Music and the mind.

Badbird

Never banned
Oct 14, 2009
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Ayn Rand is dead hahahahaha
Music has been around for centurys and many love music but how does it affact it mind?Does music teach someone?Who started music?Does it make them think?So many music questions to be asked and so little time.
 
"How does it affect the mind?" is the focus of a field called Cognitive Musicology, which is one of my main interests. Unfortunately, I don't have the education to give you a good answer. As for who started music, all we really know is that it's a development that occurred after the divergence of hominids from other apes, since Chips and other apes have either a neutral of averse reaction, when exposed to music. Evolutionary Musicology is the field to research if you're interested in this.

I think the rest of your questions will differ with the individual.
 
"How does it affect the mind?" is the focus of a field called Cognitive Musicology, which is one of my main interests. Unfortunately, I don't have the education to give you a good answer. As for who started music, all we really know is that it's a development that occurred after the divergence of hominids from other apes, since Chips and other apes have either a neutral of averse reaction, when exposed to music. Evolutionary Musicology is the field to research if you're interested in this.

I think the rest of your questions will differ with the individual.

I will look into Evolutionary Musicology someday.I will also someday make a movie documentary about music and it influence on the average person and get inerviews with musicans about all of the subjects I said in my first post.
 
Anything that you expose yourself to that offers some sort of window of reference to anything will affect the way you think in some way.

This is why I have a goal of creating a perfect language. Language has a great effect on the way you think.
 
Devasya Chāyā;8645434 said:
Anything that you expose yourself to that offers some sort of window of reference to anything will affect the way you think in some way.

This is why I have a goal of creating a perfect language. Language has a great effect on the way you think.
The way you currently think also has an effect on the language that you might produce :p
 
I wonder in the pop music listerner if their mind get affact by their music?Compare pop music to metal and it not just apples and oranges.It like compareing blockbuster movies to art movies.Pop music is the blockbuster movie where it popular it doesn't have a lot of thinking to do while listening or watching the blockbuster.Metal music is the art movies where it not easy to get into and it will not get a lot of love form the average person but like art house movies they are great and have talent and have more thinking to do than a blockbuster movie or pop music.
 
I wonder in the pop music listerner if their mind get affact by their music?Compare pop music to metal and it not just apples and oranges.It like compareing blockbuster movies to art movies.Pop music is the blockbuster movie where it popular it doesn't have a lot of thinking to do while listening or watching the blockbuster.Metal music is the art movies where it not easy to get into and it will not get a lot of love form the average person but like art house movies they are great and have talent and have more thinking to do than a blockbuster movie or pop music.
I agree and disagree. Pop music is very "blockbuster" in nature as it tends to appeal to a massive audience long enough to exploit them for a profit, but without containing much replay value. Metal seems like it's a more "hit or miss" topic though. Technical, progressive and avant-garde metal definitely fit your analogy and there are certain bands like Dol Ammad who've taken the gimmick so far as to create their own "Art Metal" record label.

On the other end of the spectrum though, we have metalcore and deathcore, as well as punk influenced thrash metal bands that started when some musically uneducated kids put some notes together as quickly and loudly as they could. Honestly, it's just as difficult to get into, if not moreso, but I wouldn't claim that there's much about it that is particularly artistic.
 
I agree and disagree. Pop music is very "blockbuster" in nature as it tends to appeal to a massive audience long enough to exploit them for a profit, but without containing much replay value. Metal seems like it's a more "hit or miss" topic though. Technical, progressive and avant-garde metal definitely fit your analogy and there are certain bands like Dol Ammad who've taken the gimmick so far as to create their own "Art Metal" record label.

On the other end of the spectrum though, we have metalcore and deathcore, as well as punk influenced thrash metal bands that started when some musically uneducated kids put some notes together as quickly and loudly as they could. Honestly, it's just as difficult to get into, if not moreso, but I wouldn't claim that there's much about it that is particularly artistic.

I was thinking of the progressive and avant garde and even black metal as artistic metal.I was definitely not thinking about deathcore and metalcore or other trends like hair or nu either.As much as I like thrash most of the music that influenced thrash like Hardcore punk and nwobhm are not artistic so it true that not all of the subgenres in metal are artistic.
 
Wow they made a science out of the effects of music ? Go figure.

Obviously the overall effects vary by the individual but I would say over history music has been one of the most emotionally moving things there is. For example people being brought to tears by Operas and Symphonys for centuries. THey way various music makes people want to get up and dance, sad songs for sad moments, love songs that stimulate the passionate or romantic tendencies. There is music for every mood and every personality on the face of the earth.

Sometimes Im just as happy to hear the music of the birds, wispering wind and my trickling mountain stream, the sound of the summers breeze in the Aspen trees. Music seems to be natural to life. Wolfs and many of their mutations sing, squirels chatter rythmically in the trees and Whales communicate through tones. Humans may have origionally been stired to create music by these other influences in nature because we are basically grunters, evolved from grunting and/or screaming... less than musical monkeys... perhaps that is what some metal is a throwback too.......

So yeah, I wouldnt give metal too much credit. Writing a good commercial song is every bit of an art form or chance of luck when the pieces fall into place as much as any other less than commercial style of music. At the same time I have heard plenty of elementary metal, tasteless metal and complex and/or clever "pop" songs.
 
BTW, My former song writting partner, band member and friend used to say, "if you cant dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" and I think that applies to metal quite well. Sometimes the simplist of folk, pop or country songs can be absolutely brilliant and most complex of progressive metal movements absolute bullshit. I personally appreaciate both when it all comes together just right.
 
Wow they made a science out of the effects of music ? Go figure.

