What Happens in the Brain When Music Causes Chills?

[SEAWOLF97]

.The brains of people who get chills when the right song comes on are wired differently than others


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-look-what-happens-brain-when-music-causes-chills-180959481/?no-ist

[DavidF]

"But his research suggests that those who experience the chills while listening to music weren’t always those having a deep emotional connection. Instead, his study showed (http://pom.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/06/0305735615572358.abstract) that people engaged in the music more intellectually, like trying to predict the melody or putting mental imagery to the music, were more likely to get a shiver when the music deviated from their expectations in a positive way."
By Jason Daley (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/jason-daley/) smithsonian.com
June 20, 2016


The "frissons" not arising from an emotional experience but rather an intellectual experience? Not so sure. For instance I distinctly recall an event years ago (local Scottish Highland Games) when the collected Pipe & Drum bands joined together for the finale of Amazing Grace. This day I remember getting the chilly-willies while hearing the mass of bagpipes on the front stretch (fair ground horse track). The distinct wail of the pipes echoed throughout the stands around us before a slow decay. That seemed then, and now, highly emotional and not so much intellectual. Then again, I was not expecting the effect of the sheer volume and impact coming out of the collective bands. Hmmmm.

[grumpy]

Pretty sure I've had them in cases supporting both emotional and thoughtful/anticipatory responses.
Never been a bad thing :)

[speakerdave]

Interesting questions arise. Are these experiences related?

The chill up the spine felt when hearing a good ghost story, especially in an inducive setting.

What some people experience at a horror movie.

The rare maybe once or twice in a lifetime but real stunning sense of an embracing silent cocoon opening when meeting someone for the first time.

The rising kundalini some have experienced repeating a mantric syllable.

The sense of a living presence in the Quan Yin statue at the Nelson Museum in St. Louis, MO.

The experience some advanced yogins call "thinking off."

Simone Weil saying she had an experience of Christ reading George Herbert's poetry.

The sense of a real spiritual being I had when looking at a painting of a "fra" somebody in a museum in Florence. Sorry--I've forgotten the details. The painter was Fra Angelico; the name of the subject and museum are probably in my journal from that trip, but I can't lay my hands on it right now.

What I've experienced with music is that there is an intellectually enrapturing sense of rightness just before any physical sensation. This never occurs without concentrated, undistracted listening.

To me the "chill" is nothing special, because I believe it comes from an insufficiency of accommodative capacity to infusion of living presence, just as "tears of joy" are, like the other kind, a symptom of the shattering of a heart being forced out of its confined ego space.

I think when such things happen with music--and the same can happen with painting, poetry, sculture--it means that the composer and/or the performer have managed to get into the music an aesthetic correlative of transpersonal consciousness. This is akin to that sense one not often enough gets when hearing live music that the musician has achieved a moment when the predominant portion of the whole audience is experiencing one thought/feeling. Thank you, Frank Morgan.

Or is it all "just" sublimations of L'Origine du monde ("The Origin of the World") by French artist Gustave Courbet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Courbet)

[SEAWOLF97]

There isn't a lot that gives me chills anymore , but

in my younger days I spent considerable time at close proximity to jet engines
in reburn mode. The absolute raw power does it for me. Now, the occasional
airshow will make a passable substitute.

Music ? Holst "The Planets" has some passages that come close. But the guaranteed - every time passage that will do it is .... (with good headphones at good gain) , the ending of the triplet ... Singing Winds/Crying Beasts-Black Magic Woman-Gypsy Queen (Santana)
Near the end of GQ (before the feedback) there are 3 in a row WHAM,WHAM, WHAMs from Carlos's guitar. Raises goosebumps & chills every play.

Not by surprise, I kinda know it's coming ...;)

[Hoerninger]

there are 3 in a row WHAM,WHAM, WHAM, ...
Very comprehensible - anyway, with this remark you have made yourself immortal in my memory. I listen to ABRAXAS now and then yo know ;).
_________
Peter

[SEAWOLF97]

Very comprehensible - anyway, with this remark you have made yourself immortal in my memory. I listen to ABRAXAS now and then yo know ;).
_________
Peter

reading my own post above, really the triggers are related to power. I seem to respond to large sudden, massive POWER.

another passage that gives me chills is at the very end of an album called "Apocalypse Now Sessions" by the Rhythm Devils - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Now_Sessions , very primitive music for the movie soundtrack.

The very last cut is called ""Napalm for Breakfast"/"Hell's Bells" . All my turntables have trouble tracking it if played at good volume. It's a somewhat distant sound of large bombs exploding. I measures it once in the high teens/low 20's Hz wise.

