• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Who feels chills while listening to music? People “open to experience”

Vasilisa

Symbolic Herald
Joined
Feb 2, 2010
Messages
3,946
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
I dedicate this post to our dear Redbone. :)

This is from a blog.

Who feels chills while listening to music? People “open to experience”
by Clive Thompson
December 11, 2010
collision detection


Excerpt:
Do you ever experience chills while listening to music? Recently, scientists have gotten interested in this question, and they’ve found some fascinating stuff. While most people experience chills some of the time, a small minority experience them very frequently — and about 10% say they never feel chills.

What accounts for the difference? Is it based in the type of music you listen to — like punk or country or hip-hop? Or the type of person you are? Or maybe some complex combination of the two — i.e. maybe the type of people who listen to, say, mainstream pop are also the type of people most likely to feel chills in the presence of art they heavily dig?

To try and figure it out, Emily C. Nusbaum (a scientific name that totally freaked me out because it’s almost precisely that of my wife) and Paul J. Silvia decided to survey 196 students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They asked them how often they felt chills while listening to music; then they profiled their personalities using the “big five” scale (i.e. how they scored on measures of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). And finally they asked the students to describe how much they liked or hated various types of music based on the way music is categorized in the STOMP scale — which, for example, slots classic and folk music as “Reflective and Complex”, and rock and metal as “Intense and Rebellious”. (I kind of cracked up reading those STOMP categories. I mean, sure, yeah, technically Rachmaninoff is classical music — but it’s easily more “Intense and Rebellious” than, god save us, Nickelback. Meanwhile, Pachabel’s Canon, having become the go-to processional music for about seven trillion weddings, has been taxidermically drained of any serious reflective value. Anyway …)

The point is, once they crunched their data, no music genre trumped. There is no particular type of music you can listen to that will reliably impart chills. The truly big predictor? Your personality. Specifically, how open you are to experience — because this affects how frequently and deeply you engage with music. People who are more open to experience are also likely to interact with music in specifically intense ways:
In particular, rating music as more important, listening to music for more hours per day, and playing an instrument significantly predicted aesthetic chills.
< Read the full post >
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Yes especially when I hear a very stirring and majestic piece of music for the first time. I remember feeling this way when I first heard the Sanctus of Bach's Mass in B minor, I even commented on it to some lengths in my personal journal how awe-struck I was by its uplifting beauty.

[youtube="0wNTNEZYoHg"]:heart:[/youtube]

Of course it's not just Classical masterpieces that ignite this kind of reaction in me. It's hard to explain, but it's not so much the words(although they sometimes they help) being sung but the melody as a whole that somehow touches a certain nerve inside me that does it.
 

Synarch

Once Was
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
8,445
MBTI Type
ENTP
I would expect more sensitive types to experience this more readily.
 

Amethyst

¡MI TORTA!
Joined
May 9, 2010
Messages
2,191
MBTI Type
ESTP
Enneagram
7w8
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Hmm...I'm surprised that 10% actually never feel chills. I've gotten chills from basically every music genre, but different emotions accompanied them. I've probably gotten them from (god forbid) Nickelback, mostly because I was utterly disgusted with the music, and listened to something of theirs which I could listen to how I felt (sort of). I've noticed certain notes together in a song can also give me chills for no apparent reason, just the fact that the notes harmoniously played together sounded beautiful.
 

Synarch

Once Was
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
8,445
MBTI Type
ENTP
I remember reading something about how music can evoke certain emotions because apparently different tones and notes mimic different emotions in some sympathetic way. Like, for example, you can imagine a sad song and there is a quality sometimes of sad music in that it can sound like a wail or a cry, etc. So, it could even be Nickleback (ugh) if it hit the right sequence of tones and sounds to tap into that layer of our minds.
 

IZthe411

Carerra Lu
Joined
Jul 19, 2009
Messages
2,585
MBTI Type
INTJ
I get chills from time to time. Certain voices, certain music, can carry me off and away.
 

Tiltyred

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
4,322
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
468
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I get chills, and worse, tears. The tears are really embarassing. I get tears from beautiful art, too (but I don't recall chills from art, come to think of it).
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx

Salomé

meh
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
Messages
10,527
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Huh. I assumed everyone did.
 

guesswho

Active member
Joined
Jul 9, 2010
Messages
1,977
MBTI Type
ENTP
You're not the only one, my eyes got all teary when I listened to this song after coming back from the new year's party. Time passes so quick.......

PS: I was drunk.


Oh..it was posted on Salome's blog.
 

Qlip

Post Human Post
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
8,464
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I get chills (it's electrifying), but it has to be the right song at the right time.
 

Nicodemus

New member
Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
9,756
I get chills, and worse, tears. The tears are really embarassing. I get tears from beautiful art, too (but I don't recall chills from art, come to think of it).
I have read that people do. It never worked for me, though.
 

Redbone

Orisha
Joined
Apr 27, 2010
Messages
2,882
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Wow...thank you!

This happened to me last night when I was listening to Celia Cruz's "Quimbara". Here is the video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXN-_asIaYs

Consistent chills at 0:10-0:15

Her voice!

Azucar!

I always thought my reaction to music was strange. The music doesn't matter, either. No particular genre will trigger it. Just certain songs. It gives me a feeling of being alive. I really don't know how to describe it without sounding nutty.
 

Tiltyred

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
4,322
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
468
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Oh, c'mon. What's it feel like?
 

Synarch

Once Was
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
8,445
MBTI Type
ENTP
I get chills, and worse, tears. The tears are really embarassing. I get tears from beautiful art, too (but I don't recall chills from art, come to think of it).

Awwwwww. :) I used to cry during this ASPCA commercial we have in Texas. It's a kitten walking alone down some railroad tracks with "What becomes of the broken hearted" playing.
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
I don't get chills, I don't think, but I definitely am moved to tears by music quite often, and it's not always because of lyrics.
 

Synarch

Once Was
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
8,445
MBTI Type
ENTP
I don't get chills, I don't think, but I definitely am moved to tears by music quite often, and it's not always because of lyrics.

Do you keep your eyes open when you cry or do you close them? I dated an INTP once and it really unnerved me that she would just cry with her eyes open. Tears just emerging from starkly open eyes.
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
Do you keep your eyes open when you cry or do you close them? I dated an INTP once and it really unnerved me that she would just cry with her eyes open. Tears just emerging from starkly open eyes.

Well, this is just tearing up to a musical experience. Not outright sobbing on the floor. It would seem weird to close my eyes and sob like a baby to a song on the radio. So, eyes open, but not like a dead fish or anything.
 

Tiltyred

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
4,322
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
468
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Awwwwww. :) I used to cry during this ASPCA commercial we have in Texas. It's a kitten walking alone down some railroad tracks with "What becomes of the broken hearted" playing.

Are you teasing me?

It's not the content. It's some involuntary physical thing to do with frequencies or something.
 

Synarch

Once Was
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
8,445
MBTI Type
ENTP
Are you teasing me?

It's not the content. It's some involuntary physical thing to do with frequencies or something.

Not at all. This is the kindler, gentler Synarch I am working toward.
 
Top