Obviously the overall effects vary by the individual but I would say over history music has been one of the most emotionally moving things there is. For example people being brought to tears by Operas and Symphonys for centuries. THey way various music makes people want to get up and dance, sad songs for sad moments, love songs that stimulate the passionate or romantic tendencies. There is music for every mood and every personality on the face of the earth.

Sometimes Im just as happy to hear the music of the birds, wispering wind and my trickling mountain stream, the sound of the summers breeze in the Aspen trees. Music seems to be natural to life. Wolfs and many of their mutations sing, squirels chatter rythmically in the trees and Whales communicate through tones. Humans may have origionally been stired to create music by these other influences in nature because we are basically grunters, evolved from grunting and/or screaming... less than musical monkeys... perhaps that is what some metal is a throwback too.......

So yeah, I wouldnt give metal too much credit. Writing a good commercial song is every bit of an art form or chance of luck when the pieces fall into place as much as any other less than commercial style of music. At the same time I have heard plenty of elementary metal, tasteless metal and complex and/or clever "pop" songs.

I have heard good pop songs and have heard tasteless metal music.I would rather listen to Depeche Mode than Six feet Under or Dying Fetus.Most pop music that comes out today is tasteless but there is tasteless music in every genere of music.When people say pop or rap sucks is because the stuff that person has heard is on the radio.There is good music in every genres aside from a few.What metalhead don't know is that listerners from other genres will say the same thing about metal music.
 
When people say pop or rap sucks is because the stuff that person has heard is on the radio.There is good music in every genres aside from a few.What metalhead don't know is that listerners from other genres will say the same thing about metal music.
Actually, most metal fans are aware and even agree that the mainstream metal that misrepresents the rest of the genre is garbage.
 
Actually, most metal fans are aware and even agree that the mainstream metal that misrepresents the rest of the genre is garbage.

I know that but when someone says that all metal is screaming and satan they will get pissed but they will say something to rap like it bitches n hoes when that all they have heard.If they heard the politcal rap like Public Enemy,Dead Prez, and Immortal technique or gory rap like Necro and Ill Bill or hardcore rap like Notorious B.I.G and Wu Tang Clan or even gangsta rap like Dr Dre and NWA they will like something in rap music.If you heard all of the music in a genre and didn't care for it then it ok to say you don't like it.If all you heard was some popular artist in the genre then they haven't heard enough yet.Genres are getting bullshit.The point is good music is good music and bad music is bad music.
 
I know that but when someone says that all metal is screaming and satan they will get pissed but they will say something to rap like it bitches n hoes when that all they have heard.If they heard the politcal rap like Public Enemy,Dead Prez, and Immortal technique or gory rap like Necro and Ill Bill or hardcore rap like Notorious B.I.G and Wu Tang Clan or even gangsta rap like Dr Dre and NWA they will like something in rap music.If you heard all of the music in a genre and didn't care for it then it ok to say you don't like it.If all you heard was some popular artist in the genre then they haven't heard enough yet.Genres are getting bullshit.The point is good music is good music and bad music is bad music.
I've never listened to any of those, but since I'm not familiar with rap as a whole and have still heard of each one of those artists, I think it's a fair assumption that those artists are taken into consideration when people criticize rap. Also, while I haven't liked any of the rap that I've heard through the radio, TV and college dorms, I do know that good rap is at least a possibility because I like the two rap loops that I've written. I'm sure any living rapper could make them sound like utter shit simply by rapping over the music though.

With metal though, people are criticizing it based upon their perception of bands like Disturbed, Korn, Metallica, Slayer, Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu and Cradle of Filth. Ironically, metalheads generally will only recognize a few of those bands as authentic metal, although clearly not the best that metal has to offer. However, slightly less commercialized metal acts like Dimmu Borgir, In Flames and Children of Bodom are virtually unheard of among the non-metal community, while metalheads are still indecisive about how representative those bands are of the genre.
 
I prefer more "mainstream" metal (old scholl stuff) and think most of that other stuff is garbage, hell bent on impressing raging hormones in young boys with gore and "wickedness" or badass attitude. Over the decades there has been dozens of great songs I liked that came over the airwaves. In the case of most commercial bands what gets radio play is their best songs. The mentality of "if it gets played on the radio it sucks" is more pretensious than people like me who mainly purchase and listen to progressive. But when I want to lighten up and have fun, party, be happy the commercially viable rock, blues or metal edged stuff is the way to get there. One shouldnt be intense all the time... so I keep telling myself.

Rap sucks for me... period, not musical, rhythmic at best with a seriously boring method of idiotic rhyme recital.
 
With metal though, people are criticizing it based upon their perception of bands like Disturbed, Korn, Metallica, Slayer, Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu and Cradle of Filth. Ironically, metalheads generally will only recognize a few of those bands as authentic metal, although clearly not the best that metal has to offer. However, slightly less commercialized metal acts like Dimmu Borgir, In Flames and Children of Bodom are virtually unheard of among the non-metal community, while metalheads are still indecisive about how representative those bands are of the genre.

Well what people think of metal today is bunch of screaming and growling when most of the popular metal bands aren't.No one can say that if bands like Iron Madien or Blind Guardian are metal.If you asked people you know what kind music they like what will they answer?
 
I would say it is pretty obvious that all forms of music affect the mind in some way or another. The question is how the different elements combined or alone affect the brain, moods, psychy etc.
 
I would say it is pretty obvious that all forms of music affect the mind in some way or another. The question is how the different elements combined or alone affect the brain, moods, psychy etc.

I think it depends on the music and the person.The atmosphere I get from black metal is diffently not in country music.Different elements in music are in some way affect someone mind.What about sterotypes in music?When someone doesn't like the music and make fun of it.Personally sterotypes in music are bullshit if you asked me.