Yup, power once again. Maybe after that article, I'll try to be more aware of the times that those reactions happen and see if the pattern is more complex.

[Doctor_Electron]

If you are interested in just about all the aspects of how music interacts with Human emotions, "Psycology of Music", Carl E Seashore, Dover Publications Inc., New York, New York. 1967.

ISBN 0-486-21851-1

Library of Congress Card Number 67-27877

Contains heavy reading, but if you just skim through and read some sections that interest you, the picture becomes very clear and you will think about some aspects of music that you most likely had not.

Great thread, 'Wolf

-de-

[SEAWOLF97]

Great thread, 'Wolf

-de-

You were up on Connie's flight deck ? Did an F4 or RA5C spooling up at launch affect you the same way :dont-know: , could even feel it in my gut.

I was in the catwalk (just forward of the crotch) about 20-25 feet away from the birds. Close enough that my wide angle lenses had trouble getting a whole Phantom in a viewfinder. On an A3 , the wing would pass over my head (or damn close). Some times got a dousing of JP4.

[hsosdrum]

You were up on Connie's flight deck ? Did an F4 or RA5C spooling up at launch affect you the same way :dont-know: , could even feel it in my gut.

I was in the catwalk (just forward of the crotch) about 20-25 feet away from the birds. Close enough that my wide angle lenses had trouble getting a whole Phantom in a viewfinder. On an A3 , the wing would pass over my head (or damn close). Some times got a dousing of JP4.

The closest I ever got to this type of experience was the day after an airshow at Van Nuys Airport—at that time an ANG base that flew C-130s—in the mid-1980s. It was fly-in only (smack in the middle of a valley with 2 million residents, so no aerial demos) but the USAF and USN supplied various planes for static displays on the flightline. One of those planes was a B-52G, and I found out from the crew that they were scheduled to leave the next morning at 9:30.

Needless to say, the next morning I called-in late to work, drove to the airport, parked on a side street and walked to the fence right at the south end of the runway (takeoff is N>S most days). Sure enough, a couple of minutes before 9:30 I could see the B-52 make the turn at the North end of the taxiway and right at 9:30 I could see a ton of black smoke rising behind the plane as it began its takeoff run. He was maybe a couple hundred feet up when he passed directly over my head, and the sheer power of 8 J-57 engines that close at full-throttle shook the ground and totally enveloped me in a cocoon of sound that penetrated all the way through me. From the moment the plane was overhead and for a minute or so afterwards, I had goosebumps and chills all over, and every hair on my body was standing on end, all a reaction to being that close to that much sheer POWER. (The B-52G's engines had over 13,000 lb of thrust each, totaling over 104,000 lb at takeoff.) And those engines were 1950's technology—MUCH louder than the engines on today's airliners. They sounded like they were tearing the air to shreds as they passed overhead.

I don't recall being doused with JP4, but I was surrounded in smoke that smelled of kerosene. Totally worth it for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

[SEAWOLF97]

I could see the B-52 ....

Funny you should mention B-52's ...in addition to the Rolling Thunder from my first tour, another close encounter was when we took a summer cruise to Rota Spain on a c-118 (DC-3).
Returned CONUS at a SAC base in Michigan. We just taxied slightly off the runway and customs made us lay out luggage on the apron.
Welll, B-52's were doing touch & go's on that same runway :blink: one of them spun up all 8 hard as it was passing us, and the suitcases blew over.

When I worked at Intel, the Hillsboro Airshow is right next to the campus. I came to work on a Monday morning after the weekend show and ran into a closed intersection (at the very end of the strip). had the Beamers sunroof open and an F-15 came down the runway and lit the burners and went ballistic right over the top of us. Still stuck there, then a c-130 with JATO did the same thing :D

Back in the 80's they flew a Concorde into PDX and took pax out on a quick ride 90 miles out & back. We watched that one. Awesome.

Last night I was listening to the Cowon DAP (pretty good power) on the Senn 580's. Along came Aerosmith with "Dream On" ... about 2/3rds through ... before the more intense "dream until your dreams come true" I had a chill wave ... started at my neck and rolled through arms and down torso to feet. Really cool , wish I could recreate it. ;)

[Hoerninger]

Tom Danley’s Mic Recordings
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/tom-danleys-mic-recordings/


A word of warning:

This recording has a HUGE dynamic range of about 70dB and a peak to average ratio of 40 dB. On the peaks, it is easy to clip things and the spectrum is such that the level at 10Hz is about equal with that at 50Hz (a broad mound around 25 – 30Hz). In other words, this recording can gobble up all the headroom you have and the source is one of the most difficult things to reproduce there is from many aspects. Preserving time and bandwidth critical so also try it on good headphones if your not impressed with it through your speakers.
Have fun and approach maximum level carefully.
–Tom Danley


