You don’t know a person(’s taste) when you only know which genre they like: taste differences within five popular music genres based on sub-genres and sub-styles

A representative German sample (N = 2,086) was surveyed on their musical taste with a questionnaire that asked about their liking not only of a number of genres, but also of relevant sub-genres and -styles. Using Latent Profile Analysis to analyze sub-genre liking patterns, four to six distinct taste classes were found within groups of those n = 1,749 people who liked either European classical music, electronic dance music, metal, pop or rock based on their sub-genre ratings. Across genres, two types of taste classes emerged: one with three classes that differed in the degree of liking all sub-genres, another with one to three classes that were biased in their liking or disliking of easier and more mainstream variants of a genre as compared to harder and sophisticated ones. Logistic regression models revealed meaningful relationships of genre fan groups and within-genre taste classes with sociodemographic variables and BIG-5 personality traits. In sum, our results demonstrate meaningful taste differences within genres and show that these translate to differences in person-related variables as well. These findings challenge earlier genre-based conceptualizations of music tastes, since we find similar structures already on the sub-genres level. It also suggests that different reasons and factors underlie tastes for genres and sub-genres. Future studies should therefore ask about taste in a more nuanced way

The Influence of Formats and Preferences on the Aesthetic Experience of Classical Music Concert Streams

Music is listened to in many different situational and media frames that can be expected to shape its experience. In this study, we were interested in the effects that different formats of audiovisual streaming of classical concerts can have on the aesthetic experience of their audience. We also investigated the effects of preferences for streaming features. A total of N =525 participants watched one of four chamber music concert streams and reported their expectations, appreciation, and experiences. Overall, participants liked the concerts and reported positive experiences. The immersive emotional and social dimensions of aesthetic experiences with music, however, were only rarely activated, showing the disadvantage of recorded as compared to live performances. Several experience dimensions were influenced by streaming format: a stream that allowed audience members to interact on a chat platform afforded a stronger social experience, but less concentration; while a stream that included an introductory talk led to a better understanding of the programming and increased feelings of melancholy. Effects of the preference for certain stream types were only found in the stream that most resembled a standard audiovisual concert broadcast but were leveled out in other stream formats explicitly designed to counterbalance known disadvantages of nonlive performances. From our study, we draw conclusions regarding the importance of an experimental approach to frame effects not only on the aesthetic experience of music but also on the future of concert streams as a new musical medium in its own (aesthetic) right

Audience synchronies in live concerts illustrate the embodiment of music experience

A study of 132 audience members of three classical public concerts (all three staged the same chamber music pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven, Brett Dean, and Johannes Brahms) had the goal of analyzing the physiological and motor responses of audiences. It was assumed that the music would induce synchronous physiology and movement in listeners (induction synchrony). In addition to hypothesizing that such synchronies would be present, we expected that they were linked to participants' aesthetic experiences, their affect and personality traits, which were assessed by questionnaires before and after the concerts. Clear evidence was found of physiological synchrony (heart rate, respiration rate, skin conductance response) as well as movement synchrony of the audiences, whereas breathing behavior was not synchronized. Thus the audiences of the three concerts resonated with the music, their music perception was embodied. There were links between the bodily synchrony and aesthetic experiences: synchrony, especially heart-rate synchrony, was higher when listeners felt moved emotionally and inspired by a piece, and were immersed in the music. Personality traits were also associated with the individual contributions to induction synchrony

Atonal Music: Can Uncertainty Lead to Pleasure?

In recent years, the field of neuroaesthetics has gained considerable attention with music being a favored object of study. The majority of studies concerning music have, however, focused on the experience of Western tonal music (TM), which is characterized by tonal hierarchical organization, a high degree of consonance, and a tendency to provide the listener with a tonic as a reference point during the listening experience. We argue that a narrow focus on Western TM may have led to a one-sided view regarding the qualities of the aesthetic experience of music since Western art music from the 20th and 21st century like atonal music (AM) – while lacking a tonal hierarchical structure, and while being highly dissonant and hard to predict – is nevertheless enjoyed by a group of avid listeners. We propose a research focus that investigates, in particular, the experience of AM as a novel and compelling way with which to enhance our understanding of both the aesthetic appreciation of music and the role of predictive models in the context of musical pleasure. We use music theoretical analysis and music information retrieval methods to demonstrate how AM presents the listener with a highly uncertain auditory environment. Specifically, an analysis of a corpus of 100 musical segments is used to illustrate how tonal classical music and AM differ quantitatively in terms of both key and pulse clarity values. We then examine person related, extrinsic and intrinsic factors, that point to potential mechanisms underlying the appreciation and pleasure derived from AM. We argue that personality traits like “openness to experience,” the framing of AM as art, and the mere exposure effect are key components of such mechanisms. We further argue that neural correlates of uncertainty estimation could represent a central mechanism for engaging with AM and that such contexts engender a comparatively weak predictive model in the listener. Finally we argue that in such uncertain contexts, correct predictions may be more subjectively rewarding than prediction errors since they signal to the individual that their predictive model is improving

