How Do We Choose Our Music Style?

A study of 9,500 people at Stanford University investigated why people love some types of music and hate others. Within the scope of this research, music genres such as pop, rock, alternative, jazz, country, rap, classic and punk were ignored and music was examined under 3 topics.

These topics were determined as emotional, arousal, mobility and depth. For example, it is believed that songs with a high tempo create a higher arousal in people. Or, it is believed that upbeat songs evoke more positive emotions and simple melodies have less depth.

During this research experiment, participants are played many songs and asked which songs they like. Afterwards, a personality test is done and the results are very parallel. People who describe themselves as libertarian or liberal, which we just mentioned, tend to be more inclined to deep, uncomplicated melodies, or extroverts like songs with higher mobility values ​​more.

While the scientists who conducted this research focused more on the scientific side of the job, psychologists think that personal factors play a more important role in musical tastes.

In another study, some types of music are played to some participants in order to find the golden age of music. Participants consist of two groups, old and young, and different songs from different periods are played to them. The list of songs played to the participants consists of the most popular songs every year between 1935 and 1994. Unsurprisingly, the older band likes the songs of the 1960s when they were younger. The interesting thing is that young people like the songs of the 1960s as well as the songs of their own era. So, you can conclude that the 1960s was the golden age of music, based on this research result. Topic is closed.

Or is there something else at work?

Of course, one of the most important requirements of science is that the results must be repeated to find out whether the finding should be accepted or not. This research is repeated 10 years later and the results show parallelism, but this time the golden age of music is not the 1960s, but the 1980s.

In this situation, we can reach the following conclusion; Our musical taste is actually made up of our memories. In other words, the songs that we heard in our childhood and that our elders always listen to around us shape our musical taste. These memories determine whether we will like a song we have just heard. On the one hand, there may be peer pressure. Many factors, such as the desire of a person to be included in a group that will be accepted, are also involved in this work. In fact, whatever our friends, environment and society were listening to at that time, after a while, people begin to adopt and love this style. Those who react to this can turn to very different styles. Some people may adopt different styles of music such as punk to be different, but there are also those who say that the effort to be different from everyone else is actually an effort to be noticed by everyone. In short, there are many factors that determine the music we listen to and love.

But in my opinion, whether we like it or not, there is such a thing as quality music. When we compare some songs, we can clearly understand which ones are of good quality. Our duty may be to make our children listen to quality music at a young age.

So, which style of music and which era do you like the most?