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I think you have been misunderstood.

Posted by wazoo (A) on January 7, 2017 at 07:27:20

In Reply to: Why we are audiophiles.... posted by slapshot on January 4, 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)?

• The Neurochemistry of Music   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 01/07/17 01/07/17 01/07/17

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