Why does music provoke emotion?

A well-crafted piece of music can bring us to incredible highs and crushing lows, sometimes within the same song. Why does music affect humans this way? Join Chuck, Josh and special guest cellist Ben Sollee as they get to the bottom of music and emotion.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me as always
as Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh And this is stuff

(00:25):
you should know the podcast, the Audio Cheesecake Podcast. So
mad at that guy? Oh? Really? Yeah, we'll talk about
him in a minute. It will all become clear. Okay.
I just took my tooth out for I'm getting the
new one tomorrow finally. Congratulations, Thank god? Are you getting
it after we record? Yeah? So two more episodes will

(00:47):
feature hill Billy Chuck. It's been along, it's been like
over six or seven months now. I just look back
at Christmas photos and I had not too. I didn't
realize it was like last year and it almost all
against hill Billy. That's really derogatory, you realize, No, I

(01:09):
love Hillbillies. Okay, Chuck, uh I, I have a revelation
for you. All right, let's hear it. So. Um. You know,
when you hear music and you look at art, if
you don't hate art, and you look at it, ah,
and you you start to feel an emotion, or maybe

(01:31):
a memory is released, or or just just something happens
to you, a change kind of comes over you. What
you're doing is experiencing an emotion that was I guess
created and encapsulated in a work of art, whether it's
music or something visual or and it was put in

(01:53):
there by the artist for you to come along and
unlock and then bam, you're feeling some sort of emotion
or whatever. That is possibly the most astounding thing that
humanity has ever figured out how to do. Agreed, Like,
think about it. It's like when when you're interacting with art,
you are, in a way interacting with the artist, and

(02:15):
the art is the intermediary. But if you so, you
kind of understand it on that level. But imagine if
you're you're an alien, an emotionless alien that came down
and observed this just kind of off to the side.
It doesn't it makes zero sense whatsoever. This painting is
just the work on canvas, its color and brushstrokes, and yeah,

(02:39):
but it's it is. If you look at it on
a on a much more important level, it is a
capsule of emotion and memory. Agreed, And I agree that
that's like astounding when you think about musical notes, like
there's a code inside them almost that taps into these emotions.
And I'm already upset because we don't quite know why

(03:04):
and like why it differs from person to person, and
it's like I don't think we'll ever know. Yes, you know,
some people can hear something and I think something sounds
like garbage. Someone else might hear and it might make
them weep. Okay, I think we do know. I think
I know, well you should written this article. Well, now
think about this. I think that we have um certain processes.

(03:25):
I did write this article smarty pan well one of them. Yes,
So I do think. I think that there's um certain
processes that our brains are capable of carrying out and
their emotion based, right, yeah, because think about what our
emotions Chuck. Uh, that's that's one of those hard to
define things there, like what what is the definition? Well,

(03:48):
it's like it's it's it's some sort of No, Okay,
what's the let me rephrase because that was define is, Chuck?
What what is the value of an emotion? What's the
purpose that it serves? Well, I mean some people think
it from early on it was a means to help
us survive, like fear of the tiger, or contentment with

(04:10):
the sun on our faces, right, or like around a campfire.
So okay, I need to stay warm. So you don't
even have to think that emotion is like your body
thinking for itself in order to survive or achieve its goals. Right. Yeah,
So our brains are capable of carrying out certain processes
and using things like art and music. It's almost like

(04:32):
exercise for those emotional processes. And when we do this exercise,
they kind of bulk up, but they bulk up differently
for different people because we have different experiences. They're all
along the same lines where you're feeling like things that
make you happier, things that make you sad, or things
that make you scared. Um, but they're different subjective experiences.

(04:55):
That's what I think is going on. I agree, especially
when you throw memory in there, which we'll get you. Uh, well,
let's go ahead and hit this one study then, um Germans,
the gentleman's conducted. Uh they found uh, the MafA tribes
people in Cameroon who had not heard Western music before,
not a second of it, and they thought, well, this
is perfect let's play some Western music and see if

(05:17):
they can match, uh, this music to like an emotion
like happy or sad. And they did, right, And by
Western music we mean pancho music. I'll bancho. Um. There
was another part of that study I thought was even
more interesting, which is they played altered versions of music
for them as well, with like threw it out of

(05:38):
rhythm or made dissonant harmonies. And these people that had
never heard Western music like didn't appreciate that sound very much.
It in hately triggered like when they heard bad harmonies
or off rhythm beat, They're like, no, right, So if
there's whatever their word for knowing, if there's not something
universal going on, then um, then they shouldn't have noticed.

