Blogpost 4: The Music in our Feelings

Have you fell in love with just a song? Or felt so energetic and excited because of a beat, or how about frightened with just a creepy sound? Even we don’t see things around us, just because of sound and music we could imagine a lot of things and probably feel it.

But why? How come just a sound of tune, beat or whatever we hear could affect our emotion, our mood, our feelings?

One article I’ve red entitled “How Music Affects and Benefits Your Brain” by Belle Beth Cooper, a psychologist in lifehacker.com In this article it is said that there are two kinds of emotions related to music: perceived emotions and felt emotions. People sometimes enjoy sad music because they understand it, they appreciate the message behind it but they don’t actually feel it unlike with some people who instead enjoys the music they feel more depressed because they perceive it, the song might be relatable with their life and that is where our emotions getting stronger. Belle said that “Music affects many different areas of the brain. We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn't just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music.”

As I observe with people who are just normally happy with their life and they just suddenly listen sad music, they would just enjoy it, even me, I may feel a little sad emotions but unlike with some moments when I experienced bad things, sad songs o music feels like they understand me, like they are the one who speaks the words that you can’t say and you feel more sadder could even make you cry because the music relates to you. 

Another article entitled, “Psychological Reasons We Love Music” by Jeremy Dean a psychologist and the author of PsyBlog in spring.org.uk They had a survey with 300 young people and asked them what are their reasons in listening music, and their answers are that to learn about others and the world. Of course mostly with the songs emphasizes a story through its lyrics which people appreciates where they start to have feelings with the song. Another answer was because it of their personal identity.

For example, people who listen rock and metallic music probably that person is a rock, punk or has a noisy personality. Another answer they got from the survey said about interpersonal relationships. We all could fall in love just because of a song, as we listen to it, we feel like it was composed and meant for us, the singer sings for us and the lovely melody makes our heart feel warm and soft. Which makes us fall in love, the lyrics tells us romantic words which that is why there are guys who uses love songs to make a girl fall with them too. And another answer was a negative mood management and diversion, it is said that whatever mood we had, music could deal with us, makes us feel like we are not alone and sometimes music could change your mood, from being sad just listen a high beating music, it could turn you energetic and happy, could make you dance and may forget the reason why you were sad. And music is really effective in removing boredom. And lastly from the surveys’ answer, said about positive mood management, music relaxes us, entertain us and makes our mood even better. Jeremy Dean, the author said that “Modern technology means it’s never been easier to hear exactly the music we want, whenever we want it. But whatever technology we use, the reasons we listen to music are universal.” As he introduce before he explained the answers they got from the survey.

And I agree and I was related with the answers, because those are also my reasons why am I listening music. I want a music that deals with whatever I am feeling right now, and sometimes I need a music that kills boredom, depression and stress. And sometimes, I just want to listen a song just to understand their message. 

Music is one of the amazing things that makes us feel something, could change our emotions and inspires us. Sometimes, every time I’m alone and just listening music, as I feel it, I could even produce images in my head, sometimes, a music video and I say music is also one of the amazing things that could makes us imagine of something that we could not do in real life. So just sit there, relax, put your earphones on, play your playlist on your mp3 or phone, then enjoy and feel the music!