Sad Music Can Make You Happy
Real Clear Science Newton Blog -- Posted by Ross Pomeroy on Mon, 18 Jul 2011
With my music collection being what it is (dominated by rock and metal, with a smattering of less mainstream rap and classical), I've often fielded this question from friends: "Ross, your music is depressing; doesn't it make you sad?"
To which I've always replied, "No, I actually listen to it because it makes me happy."
"Weird."
I thought it was strange, too. How could it be that sad music would actually make somebody less sad?
Well, thanks to David Huron, a distinguished professor of arts and humanities in the School of Music and the Center for Cognitive Science at the Ohio State University, I am now armed with an explanation.
The answer involves a hormone called prolactin, which is most commonly associated with lactation in women. However, in an interview with The National, Huron insists that prolactin also limits feelings of depression that result from "sad" experiences.
When a person is in a sad state, this hormone called prolactin is released and it has
a consoling psychological effect. So if something happens like your pet dog dies,
or you've lost job, or you've broken up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and you
feel this sad, grief state, the body will respond by releasing prolactin. In most
cases, this produces a consoling or warming effect. It's as though Mother
Nature has stepped in and said "We don't want the grief to get too exorbitant."
Huron believes that sad music can put a listener into a "sham state" of sadness. This causes prolactin to be released without the listener actually experiencing a sorrowful event. Thus, without real grief to counterbalance the hormone's effect, the listener receives a net positive "comforting" effect.
However, Huron has found that not everyone can feel this effect (My naysaying friends could be a part of the disadvantaged group that cannot.) One of the professor's previous studies discovered that individuals who score high on "openness" or "neuroticism" in personality tests are more inclined to listen to sad music, perhaps because they can feel the prolactin effect.
Now that I can explain to my friends why sad music makes me happy, I just need to convince them that I'm merely more "open," not neurotic. This point might be a harder sell...
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Footnote by the blog author: It looks like the Greeks were right when they described nine Muses, being spirits that can inspire humans. These Muses talk to each other all the time when they are trying to inspire us – but we don’t understand their language. Instead we hear music, the language of the Muses.
According to Greek mythology, the God Zeus beguiled the human Mnemosyne and gave her nine children. Thus the Muses are combinations of POWER and MEMORY. Originally they may have been the goddesses of prophetic springs, but they became the source of human inspiration. There is no indication that any one Muse is more powerful than another, although Thalia is at once one of the nine Muses and one of the three Graces. Here is a list of all nine Muses:
Calliope, Muse of epic song
Clio, Muse of history
Euterpe, Muse of lyric song
Thalia, Muse of comedy and bucolic poetry
Melpomene, Muse of tragedy
Terpsichore, Muse of dance
Erato, Muse of erotic poetry
Polyhymnia, Muse of sacred song
Urania, Muse of astronomy.
If the Greeks were right – and they were probably on to something because the story is still being told – then sadness and melancholy, the hallmarks of Melpomene, are gifts of inspiration rather than moods to be avoided.
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