Mood & Music

Why do certain types of music appeal to some people more than others? Further, how can the same piece of music appeal to a person on one day and seem repulsive on another? Mood.

Mood--which I'm using here to mean a person's immediate emotional character, be it happy, sad, etc.--is a squirrely, hard-to-define thing. Naturally, it's quite subjective. Additionally, it's hard to precisely identify: we've spent thousands of years trying to encapsulate and convey human moods and emotions in art and literature. And, it's hard to control. If I'm feeling down, I can't will myself up, and if I'm jealous I can't think it away, and likewise with all other emotions.

Music has a special relationship with mood. It has the power to amplify and alter moods, to smooth out their rough parts and to create pleasure. The music of social groups reflects the emotions of those groups--or, at least, reflects tonic emotions that balance the emotions of the group. 

For example, perhaps a person whose life is full of harsh movement, roughness, and energy, would turn to hardcore punk or metal music. Their baseline mood, their most common mood, is probably quite different from mine (though, how the hell do I know, really?); when they hear the highly-rhythmic, distorted, and powerful music of punk and metal, they are not jarred from an inner tranquility. Rather, the harshness of their mood is excited. And, since it is music, and not pain, not physical violence, there is a comfort in the harshness of music, which, though being intense, is just sound, is just pleasure. 

Doesn't that couch look comfy?

So: when I'm down, I listen to Radiohead, because it's kind of somber, but with an upbeat tempo and a powerful musical force, that makes the loneliness feel beautiful, wholesome, and proper. When it's been a long, strange night, I like to kick back with the Grateful Dead, which is some of the comfiest music I know, to ease the rough parts of my soul into slumber and peace. If I'm feeling awake, lively, and intelligent, I get down with some 60's jazz, and if I'm feeling chill, lively, and intelligent, I might be down with some ethnic/jazz-influenced electronica.

But, maybe not at the same time. I don't really have control over my mood, as I said before. And, it's so subtle, and so is music. Perhaps I'll be feeling too sad for one band, too happy for another, too sleepy for a third, and then what do I do? Oh, yes: Compose.