How is music so moving?

I listen to music like many do, and im just wondering how can it be so satisfying and so apt sometimes, is there more to music than meets the eye?

A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,

with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
Silent silent.

Radiohead

i dunno, i guess its just the way the world is, but i do think there is more to music than meets the eye!!

i love radiohead. i think provides a catharsis for the listener. my best friend hates music and refers to it as "noise". i really don't understand that about her. it freaks me out. i jokingly tell her she's a reptoid.

I play most intstruments and for me it is spiritual and I can't explain it better then that.It is hard for me to explain.Music is like a life within itself...its the journey thats important...the destination is just the by-product.

reply to post by governmentsecrets


Your friend sounds like me. I don't like MOST music. There are a very few songs that I enjoy a little bit, but mostly if I want music I don't want to hear it coming from anyone but me. I really hate having to listen to music from the radio or friends' music.

I'm looking forward to reading the replies on this thread. As someone who quickly and easily responds on an emotional level to music, I've often wondered this very thing. Why? What is it about music that is so moving? For me, the words are important but not essential. I've read a little about music vibrations having a healing aspect, or resonating with our own vibrational energy and that's when it strikes a chord (ha, pun) with us.

The other day I went to a holiday concert given by our city's symphony orchestra. They began the show with Sleigh Ride. They were maybe two bars into it and I nearly cried. I've had this happen before by emotionally moving music, but...sleigh ride? It was really strange and caught me completely off guard.

There are other kinds of music that resonate with me, but in a different way. Not evoking tears, but something I can't quite put my finger on. Tool's music does this to me. I haven't figured out what it does, I just know I like it.

Radiohead. Brilliant, wonderful Radiohead. When In Rainbows came out I couldn't stop listening to Reckoner. I kept it on repeat for a couple of days straight. My husband thought I was going mad.

There is other music that is written as though to bring about an emotional response, such as The Great Gate of Kiev from Pictures at an Exhibition, or Adagio for Strings, or Verdi's Requiem. Big crescendos and power chords and whatnot. I'll often listen to these pieces so loud the walls shake, and I'll lay on the floor and just listen. If I could eat that music and make it part of me I would.

So I would love some answers and some science to explain what is happening when I listen to certain music, and why I respond so strongly.

Great topic.

Is this thread about music, or music in popculture?

A theory behind popular music is that its written to speak for those without voices, those that don't know how to phrase the words hear lyrics and think "that's it".

Most of what I've seen of music in pop culture is all hooks with the right bait, but as for reality, the words are more empty then empathy.

Don't fool yourself their only goals are to make money, not change the market or mindset.

I love music and play the guitar mostly. My theory is that a pattern of different vibrational frequencies releases a chemical in the brain that gives a kind of pleasure. thats what I have observed. That and a collective consciousness.

For one thing, check the "A440"thread. More there than meets the eye...

reply to post by ioweagle


my theory is that music is the only universal language...audible at least.

math is the only constant in the universe.

music is audible math

therefore...