Fireworks Finale (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Finale4.zip)
Firework Finale Short (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Finale4Short.zip)
Donny’s Harley (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Donnys-Harley.zip)
Train starting up going south (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Starting-up-going-southSmall.zip)
Full coal train with helper
(http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Full-coal-train-with-helperSmall.zip)
(http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Full-coal-train-with-helperSmall.zip) PS: For the lows I'm using two California horns with corner placement. Although restricted to about 35 Hz in the room they do it with ease and it is really exciting. :)
___________
Peter

[Doctor_Electron]

You were up on Connie's flight deck ? Did an F4 or RA5C spooling up at launch affect you the same way :dont-know: , could even feel it in my gut.

I was in the catwalk (just forward of the crotch) about 20-25 feet away from the birds. Close enough that my wide angle lenses had trouble getting a whole Phantom in a viewfinder. On an A3 , the wing would pass over my head (or damn close). Some times got a dousing of JP4.

Please, don't get me started. I could go on for years... four, to be exact.

As an E-3, non-rated pile of vomit on that deployment, I "volunteered" for all manner of extra taskings. That catwalk, port side?

This pic was shot by our squadron PAO while our crew of volunteers milled about smartly, awaiting the alpha strike planes to return so we could hump another group of ordnance up upon them.

02 level, just inboard and below the port catwalk, about 100' aft of the end of the waist cats. I was unaware of the existence of the picture until I happened to stumble upon the '71-'72 cruisebook online, +40 years. Goooolly, what a surprise!

72426

Cruisebook: http://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv64-71/index.html

Regards, -de-

BTW, that was most likely JP-5. Very most likely.

[1audiohack]

Tom Danley’s Mic Recordings
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/tom-danleys-mic-recordings/


A word of warning:

....Have fun and approach maximum level carefully.
–Tom Danley


Fireworks Finale (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Finale4.zip)
Firework Finale Short (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Finale4Short.zip)
Donny’s Harley (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Donnys-Harley.zip)
Train starting up going south (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Starting-up-going-southSmall.zip)
Full coal train with helper
(http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Full-coal-train-with-helperSmall.zip)
(http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Full-coal-train-with-helperSmall.zip) PS: For the lows I'm using two California horns with corner placement. Although restricted to about 35 Hz in the room they do it with ease and it is really exciting. :)
___________
Peter


These recordings are so cool. On a big system the fireworks are shocking. I hit 128dB SPL in the living room with the fire works played through a pair of Danley's SH50's on top of four Mini's vertically bi-amped with two I-Tech 5000HD's on 240V last weekend, wow I'll tell ya wow!

I also just love power, sometimes I loop the train recording in the office and play it in the background under the music and let it roll all day. I only hear it between songs but that's enough to make me grin.

Barry.

[SEAWOLF97]

BTW, that was most likely JP-5. Very most likely.

I think you're correct , was thinking of the juice we used elsewhere :dont-know:

here's me in about my normal spot where I filmed flight ops.

Pretty sure you were aboard in '72 when Zoomie came to give Silver Stars to Cunningham & Driscoll ?

My chief hated Zoomie for all the relaxed regs. Our senior PO's did too. So I volunteered to do the photo shoot. (I had better cameras than the USN anyway) .
So I trimmed my beard , found a fresh uniform , cleaned the lenses , filled my pockets with film and spent the day with him. Only time he got more than 5 feet away was for head calls.
I shot the Q&A on the mess deck , the awards ceremony in the TV station , had coffee with him in Admiral's Country (like a lux hotel , brass/walnut and a King sized bed hidden on the Connie).
So end of day , we go up to the flight deck and he meets the helo . Goes up it's steps , waves goodbye. I'm still shooting.

But then he turns around and gets back off . Walks over to me with his hand extended. Shakes my hand and says "You did a heck of a job today Sailor and I like your beard too" . Loved it. told that story to my chief and he just boiled. Pics turned out great. :)

[Doctor_Electron]

You did a heck of a job today Sailor and I like your beard" . Loved it. told that story to my chief and he just boiled. Pics turned out great. :)

Hey, your beard didn't have squat on them eyebrows of his! But, wouldn't you love to get a haircut chit from CNO, with his autograph on it as the reporting entity! Looks like a trim might have been in order. Typical airedale.

