# If music gives you goosebumps, your brain might be special



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Well, I must be very special indeed then... 

https://www.indy100.com/article/mus...rch-emotions-psychology-study-harvard-7926781


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Don't most people have these responses to music? Maybe those of us who do just assume that we're normal. Apparently I'm even weirder than I thought. That's so - aaahhh -reassuring.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Another good example of pseudoscientific nonsense 
Too many variables in this type of experiment to make any conclusions
On the other hand my wife bursts into tears during most of the classic romantic works at concerts especially the slow movements. She tells me she is special and now I know why


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I wonder then what the people who don't experience these responses actually get from music? I'm sceptical of the research anyway: small sample, self-reporting...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I am blessed with having a strong physical response to music, and always have--chills, goosebumps, tears. Also to powerful passages in books. Here's another article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4107937/


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

There is something to this, no doubt about it. Personally the only reaction I have to stuff like Led Zeppelin is disgust and irritation. How can anyone like that crap? I have a revulsion to rap and heavy metal. I'm old and never did like pop/rock even in the 50's and 60's. But I know I'm in quite a minority. The vast majority of people loved it. But me...when I was 13 I got my first set of Beethoven Symphonies and loved them all. I already knew the Tchaikovsky later symphonies and ballets. Then on to Mahler. I remember playing the Mahler 7th one day, not in my room, but on the Hi Fi in the living room and my mother making some comment like "How can you listen to that garbage?". Sometimes when people found out that I was a classical-listening teenager the comments were always "It's so boring". So that's the question I want answered. Why do so few people respond to and enjoy classical?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> There is something to this, no doubt about it. Personally the only reaction I have to stuff like Led Zeppelin is disgust and irritation. How can anyone like that crap? I have a revulsion to rap and heavy metal. I'm old and never did like pop/rock even in the 50's and 60's. But I know I'm in quite a minority. The vast majority of people loved it. But me...when I was 13 I got my first set of Beethoven Symphonies and loved them all. I already knew the Tchaikovsky later symphonies and ballets. Then on to Mahler. I remember playing the Mahler 7th one day, not in my room, but on the Hi Fi in the living room and my mother making some comment like "How can you listen to that garbage?". Sometimes when people found out that I was a classical-listening teenager the comments were always "It's so boring". So that's the question I want answered. Why do so few people respond to and enjoy classical?


I think your own example bears within it the very answer you seek: "I loathe the music of X, and love the music of Y, and I cannot comprehend how the world could be any other way!"

I am likely older than you, and I love Led Zeppelin. It's my Stairway to Heaven!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

So this study is based on research of students. He might’ve come to different conclusions if he’d studied the brains of those who have been on the planet a little bit longer. I view the experience of goosebumps as a rare but completely normal phenomenal that just about everyone will experience at sometime in their life, even if it’s once. What I find interesting about it is that it can happen only once for any particular work or performance. It’s like everything in the universe comes together in that perfect moment and there’s a thrill that is unforgettable. I’ve heard of many other people talking about it, though this researcher is trying to suggest that it is exceptional. The brain may be different for other reasons than this researcher suspects. I’ve never found a study of musical responses that I considered helpful at all, because they are usually built on a false premise in an effort to measure the intangibles related to music that I consider to be beyond measure.


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## GAJ (Oct 15, 2016)

Never shed a tear to music but goosebumps are a regular occurrence. I seldom have goosebumps in the cold but that must be a case of : "Where there's no sense there's no feeling" but then that hardly applies to a musical response, but.............


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> What I find interesting about it is that it can happen only once for any particular work or performance.


I must presume that you are speaking only for yourself here. I experience chills, thrills, tears, goosebumps repeatedly, on almost every rehearing of the several musics that induced the phenomena originally. Or do you mean once per each hearing of a particular piece? Even so, there are pieces where several episodes are possible in my own experience.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> I must presume that you are speaking only for yourself here. I experience chills, thrills, tears, goosebumps repeatedly...


That's nothing! I get esophageal cramps, difficulty controlling my bowels, and a piercing pain in my right shoulder. And that's just with Chopin. Brahms is far worse.  (Obligatory smiley there...)


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

KenOC said:


> That's nothing! I get esophageal cramps, difficulty controlling my bowels, and a piercing pain in my right shoulder. And that's just with Chopin. Brahms is far worse.  (Obligatory smiley there...)


But you make these sound like bad things! :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> But you make these sound like bad things! :lol:


Actually pretty good, compared with the tapeworm infestation I got from Mahler.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Actually pretty good, compared with the tapeworm infection I got from Mahler.


You too???!!!..................


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> You too???!!!..................


I thought seasoned Wagnerians are more hardy than that


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

People who've never had any physical reaction to music are more curious from where I'm standing.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Just listened to Segerstam's Sibelius Symphony No. 7, again (can there be anything better?). 




Just for fun, I actively tried to suppress getting goosebumps at the end... and failed. :lol: In fact, when I'm in the right mood I get goosebumps just thinking about my favorite music.


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## ibrahim (Apr 29, 2017)

Here's a (I hope) somewhat related point:

Has anyone here listened to their favorite music while under the grip of cannabis intoxication? I ask because when I'm _really_ high music seems all the more pleasurable.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ibrahim said:


> Here's a (I hope) somewhat related point:
> 
> Has anyone here listened to their favorite music while under the grip of cannabis intoxication? I ask because when I'm _really_ high music seems all the more pleasurable.


No never, been discussed several times, always derailing.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2017)

Indeed,don't invite people to talk about drugs.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

If an article's title contains something like "your brain might be special" I'm content to ignore it because it's probably nonsense.


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