Experiencing musical beauty: emotional subtypes and their physiological and musico-acoustic correlates

A listener’s aesthetic engagement with a musical piece often reaches peaks in response to passages experienced as especially beautiful. The present study examined the extent to which responses to such self-identified beautiful passages (BPs), in self-selected music, may be distinguishable in terms of their affective qualities. In an online survey, participants indicated pieces in which they considered specific passages to be outstandingly beautiful. In the lab, they listened to these pieces while physiological recordings were taken. Afterwards, they provided ratings on their experience of the BPs, where items targeted emotion response, underlying engagement mechanisms, and aesthetic evaluation. Cluster-analyses based on emotion ratings suggested three BP subtypes that we labelled low-Tension-low-Energy (LTLE), low-Tension-high-Energy (LTHE) and high-Tension-high-Energy (HTHE) BPs. LTHE and HTHE BPs induced greater interest and were more liked than LTLE BPs. Further, LTHE and HTHE clusters were associated with increases in skin-conductance, in accordance with the higher arousal reported for these BPs, while LTLE BPs resulted in the increases in smiling and respiration-rate previously associated with processing fluency and positive valence. LTLE BPs were also shown to be lower in tempo and polyphony than the other BP types. Finally, while both HTHE and LTHE BPs were associated with changes in dynamics, they nevertheless also showed distinct patterns whereby HTHE BPs were associated with increases in pitch register and LTHE BPs, with reductions in harmonic ambiguity. Thus, in line with our assumption that there is more than one kind of experience of musical beauty, our study reveals three distinct subtypes, distinguishable on a range of facets

Locus of emotion influences psychophysiological reactions to music

It is now widely accepted that the perception of emotional expression in music can be vastly different from the feelings evoked by it. However, less understood is how the locus of emotion affects the experience of music, that is how the act of perceiving the emotion in music compares with the act of assessing the emotion induced in the listener by the music. In the current study, we compared these two emotion loci based on the psychophysiological response of 40 participants listening to 32 musical excerpts taken from movie soundtracks. Facial electromyography, skin conductance, respiration and heart rate were continuously measured while participants were required to assess either the emotion expressed by, or the emotion they felt in response to the music. Using linear mixed effects models, we found a higher mean response in psychophysiological measures for the “perceived” than the “felt” task. This result suggested that the focus on one’s self distracts from the music, leading to weaker bodily reactions during the “felt” task. In contrast, paying attention to the expression of the music and consequently to changes in timbre, loudness and harmonic progression enhances bodily reactions. This study has methodological implications for emotion induction research using psychophysiology and the conceptualization of emotion loci. Firstly, different tasks can elicit different psychophysiological responses to the same stimulus and secondly, both tasks elicit bodily responses to music. The latter finding questions the possibility of a listener taking on a purely cognitive mode when evaluating emotion expression

"Sic ludit in orbe terrarum aeterna Dei sapientia" - Harmonie als Utopie : Untersuchungen zur Musurgia universalis von Athanasius Kircher

