, the voices gradually go silent while listening to 'Weightless'.The thing is, however, that's part of actually attending to music - focusing attention. Then again, attention isn't the whole story, as you well know. Even when we aren't aware of mental chattering, it's nearly always happening. While driving to the office on Thursday, a name came to mind - the specifics are irrelevant, but the reason I was suddenly aware of it is that searching through the cobwebs of my memory had been a background process running since the previous day, and I laughed when I 'heard' it - I failed to recover it the day before via the alphabet method, because I stopped before 'Z'. The right music quiets the foreground and the background voices.
The lullaby may be our oldest musical form, beginning simply as soothing tones a mother discovered that reliably lulled her baby to sleep. I go to sleep with music every night. I have a carefully chosen and ordered series of songs that help dispatch me to dreamland. The Finnish song I learned this week is a lullaby - Nuku, Nuku (it's small and simple).
I think your point is a very strong one, but getting to it requires apprehending a different meaning of audiophile. Why are our brains so enamored with sounds arranged in a particular manner? What does exposure to music do to our brains (and don't you cringe over that possessive pronoun)? Ultimately, it all boils down to chemistry. Could oxytocin have something to do with our love of music/audio (arrangements of sound)?
Edits: 01/07/17 01/07/17 01/07/17Follow Ups:
"I think your point is a very strong one, but getting to it requires apprehending a different meaning of audiophile."
Since it was posted in this forum, perhaps: Why we are inmates? Maybe that's just offering an unintentional perspective to the original poster.
Yes, oxytocin is in there as well. The research of Panksepp, using Pink Floyd, actually, has shown this.
I could have said "music lover" in place of "audiophile" and the message would have been the same....indeed, could have just said "human" insofar the effect that music has on the brain may be universal.
Some have suggested that our earliest music experience was in utero, listening to our mother's heartbeat. Probably some truth to that. There is also research showing that, in the last trimester, the developing fetus is sensitive to the auditory environment, including songs that the mother may sing while pregnant.
My guess is that many of us began walking down the road of audiophilia long before we even knew we were doing so.
...what's even more amazing is the lengths we will go through to stimulate our brains with music...the technology (and sometimes money) we bring to bear on this issue is phenomenal.
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