Why some songs make us sing along and others don't

The global music industry is a «market» worth over $50 billion, making it one of the most influential industries on the planet.

Obviously, researchers have devoted countless hours to «decoding» the recipe for success: that is, what are the elements that make some creations more successful than others.

What are the basic ingredients? It should not be something hastily prepared, but neither should it be overly complex.

The emotion it evokes plays a key role.

Until now, it was known that when we listen to a song, our brain «predicts» what will happen next and thus «decides» whether it (we) likes the song or not.

As he writes in Conversation Guilhem Marion, PhD in cognitive musicology at the École normale supérieure in Paris, a few years ago Spotify published an interactive map showing musical tastes, broken down by city.

It has become clear that musical tastes change over time and vary by region, and even by social group. Most brains are similar at birth. But what happens to them that causes us to end up with such different musical tastes?;

It seems that emotions play a role.. «If someone played you an unfamiliar melody and then suddenly stopped, you could sing the note that you think fits best for the rest of the song. At least, that's what professionals can do,» says Marion.

«In a study we published in Journal of Neuroscience, we showed that similar prediction mechanisms occur in the brain every time we listen to music, without necessarily realizing it. These predictions are generated in the auditory cortex and merge with the note that is heard. This results in a “prediction error.” We used this as a kind of neural performance metric to measure how well the brain can predict the next note in a melody.

The world was in 1956 when American composer and musicologist Leonard Meyer formulated the theory that emotion can be evoked by music, from a sense of satisfaction or disappointment arising from the listener's expectations.

Since then, academic progress has helped identify a link between musical expectations and other more complex emotions. «For example, participants in a study were able to memorize tone sequences much better when they could first accurately predict the notes.».

Today, basic emotions such as joy, sadness, or annoyance can be broken down into two fundamental dimensions: the strength which measures how positive a feeling is (sadness versus joy) and the psychological activation, which «calculates» how exciting what we hear is (choosing, for example, boredom over anger). The combination helps us define these basic emotions.

Two studies, one from 2013 and one from 2018, showed that when participants were asked to rank these two dimensions on a proportional scale, the result was clear relationship between prediction error and emotion. In these studies, musical notes that were predicted with less accuracy led to emotions with greater psychological arousal.

«Throughout the history of cognitive neuroscience, pleasure has often been linked to the reward system, particularly in relation to learning processes. Studies have shown that there are specific dopaminergic neurons (i.e., neurons whose main neurotransmitter is dopamine) that react to prediction error,» Marion says.

Among other functions, this process enables us to learn about and predict the world around us. However, it is not yet clear whether pleasure leads to learning or vice versa. Nevertheless, the two processes are linked. Something that also applies to music.

So, when we listen to music, the greatest enjoyment comes from events that are predicted with only moderate accuracy. In other words, events that are too simple and predictable—or too complex—do not trigger the need for new learning and provide only a small amount of pleasure.

«The greatest pleasure comes from the events in between—those that are complex enough to be interesting, but consistent enough with our predictions that we can form a pattern.» Of course, this varies from culture to culture, because we don't all have the same references.

The role of culture

The musical measure (a rhythmic cycle, a sequence of hierarchical beats in time that are repeated in a fixed, usually regular pattern) that we enjoy is not the same. Western musical traditions generally use a 4/4 time signature (e.g., in classic rock ‘n’ roll, such as the song American Woman) or 3/4 (as in the waltz).

However, other cultures use what Western music theory calls asymmetric measure. Balkan music, for example, is known for its asymmetrical measures.

A 2005 study investigated these differences in folk melodies that were symmetrical or asymmetrical. In each creation, beats were added or removed at specific points in the composition. They were then played to the participants. Regardless of whether the piece had a symmetrical or asymmetrical meter, infants up to 6 months old listened for the same amount of time. Babies who were 12 months old spent more time looking at the «accidents» of symmetrical meters compared to asymmetrical ones.

«We could conclude from this that individuals were more surprised by an accident on a symmetrical meter because they interpreted it as a disruption to a familiar pattern,» Marion wrote.

This was followed by listening to a CD with Balkan music (asymmetrical rhythms) that infants listened to at home. In the repeat session a week later, the infants spent equal time watching the «accidents» on the screen, regardless of whether the meter was symmetrical or asymmetrical.

«This means that through passive listening to Balkan music, they were able to create a internal representation of musical measurement, which allowed them to predict the pattern and detect accidents in both types of cash registers.

The findings of a similar study conducted on adults, focusing on rhythm rather than tone, were similar. «Now you understand how passive listening to music “It ”chooses» the way we predict musical patterns when we hear a new piece," he added.

«Although further research is needed, it is understandable that our musical culture (i.e., the music we have listened to throughout our lives) distorts our perception and is the reason why we prefer certain songs over others, either because of similarities or differences with songs we have already heard,» the scientist concluded.