What Shapes Our Musical Taste?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2018
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What sounds heavenly to one person might sound like boring noise to another - but why are our musical preferences so different? Is it all down to what we hear growing up, or are other factors at play?
CrowdScience listener and music lover Jocelyne from Canada wants to know why she has a different song for every mood, and why she likes different music from her friends and family. Meanwhile in Italy, composer Elisabetta Brusa asks us whether the rules of harmony align with the laws of science, and should therefore not be broken.
We talk to both musicians and neuroscientists to explore the truth about harmony and discord. We find out how age, personality and experience all affect whether we find certain songs pleasing or offensive, and learn why the search for the true universals of music pleasure is a race against time.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards
(Image: A couple laying in the grass listening to music on headphones. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is crowd science from the BBC World Service. I'm Marnie Chesterton and I'm here |
| 0:39.5 | in the moth club in East London to hear some of my favorite musicians. |
| 0:43.4 | Now obviously I'm really excited to be here but this concert's taken on a whole new |
| 0:50.8 | significant because of this listener question from Jocelyn. |
| 0:56.0 | Hi, Kraus Science, I'm Jocelyn Gerard calling from Montreal in Canada, |
| 1:00.2 | and my question is, why do we like the music that we like? |
| 1:04.0 | I'm R. M. Hobart, I'm a guitarist and sometimes singer from Glasgow. |
| 1:14.0 | We're exploring a question said to us by one of our listeners, |
| 1:17.0 | why do we like the music we like and I like your music? |
| 1:22.0 | Can you pigeonhole your music for me? |
| 1:24.6 | Sure, it's, I usually describe it as I'm playing flamenco with my right hand and |
| 1:31.3 | Indi rock with my left. So it's a weird kind of mix but it |
| 1:35.9 | mostly talks about my life to my parents death and marriage ending. It's really, really cheery, you know, it's very uplifted. |
| 1:47.0 | The music is actually more uplifting than the subject matter. |
| 1:51.0 | And I kind of like that contrast you know. |
| 1:54.4 | Quite a lot of my music's instrumental and I love the idea that people just imprint their |
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