By Mason Goodrich
Music. In truth, most musicologists believe that music was produced in preliterate cultures. Primates typically use the beating of logs and sticks as means of call and response, but those patterns still lean toward a creative being. Gregorian monks were the first to create music notation, so most artists can credit them for their successes. The question for most people, however, is not, “Why do we listen to music?”, but rather, “Why do we listen to different kinds of music?”.
The most recognized model for music psychology studies is the Big Five Model. In this model, five broken groups of personality are used to examine music preferences. Of the five: openness to experience, agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, the first two or the plasticity traits affect preference the most.
The correlation between openness to experience and a convoluted taste in music was the strongest of the studies. It showed that those with a higher rating in openness to experience had enjoyed listening to more dramatic changes in tone quality or pitch, such as classical music, jazz, blues, folk, rock, metal, and avant garde.
The study also found that extroverted people tend to listen to “upbeat” music, like rap, hip-hop, dance, electronic, and pop music. Extroverted people also tend to use music as a background influence, rather than a separate art study.
In the end, it seems like most generations of music listeners will continue to listen to what they already do. Gil Scott Heron gives his insight on the blues and music in general in H20 Gate Blues, “Like, there are six cardinal colors...Yellow, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and Purple. And there are 3,000 shades. And if you take these 3,000 and divide them by 6, you come up with 500. Meaning that there are at least 500 shades of the blues.” And 2500 other shades of yellow, red, orange, green, and purple.
Music. In truth, most musicologists believe that music was produced in preliterate cultures. Primates typically use the beating of logs and sticks as means of call and response, but those patterns still lean toward a creative being. Gregorian monks were the first to create music notation, so most artists can credit them for their successes. The question for most people, however, is not, “Why do we listen to music?”, but rather, “Why do we listen to different kinds of music?”.
The most recognized model for music psychology studies is the Big Five Model. In this model, five broken groups of personality are used to examine music preferences. Of the five: openness to experience, agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, the first two or the plasticity traits affect preference the most.
The correlation between openness to experience and a convoluted taste in music was the strongest of the studies. It showed that those with a higher rating in openness to experience had enjoyed listening to more dramatic changes in tone quality or pitch, such as classical music, jazz, blues, folk, rock, metal, and avant garde.
The study also found that extroverted people tend to listen to “upbeat” music, like rap, hip-hop, dance, electronic, and pop music. Extroverted people also tend to use music as a background influence, rather than a separate art study.
In the end, it seems like most generations of music listeners will continue to listen to what they already do. Gil Scott Heron gives his insight on the blues and music in general in H20 Gate Blues, “Like, there are six cardinal colors...Yellow, Red, Orange, Green, Blue, and Purple. And there are 3,000 shades. And if you take these 3,000 and divide them by 6, you come up with 500. Meaning that there are at least 500 shades of the blues.” And 2500 other shades of yellow, red, orange, green, and purple.