(06:02):
Then I'll be a monkey's uncle exactly. So that means
two things that that emotion encoded in music is universal,
and the ability to distinguish like what's right and what's
wrong in music is universal too. Then that's what it
would suggest. Yeah to a certain degree, though, But then
you hear people that like don't understand when they're singing
off key, and I'm like, how can you not hear that?

(06:24):
Remember the tone deafness? One good overlooked episode anyway, I thought,
I think it's all very interesting. So okay, so we've
got this idea that this this is all universal. Um,
there's that still doesn't explain what's going on, and there's
there's different schools of thought. Like anytime there's just something
really big out there that's not explained, a lot of

(06:44):
people have some competing ideas. And one of the people
with the competing idea who you're apparently mad at, is
Stephen Pinker, who's a good guy, good, great guy. He
knows how to like he's a linguist, and yet he
can rise above the fray of like the sniping that
is so characteristic of that field. Yeah, he's got a mullet,

(07:06):
really Yeah, he's got kind of a curly per mullet
a little bit. He's a good guy. Okay, you'd like him,
But I don't like what he says about music. He
famously said music is auditory cheesecake. Um. His his contention
is basically, music is hollow compared to the language that
it's based on, right or hearing or hearing, And I

(07:28):
just I just couldn't disagree more. Well, I think he's
also saying there's different ways of interpreting what he was saying, Um,
there's it was an accident and evolutionary accident. Um or
it's designed. It's something that's designed to exploit an existing sense.
So like cheesecake, our sense of taste. It's like, we

(07:49):
don't really need cheesecake, and but when you're eating it,
you're like, this is really good, and it's designed to
be like I'm gonna take your sense of taste and
I'm gonna blow the back of your head out. I
think people need music and art though okay, well pinker
would probably contend that's not necessarily the case. That's that's
the explanation is that is that he's saying if if

(08:12):
that's if if music is just designed to assault the
sense of hearing. Um, it triggers emotions because it's specifically
targeted to do that. Yeah, simple as that. All right,
So the other guy or there is another guy, Mark
chang Zi uh cognitive scientists. He thinks that music, Uh,
we associate it with movement, and we can pick up

(08:36):
on movement and empathy, or we express and pick up
on empathy and emotion through visual cues of movement from
other people. Like if somebody's kind of trudging along. You're like, oh,
that person is sad. Yeah, yeah, and that makes sense
because um and this was I thought kind of neat.
Was this the first article yours? Yeah? When when you

(08:57):
google uh musical now and hidden into Google images, it
like almost everything you see it shows them like flowing
and flying and there's movement. Yeah, there's very few, like
just static shots of musical notes on a scale. And
even if you looked at a musical scale, you know
it has a flow and up and down and it
all is very movement based. Right. He also pointed out

(09:20):
to that, um we use terms about movement to describe music,
like a movement is a part of a smaller of
a larger composition. Um, or we say like music moves us. Um. So,
I think you did a good job in making the
case that we associate movement in music, But I don't
think that necessarily proves his point is larger point, that

(09:41):
that's how it evokes a motion because it's a stand
in for human movement. Yeah, but I definitely thought it
was worth note. You know, for sure, it's all of
the things. It's like, that's kind of interesting, But what
have we proven here, right, Well, there's another camp too,
that that um kind of is the opposite of Pinker's
assertion that um they say that no music and art

(10:02):
or its own things. Yeah, like it it looks like
this huge blur of of stuff when you put it
under an m R. I but that that that process
is its own thing and it's not just an offshoot
of language or hearing. I think I relate to that
a little bit. I figured you would. So all right,

(10:24):
let's let's put music on the back runner for a second.
Talk about art visual art. Uh. And I'll go ahead
and say up front that a painting or a photograph
I can find like extremely beautiful, but it doesn't move
me emotionally like music or a moving image will like
a you know, a movie or a TV show or

(10:47):
and then you put music and that moving image together,
and for me, that's like the recipe. That's just when
it goes to blan right, So like when at the
beginning of Bananca to start gueeping on exactly. But other people,
you know, look at a painting and like, I'll find
a painting gorgeous and beautiful, or a photograph, but other
people look at a painting and weep. Let's say but

(11:09):
not me. So it all varies from person to person, right. Um.
The thing that that kind of gets me is that
because it varies from person to person, I think that
explains why we have such a wide swath of what
we consider art. You know, why there's so many genres
of music, because something that might get you might not

(11:30):
get somebody else. Yeah, like the you know, the very bare,
you know, stark art of like the dot in the
center of a blank canvas. I don't get it. Well,
the thing is that's that's you can't poop poo it though,
because abstract art basically proves the idea that art is
an encapsulation of emotion or emotion encoded for each viewer