Regarding the raw emotive power of awesome military aircraft "with the pedals to the metal", I often observed flight ops from "vulture's row" high up on the port side of the island. With two Phantoms or a Phantom and a Viggie cranked up to full military afterburner just prior to launch, it was as if the very teeth in your head were going to come out and your entire body would disintegrate shortly after.

There was a scene in an NCIS episode where Gibbs and Tony were having a conversation on vulture's row under such conditions, wearing no protective headgear/hearing protection. Oh sure. They could have been rendered painfully deaf for weeks. An enlisted man could be put on report for malingering. There goes your liberty time, for months.
How is it that the production team lets such a foible make its way to the final release cut?

Ok, Silver Stars? While one shines brightly, another is heavily tarnished.

The honorable retired NFO by the name of Driscoll still has the right and privilige to posess his military decorations and wear them on special occaisions.

His former crewmember in the F-4J Phantom II, one r. c*ntingham, though, does NOT. Convicted in the biggest case of bribery and fraud ever visited between Defense Contractors and an elected "representative of the People", his citizenship status was degraded to that of second class, and he was stripped of any and all decorations and awards.

Second class is too good for the incredibly vain, egotistical, greedy, treasonous, and despicable P.O.S. formerly known as a U.S. Naval Aviator. Fie!

I was in the olid vicinity of him on the hangar deck, flight deck, and ready-room areas of the ship many times, and ran into him at the 1985 Gathering of Warbirds airshow in Madera Ca. A 24 carat gold-plated prick was he. When finally released from a Federal Penitentiary, he dissed and argued with the judge at his discharge hearing about not being allowed to possess a firearm, and whined about losing his pension. Scum.

Great thread, 'Wolf

-de-

[SEAWOLF97]

His former crewmember in the F-4J Phantom II, one r. c*ntingham, though, does NOT. Convicted in the biggest case of bribery and fraud ever visited between Defense Contractors and an elected "representative of the People", his citizenship status was degraded to that of second class, and he was stripped of any and all decorations and awards.
Great thread, 'Wolf

-de-

My first encounter with RC was his CVA64 ID photo session. Could already tell by his 'tude.

I also got the call to grab a camera and run to the ready room when he returned after the first MIG kill.

He did the old "using hands to show planes positions" for him & the enemy. Part of the story you don't hear is that he thought it was an A-4 . At last moment he realized that was a MIG and fired . Lucky hit. One of my pics from that session is in a big coffee table book called THE NAVY. credited as "USN OFFICIAL PHOTO" , we never got individual credit. :(

Yup, I liked Zoomie and his Z-grams. I picked up his book in a thrift store, opened it up and noticed it was signed by "Bud Zumwalt" . He only used that name among friends . Framed the page. He was a guy who didn't get his son out of the VN mess, tho he could have.


Hey, your beard didn't have squat on them eyebrows of his! But, wouldn't you love to get a haircut chit from CNO, with his autograph on it as the reporting entity! Looks like a trim might have been in order. Typical airedale.


-de-

yeah, but I went to a DOD* A-school for blackshoes (run by the Army). They didn't understand my green stripes and I never had duty during the entire year. Also had Army o-1's saluting me .

*Department of Defense

guess I was up shooting on the FD too ..see pic

[DavidF]

Hmmmm. I could easily park myself in the corner of the room and listen to you two reminisce. Too many good stories for one night, no doubt.

[SEAWOLF97]

Hmmmm. I could easily park myself in the corner of the room and listen to you two reminisce. Too many good stories for one night, no doubt.

Oh, that's what happens when two sailors* from the same ship, on the same eventful** cruise 45 years ago , bump into each other on a now niche speaker forum ....

*of the same, 1 of 4 possible sub-categories=Airdale (aviation)

** crew protested cruise in Bremerton, Wa. - some were arrested , Jane Fonda came to our Home Port in San Diego to protest the cruise , the San Diego had a citywide referendum on whether we should go cruising, in Pearl Harbor - 10 crew members chained themselves to palm trees to resist the cruise , 12 shipboard fires between Calif & Hawaii , only navy Aces of the war were produced on that cruise , CNO (Navy's answer to God) came out to the South China Sea to award them medals, after getting the order to go home - a visit to Japan - motorbikes purchased - emergency redeployment to bombing NVN - bikes dumped, etc,etc.

I'm sure D.E. could add more to the list ;)

[Don C]

Strange to see all of those cruise books hosted on a german site. Anyway, I did find a photo of myself.
http://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/lpd15-81/045.htm
Top left.

[SEAWOLF97]

Strange to see all of those cruise books hosted on a german site.

yup, and there is a website watermark in the pics ... whats up wif dat :dont-know:

[Hoerninger]

Music can have many different effects on brain.

