Why do we listen to music?

Sounds like music to my ears

 

Yes. But it's more complicated than that, and things were also lost as well as gained when recording and records became widespread. One thing that changed fro example, and it complicates the idea that most of the music people heard back then was "bad:" many, many more people played music before recording became the dominant means by which music got distributed around. And depending on which part of the world we're talking about, many more people could read notated music. People learned by listening to the music people were playing all around them--and from teachers, of course. And there were plenty of people around who could, as we still say, "really play."

The advent of recording has changed things radically, but in complicated ways and both for the better and for the worse. I think the most important change has been the gradual way in which the creation of recordings themselves has become an artistic end in itself, not just a way of capturing a live performance so it can be heard again. That process began in the '50s with the adoption of overdubbing, etc., and of course exploded in the '60s and into the '70s. We've been listening for a long time to musical sounds that can't actually be made by musicians playing live, musical effects that can only be created by recordings played back. As Adorno and others long ago argued, even the playback of a recording of a live performance is a profoundly different thing than listening to live music on an LP, CD, tape, radio broadcast, digital stream, MP3, etc. The constraints and liberations dictated and allowed by the medium have changed the way musicians make music and the way we listen.

L.

 

When I was 14/15 I did get a lot of pleasure from music and life in general, now I try to recreate those sensations by listening to the same old songs over and over and over...

 

Why do we listen to music?

To remember everything, and to forget everything.

 

I once had the great good fortune of seeing Sergiu Celibidache conduct the Munich Philharmonic.

Celibidache was famous for, among other things, declining to record, seeing recordings as distortions of his performances which he saw -- under the influence of his study of Zen Buddhism -- as attempts to summon direct, transcendental experiences (which didn't stop people from regularly recording him -- when I saw him at Carnegie Hall there was a guy sitting in the orchestra seats actually holding a three-mic tree and making boot recording out in the open. Unheard of at Carnegie Hall). That night the orchestra played warhorses, like "Pictures at an Exhibition," and sure enough something happened in the room that seemed to lift everyone, something that's not at all captured on any of the recordings of Celibidache I've heard. It was an astounding night I'll never forget.

So, I completely agree that a) making and listening to music is a human evolutionary adaptation that we as humans need as surely as we need storytelling; and b) while recorded and live music are clearly related, they're not the same.

To the OP's title question: Why do we listen to music? I think the answer is so complicated. There's no one reason. Some music has purely aesthetic purposes, other music, while never lacking aesthetic intent, is largely functional or social -- whether it's dance music, religious/trance music, mood music played at a spa, whatever.

 

To evaluate different masters and then complain, of course.

 

Nothing beats a great concertexperience. Nothing

 

Judging by this site there is some truth in that

 

I do it.

Not always.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but music makes me feel good. It's an escape, a release if you will. If I've had a great day, music is the icing on the cake. If I've had the worst day, music is a flush, removing all of the b.s. and making me feel better.

 

6 years old I heard "Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" they made me smile and it was on ....

 

Music makes me feel good, makes me feel free. The lyrics give me something I can relate to and make me feel that I'm not alone in my feelings. It has kept me out of trouble for the most part and gotten me through lots of difficult times. Its sounds are pleasing to my ears and soul.

 

Why do we listen to music?

So that we can approach being music.

 

I don't know why "we", collectively, listen to music, but I primarily listen to music for release. It's changed quite a lot since I first got into music as a teenager, when the release I was looking for was a vicarious thrill, and would listen to rock music that would sweep me away and overwhelm me. Now, as an adult, I'm more likely to listen for something more therapeutic--something to help me feel serene. I identified with how the OP talked about a "healing effect".

 

Well, certainly nothing beats the concert experience at doing for you what only a concert can do. But I wouldn't want to live with what recordings can do (and I don't mean by that "recordings of concert performances"). I've had overwhelming experiences listening to recordings, and recordings have been adjunct or central to other things (like driving, just to take one ordinary example) that concert listening can never reach. And only some of those experiences with recordings are repeatable--despite the fact that the recordings themselves can of course be played back whenever. I, for one, am grateful I can have both kinds of experience. They both have equal, although different, value for me (and I suspect for most of us).

L.

 

Absolutely agree

 

Sorry for the typo, but the second sentence, above, should obviously read, "...without what recordings can do...."

L.

 

Yes, that's a good point. I guess I was making an assumption of the past based on what I perceive to be fewer ordinary people actually playing music today.

Well, it's good that the schools still have band as an activity. My kids each took up an instrument for a single year and then gave it up, which disappointed me. I actually took piano lessons as a kid for 8 years, but kicking and screaming all the way. I look back and realize what a wonderful opportunity I basically wasted. (I never rose above "rank amateur.") If I had the time (and a piano) today I would definitely make the most of it.

I often get nostalgic for a time that I never experienced when people at parties played instruments (like the piano), and sang the latest hits of the day. The closest we get to that today is Karaoke (which I love), but people seem to be getting less and less into it. And too often it's just the one or two people who enjoy singing, while the rest of the party just goes about their business yapping away or texting on their precious smart-phones. (Why is it that the people you're actually with take a back seat to the people you are texting? Don't get me started!)

I've been to two weddings in the last 5 years -- one with live music, and one with a DJ. The former was far and away the better experience. There's nothing like the sound of a band feeding off the electricity of an enthusiastic crowd -- something that a recording can never do.

 

Kinda like asking why do we eat? Or why do we breathe?

It ain't why, it just is.

 

What'd you say?

(Sorry. Avatar humor.)

 

I believe to my soul.

 

Because we can't have sex 24/7 and listening to music is just as good, and you don't have to take a shower after listening to music.

 

This!

Music is the language of the divine.

 

For the same reason we sit in the august heat and listen to cidacas trying to get layed, or we listen to thunderstorms, or brooks bubbling and gurgling, or children playing. It effects us in a positive way.

At the same time, we avoid listening to metal squeeling, or fingernails on a chalk board, or in my case kiss. Because it effects us in a negative way.

Music is to some degree mans attempt to mimic the sounds God created here for us.

 

Music will put you into the mood that you want to be in...

There are different kinds of music and they all will alter your mood in different ways.

The best legal drug there is...