If you get chills while listening to music, your brain may be wired differently.

[Lexicon]

Thought this study was pretty cool.
I’d always assumed everyone experienced this visceral reaction to music. Can also happen while taking in art, watching a film, etc.

When Alissa Der Sarkissian hears the song “Nude” by Radiohead, her body changes.

“I sort of feel that my breathing is going with the song, my heart is beating slower and I’m feeling just more aware of the song — both the emotions of the song and my body’s response to it,” said Der Sarkissian, a research assistant at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, based at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Der Sarkissian is a friend of Matthew Sachs, a PhD student at USC who published a study last year investigating people like her, who get the chills from music.

The study, done while he was an undergraduate at Harvard University, found that people who get the chills from music actually have structural differences in the brain. They have a higher volume of fibers that connect their auditory cortex to the areas associated with emotional processing, which means the two areas communicate better.

“The idea being that more fibers and increased efficiency between two regions means that you have more efficient processing between them,” he said.

If You Get the Chills From Music, You May Have a Unique Brain - Neuroscience News

Another article on this:
What Happens in the Brain When Music Causes Chills?
|
Smart News | Smithsonian




Study source:
Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music | Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience | Oxford Academic

 

[Population: 1]

I get them but only the first few times I hear a particular piece of music with the initial time being the most intense. It’s interesting news. Thanks.

 

[Hiraeth]

I thought it was normal for other people to experience this as well. It happens to me quite often, usually when I have the volume blasted and I hear the warmth of the instruments along with the singer's voice, or when I sing out loud along with the song. My heart starts beating fast and I get something like an endorphin rush. Sometimes I like repeating a specific section in a song that sparks the intensity just to experience it over and over again. I think this might correlate with highly sensitive people too.

There's also something similar called Stendhal syndrome, also known as having an "art attack," but it's only when people view visual art. Some people end up fainting or even hallucinating because the sensations become too much for them.

 

[Forever]

Whelp, put me in that camp as well.'


First article title definitely sounds clickbait AF tho

 

[Lexicon]

Whelp, put me in that camp as well.'


First article title definitely sounds clickbait AF tho

Agreed on that 1st article title. There are a few similarly-worded articles floating around about how your brain might be ‘special’ if you get chills from music. Crappy writers really like to dilute fascinating information by assuming we all need smoke blown up our asses before we’re actually interested.

 

[Ace_]

this gives me the chills every time

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Yes. I’m a speshul music snowflake. That article makes me feel speshul I am a genius

But yes, I do get the chills, goosebumps, a rush from certain pieces of music.

 

[Hive]

Makes sense correlating it with Big 5 Openness. I've always found it hard to click with people with an indifferent relationship to music. Not because of that reason alone, but I've always found those to be quite insipid types in general. We don't mesh.

 

[prplchknz]

I don't think this happens to me, but i dunno. anyways i read it as chillis instead of chills at first was coming in here to tell you that i wished i got chilis when listening to music then i could cook.

 

[Red Memories]

Usually I only get chills from music if the song is

A: Causing me to cry
B: The song is distressing me because its screamy and it feels like someone is yelling at me.

 

[biohazard]

I find myself to have more of an emotional connection to music than analytical one. I'm guilty of always analyzing everything in its path... so music is the one thing I feel like I can just BE with. Im listening to Larry Carlton right now to calm myself down.

I have to be moved by either the words or dynamics. Otherwise, I can't listen.

 

[Coriolis]

I find myself to have more of an emotional connection to music than analytical one. I'm guilty of always analyzing everything in its path... so music is the one thing I feel like I can just BE with. Im listening to Larry Carlton right now to calm myself down.

I have to be moved by either the words or dynamics. Otherwise, I can't listen.

I connect with music on both levels. I suppose it is true that music is one thing I don't have to analyze, though I sometimes do, especially when performing or arranging. Even then, it is a very different type of analysis than I usually undertake, much more subjective. In feeling moved, and certainly getting any physical reaction, for me it is all about the music itself, not the words: usually certain harmonies, or chordal progressions, or use of dynamics and instrumentation; more likely a combination of all of those. The words are almost irrelevant. I sense that I am able to experience an emotional connection to music much moreso than to anything else.

I don't think this happens to me, but i dunno. anyways i read it as chillis instead of chills at first was coming in here to tell you that i wished i got chilis when listening to music then i could cook.

Here are your musical chillis, prpl:

 

[prplchknz]

I connect with music on both levels. I suppose it is true that music is one thing I don't have to analyze, though I sometimes do, especially when performing or arranging. Even then, it is a very different type of analysis than I usually undertake, much more subjective. In feeling moved, and certainly getting any physical reaction, for me it is all about the music itself, not the words: usually certain harmonies, or chordal progressions, or use of dynamics and instrumentation; more likely a combination of all of those. The words are almost irrelevant. I sense that I am able to experience an emotional connection to music much moreso than to anything else.


Here are your musical chillis, prpl:

I enjoyed that how did you find it?

 

[Coriolis]

I enjoyed that how did you find it?

A local Irish Dance group used this song in one of their shows at a summer festival.

 

[Population: 1]

I connect with music on both levels. I suppose it is true that music is one thing I don't have to analyze, though I sometimes do, especially when performing or arranging. Even then, it is a very different type of analysis than I usually undertake, much more subjective. In feeling moved, and certainly getting any physical reaction, for me it is all about the music itself, not the words: usually certain harmonies, or chordal progressions, or use of dynamics and instrumentation; more likely a combination of all of those. The words are almost irrelevant. I sense that I am able to experience an emotional connection to music much moreso than to anything else.

I am mostly dismissive of the lyrics as well unless they really speak to me which is rare. It’s definitely a mood set by the music. I also tend to listen to a lot of music where the lyrics are in another language. I enjoy a lot of medieval Christian music and chant even though I’m not a Christian. The words are almost always in Latin which I don’t speak a word of so the voices become purely instrumental themselves. I also enjoy a lot of music sung in Gaelic which sadly I don’t speak either. Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance) mostly sings in what she refers to as the language of the heart which is truly using her voice as a pure instrument. My mind doesn’t get bogged down in the lyrics and just enjoys the sound.

 

[Coriolis]

I am mostly dismissive of the lyrics as well unless they really speak to me which is rare. It’s definitely a mood set by the music. I also tend to listen to a lot of music where the lyrics are in another language. I enjoy a lot of medieval Christian music and chant even though I’m not a Christian. The words are almost always in Latin which I don’t speak a word of so the voices become purely instrumental themselves. I also enjoy a lot of music sung in Gaelic which sadly I don’t speak either. Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance) mostly sings in what she refers to as the language of the heart which is truly using her voice as a pure instrument. My mind doesn’t get bogged down in the lyrics and just enjoys the sound.

Same here, though I do understand a fair amount of Latin in these things due to my upbringing and experience. I don't understand Ukrainian, though, which doesn't stop this song from speaking to me in this way.