Gegenstand der Arbeit ist die 1650 in Rom erschienene Musurgia universalis sive Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni des deutschen, seit 1633 am Collegium Romanum tätigen Jesuiten Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei der Versuch, diesen ambitionierte Entwurf einer musikalischen Enzyklopädie, die die bis in die Antike zurückreichende Tradition der mathematischen Musiktheorie mit der Geschichte und aktuellen Gegenwart der Musikpraxis verbinden will, in den Kontext der Frühen Neuzeit einzubetten. Dazu dienen - im zweiten Kapitel - die Einordnung des Werks in die Gattung der universalwissenschaftlichen Enzyklopädik, das Aufspüren von Verbindungen zu anderen Werken Kirchers, eine literarische Analyse des Textes, die Offenlegung von Anspruch und intendiertem Publikum, was alles zu der Einsicht führt, dass die Musurgia den Rahmen des Musikschrifttums absichtsvoll verläßt, um sich an die viel allgemeineren Debatten der Respublica litterarum anzuhängen. In einem weiteren Fokus werden daher die größeren wissenschafts-geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge von Naturphilosophie, Universalwissenschaft und Magie auf ihre Bedeutung für die Konzeption und die spezifischen Inhalte des Werks befragt. Aber auch im engeren Sinne musikalische Themenkreise werden untersucht, so die musik- und kompositionsdidaktischen Ansätze Kircher, sein musikalisches Ideal, seine Ansprüche an einen Komponisten und seine Beiträge zur aufkeimenden Gattung der Musikgeschichtsschreibung. Im Ergebnis stellt sich die Musurgia als ein Werk dar, das Bezug nehmend auf die politisch-konfessionelle Situation nach dem Ende des 30-jährigen Krieges - in der Musik eine Denkform sieht, mit der sich nicht nur die gesamte physische Welt, sondern sogar Gott selbst begreifen läßt. Mit diesem Denken erweist sich Kircher außerdem als prototypisch für die Geisteshaltung seines Jahrhunderts und bildet somit keineswegs den Querstand, als den ihn die bisherige Forschung oft beschrieben hat. The subject of this thesis is the Musurgia universalis sive Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni - published in 1650 in Rome - of the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) who was working at the Jesuit Collegium Romanum since 1633. The main concern is the attempt to integrate this highly ambitious project of a musical encyclopedia - that links the ancient tradition of a mathematical music theory with the history and actuality of practical music - within the context of the early modern period. To show this the second chapter is concerned with fitting the book into the genre of the polyhistorian encyclopedias, detecting relationships with others of his works, a literal analysis of the text, uncovering his goal and the implied public. All this leads to the finding that the Musurgia explicitly leaves the context of music theory and tries to connect itself with the more general discourse of the republic of letters. Another chapter focuses on wider issues of the history of science that includes natural philosophy, polyhistory and magic and ask how they act as crucial backgrounds for the scientific concept of the text. More musical terms, however, are also observed, such as Kircher´s didactic of music and composition, his musical ideal, his demands on a composer and his contributions to the new genre of music history. In the end the Musurgia shows herself as a work that taking direct notice of the new political and confessional situation after the thirty years war shapes music as a means of knowledge. A means not only to understand the entire physical world but also god himself. This thinking makes Kircher a prototype for the intellectual signature of his century

Warum lieben Sie Brahms? Musikgeschmacksforschung zwischen Historie, Soziologie und Neurowissenschaft​ (11. Marsilius-Vorlesung)

Wer Brahms liebt, gehört – so die Soziologie – zu den höheren Bildungs- und Einkommensgruppen und hat – so die Psychologie – eine Tendenz zu einer neurotizistischen Persönlichkeitsstruktur. Die meisten Menschen indes empfinden den eigenen Musikgeschmack als einen ausgesprochen individuellen, ja intimen Bestandteil ihrer Persönlichkeit. Wie lässt sich Geschmack also wirklich sinnvoll messen? Wie kommt er zustande? Weshalb entwickeln Menschen überhaupt Geschmack? Wie setzen sie ihn ein? Eine differenzierte Antwort darauf kann wohl nur die Zusammenführung psychologischer, neurowissenschaftlicher, soziologischer und historischer Ansätze geben. Die Referentin, Prof. Dr. Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, ist Direktorin des Max-Planck-Instituts für empirische Ästhetik in Frankfurt am Main. Prof. Die Begrüßung erfolgte durch den Prorektor für internationale Angelegenheiten der Universität Heidelberg, Prof. Dieter W. Heermann, die einführenden Worte sprach der Direktor des Marsilius-Kollegs, Prof. Dr. Bernd Schneidmüller. Die Marsilius-Lesung fand am 29. Januar 2015 in der Aula der Alten Universität statt