catapult magazine

i was reading a few threads in this here music division and i was reminded of this question i have posed to several people.

does music make the mood? or does the mood make the music?

rephrased:
does the music i chose when i get home create the mood i’m in? or is it the mood i’m in and i chose the appropriate music?

very often those who i have questioned this question, say i think it’s both old chap! and i have a greed in times past, but upon further revel-ation and pondering i think i am leaning towards my mood chosing the music. i know little of psycology or tendencies on any professional level, but from my experience i think this is the case. mind you i do say that i am leaning, i am still not sure on this one, because at times (like now) i just hit play on the old cd player and what is in there is in there.

…so i throw it to the forum, the people, the listeners.

btw i’m new to this forum. thanks for the things that i have already read. you doth seem to be people who can answer this old question here.

alrighty.

I would hazard that it is often my mood that determines my music which determines my mood. In other words, if I’m in a blue mood, I choose happy music to make me forget my blues, and it works! If I’m in a good mood, I feel safe listening to sad music, because I know that it will only dampen my mood, not make me deeply depressed. That, however, is just my interaction with music. Others might have a completely different approach.

I too tend to listen to music that is consistent with my mood rather than try to break myself out of a funk with inspirational songs of hope and good cheer.

Related to this topic, I am particularly interested in what it is in music that connects so strongly to our moods or feelings. Minor keys often make us feel a certain way, but why is that? Isn’t this just a pattern of chords we’ve learned to associate with sadness or are these inherently sad or dark chords?

I tend to believe that it’s a bit of each. I think there’s obviously something a bit inherently ‘dark’ to certain chords or melodies, but it’s also a very learned thing. People often tell me that the stuff that I listen to is ‘mellow’ or ‘depressing’ or what have you, but those adjectives almost never enter my mind when listening to music. It always surprises me when people say these things, I guess because I listen to so much of it that I’ve ‘unlearned’ a lot of the associations between minor keys and sadness or darkness or whatever.

i think mood makes the music which enhances the mood. i never choose happy music to make me feel happy (if i’m not). well, i never choose happy music anyways… and i can’t just hit the play button. my roommate once called me a music nazi. which i take as a compliment! yes, i’m probably be the beta version of jack black in high fidelity.

i have about 20 albums i listen to all the time. the rest of my music is listened to every now and then. but i have found that most of the time, those 20 albums will be appropriate for my mood-range.

I know I’m deviating from the original post here, but I’ve got to respond to the 20 albums thing. I’m the same way. I must have more music, but it always comes down to 20 or so albums that get played far more often than all the others combined. I understand that tastes will change, and I now listen to James Taylor and Jason Herrod more than Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix (which kinda’ saddens me). Does anybody know why this is?
For the record, I wouldn’t consider my music collection “happy”. Most of it is a little darker, but I can, and routinely do, find happiness through it. Hmmm.

I also find myself going back to certain tried and true albums. Are you afraid you’re getting too old for the zany crazy stuff?

Joel mentioned once that he thought older musicians sometimes write mellower albums because they get tired from touring so much.

I’m still thinking about this mood connection with music. I agree with what jonner said about how our sound vocabulary continues to grow so we don’t just think of loud things as ugly and soft things as mellow depressing. I see the Smashing Pumpkins “Siamese Dream” to be very joyful at times but many older folks or classical music people just hear aggressive noise.

I love bop Jazz and that’s probably the best example I can think of, from my collection anyway, of mood music. Listening to Kind of Blue or Blue Train doesn’t get me down at all. And to the other vein, I can listen to Charles Mingus “making noise” and here modes that make it make sense. I guess it does have to deal with a maturity factor. In high school I was all U-2 all the time. How I’ve grown. How ’bout you grant?
=)

moods are an interesting thing, aren’t they.

that is one thing the naturalistic science types cannot quantify. How can you account for the ‘mood’ of a person (or people) scientifically? How can you empiracally test the connection between our music and our moods? The bottom line is that you can’t explain it all experimentally. Our moods line up with certain kinds of music from the experiences that we have had in the past (among other things).

can i just say that i love sp, “siamses dream”…that’s the truth…sometimes the ‘aggressive noise’ can be the mellowest music around.

(just some thoughts from a newbie…)

Interestingly, I’ve found that much of CCM and many Praise choruses—“inspirational” music—have a very negative effect on my mood. While working in a church and often playing/singing for the “contemporary” service I invariably felt tense, frustrated, cynical, and angry afterward. My husband and I would rush to the car to put on good music—some real rock n’roll to cleanse us all the way home.

About quantifying what in music creates a certain mood…I believe there have been many scientific studies done on just this topic. If I remember correctly, there were certain musical ideas, certain groupings of sound that produced very specific human emotional reactions regardless of age, race, gender, cultural background, etc. I’ll try to dig through my old Music Theory files and see if I can find more specifics.

in regards to: “I believe there have been many scientific studies done on just this topic.”

thanks for the comment. I need to clarify…
I was more thinking about the idea that science cannot explain how I feel because how I feel is a metaphysical thing. Naturalist Science is materialistic in nature, and therefore leaves no room for “feelings” (except to be explained by an excess of a certain checmical in your brain).

I would be interested in hearing what science has said about how music affects our moods. I would be surprised if any of the studies claimed to explain where mood comes from, however.