When I saw "Lawrence of Arabia" for the first time the scene in the beginning where the camera opens the view on the desert it was mind opening. The music was essential in this moment.

Tom, do you mean something like this when you say "Learn to Forget"?
___________
Peter

[SEAWOLF97]

The new DefTech powered center adds another dimension to my HT . Yesterday I watched an old (1927) favorite ... Metropolis.
since it's a silent film that's been reconstructed from copies all over the world, the soundtrack music was completely re-recorded in 2010 in Germany from the original score.

Certain parts were eliciting a tingling feeling (subject of this thread) . It passes quickly, but is a definite, noticeable sensation. ;)

D.E: I just finished up this DVD set from the library ==>> http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3037239&device=c&gclid=COGavfGZ6c0CFUdrfgod_K8NZw&adpos=1o2&creative=69383371503&network=g&matchtype=&pla=pla_3037239&camp=PLA:3037239 . It's Nimitz, not Connie , but most of it still applies (except ship to shore phone calls, email & a gym) . It's 10 one hour PBS shows and pretty well sums up the experience. One particular episode on night recoveries on a pitching deck is eye opening. 17 straight bolters. wow.

[SEAWOLF97]

Regarding the raw emotive power of awesome military aircraft "with the pedals to the metal", I often observed flight ops from "vulture's row" high up on the port side of the island. With two Phantoms or a Phantom and a Viggie cranked up to full military afterburner just prior to launch, it was as if the very teeth in your head were going to come out and your entire body would disintegrate shortly after.

Great thread, 'Wolf

-de-

we made the list :blink:

All the sounds you can (and cannot) hear

SOUND INFRASOUND? DECIBELS
A mosquito from 20 feet away 0
A whisper 20
Bird calls 44
Microbaroms ✓ 30-50
Conversation at home 50
Light breeze ✓ 55-70
Vaccum cleaner 70
Blender 88
Stiff breeze ✓ 70-90
A motorcycle from 25 feet away 90
Chelyabinsk meteor from 400 miles away ✓ 90
Jackhammer 100
Thunder 120
Mine crushing machine from 328 feet away ✓ 127
Deck of an aircraft carrier 140
NASA’s acoustic testing chamber for satellites 163
Krakatoa from 100 miles away 172
Sperm whale echolocation 174
Saturn V Rocket 204

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-loudest-sound-in-the-world-would-kill-you-on-the-spot/

Even with that protection, extremely loud infrasounds can still have an impact on our bodies. Humans exposed to infrasounds above 110 decibels experience changes in their blood pressure and respiratory rates. They get dizzy and have trouble maintaining their balance. In 1965, an Air Force experiment found that humans exposed to infrasound in the range of 151-153 decibels for 90 seconds began to feel their chests moving without their control. At a high enough decibel, the atmospheric pressure changes of infrasound can inflate and deflate lungs, effectively serving as a means of artificial respiration.

[SEAWOLF97]

D.E & Don C.

thought you might appreciate a conversation with my new VA
primary care doctor.

I go in for a meet & greet/review meds visit. After 5 minutes conversation...

DR. : Navy, right ?
me: yes, but you are cheating..looking at my records on your computer
DR.: I'm NOT looking.
me: Then how did you determine Navy ??
DR. : "Sailors talk differently, they think differently, their brains are wired differently"

me: :blink:

[SEAWOLF97]

"But his research suggests that those who experience the chills while listening to music weren’t always those having a deep emotional connection. Instead, his study showed (http://pom.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/06/0305735615572358.abstract) that people engaged in the music more intellectually, like trying to predict the melody or putting mental imagery to the music, were more likely to get a shiver when the music deviated from their expectations in a positive way."
By Jason Daley (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/jason-daley/) smithsonian.com
June 20, 2016


The "frissons" not arising from an emotional experience but rather an intellectual experience? Not so sure. For instance I distinctly recall an event years ago (local Scottish Highland Games) when the collected Pipe & Drum bands joined together for the finale of Amazing Grace. This day I remember getting the chilly-willies while hearing the mass of bagpipes on the front stretch (fair ground horse track). The distinct wail of the pipes echoed throughout the stands around us before a slow decay. That seemed then, and now, highly emotional and not so much intellectual. Then again, I was not expecting the effect of the sheer volume and impact coming out of the collective bands. Hmmmm.

An orgasm for the skin: The strange science behind “aesthetic chills”
Have you ever listened to a piece of music and felt your arms break out in goosebumps? You may be prone to frisson

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/29/an_orgasm_for_the_skin_partner/