(11:54):
to unlock, and it may do nothing for you, but
it may also trigger some of memory, like that someone's
made it. Just the idea that like something beyond like
people moving and talking and saying lines and they're being
music in the background, unlocking you know, your emotions. The
fact that just a dot in the middle of a

(12:17):
white canvas can unlock emotions like, that's it at its
most basic essential form, you know, but it's still does
the trick or performance aren't Yeah, you know, uh, So
one of the theories is that visual art basically simply
just taps into these learned emotional cues. And whether it's

(12:40):
ah a conscious thing or it's subconscious, like the color
red for these weird lines that I see, or a Pollock.
Maybe you know what that might evoke in different people.
It just Franz Klein for some reason, and I don't
know why. I don't know poll would be the go to.
But I like that you went somewhere else, the lines
in disarray, it's not nerving. See. One of the biggest

(13:01):
things I have with visual art, with like a painting,
is when I go see like a Pollock, I'm more
knocked out by being in the presence of the original work.
Like it looks cool and I love it and it's gorgeous,
But I think about Pollock in his garage, drunk as
a skunk, you know, dribbling the paint everywhere, and like,
if I could touch it, I would like connect with that.

(13:23):
If you touched it, you would get tackled by security.
Or anytime I see the original stuff, I think you mean,
like when I see the original handwritten lyrics at the
rock on All Hall of Fame, to like the Jimi
Hendrix song on a piece of notebook paper. I'm like, man,
his pencil touched that paper and wrote the wind cries
Mary Wham. There's that's definitely an aspect of it as well.

(13:45):
I agree, I agree. I don't know how. I wonder
how that changes things though, you know, is that does
that add to it or is it distracting? Like does
fame and celebrity distract us from our emotions? Oh that's
a good question. I think it enhances it for me. Yeah, yeah,
because when I had like this hero worship of an
artist and then I meet them or I see their
like original works, that's what does it for me. But

(14:08):
it could also be an unknown you know. Um. You
know that's funny though, because I wanted up say that
you would be you probably wouldn't have been into disco
then if you're like all about the artist and you know,
seeing that something created by you know, the individual, I
wasn't in the disco right. Um. But that also that

(14:28):
when I was researching this and reading these articles, that
made me wonder, like, is that a difference, Like there's
a difference between experiencing live music and recorded music? So
does that was that a distinction between people who are
into disco and people who weren't, an uncomm an unconscious difference,
although I would argue that the basis in this article

(14:49):
at least says that the live music thing is about
being in the same room with people with similar likes,
partially not necessarily, because you can listen to a live
recording of song and it is like hearing that crowd
cheers totally different. So maybe it's evoking that. But I'm
not friends with the people that I can't see on
this recording, you know. Yeah, that's a good point, all right,

(15:10):
let's get back to it. H uh yeah, the um
just real quickly. It's also culturally based because you make
a great point that depending on where you're from, like
even color can mean something different. Like in Japan, the
color white is associated with death, so melancholy will come out,
whereas black supposedly is in the Western world, something we
associate with that. So like a snow covered painting like

(15:33):
a Thomas Kincaid would maybe uh, instilled dread in a
Japanese person. That's why he doesn't do very well in Japan. Really. Yeah. Um,
But then one other thing, Chuck, where the the color
red those lines and disarray all that those are called
cognitive antecedents, right right. And you can also make the
case that a change in harmony or pitch or drumming

(15:55):
or whatever is a cognitive antecedent too, in much the
same way that the composers is changing something, is adding
something that is taking something away, and that forms a
cognitive antecedent. It's the thing that triggers the emotion. Awesome,
So should we talk about the brain? Here's where it
all comes down to science. I knew we were going

(16:17):
to get to there. At some point, you hear music,
and well, first of all, they say, it's kind of
impossible to say, like, you know, we can say we
have a language center and a center for like movement
and things like that, but we can't really pinpoint a
dead center for music in our brain because it's sort
of all over the place, right, which is kind of awesome,
I think. But when you first hear a song, let's say,

(16:40):
your frontal lobe is gonna kick in and the temporal
lobe and it's gonna process things like rhythm, pitch, and
melody to kind of get the ball rolling. Um. They
think it happens in the right hemisphere, but they aren't
quite positive that that's the only place that happens. UM. Personally,
I think it probably hits the left hand right. It's
firing all over the place. UM. But it depends on

(17:03):
a lot of things, Like you said, whether it's live
or recorded, UM, probably whether or not you are a
professional musician or not, or have any kind of training,
Like you're gonna if you know how to read musical notes.
When you hear musical note, you're probably going to visualize it.
Whereas like if I hear music like I do not
do that, maybe see colors or um fractals or something,

(17:26):
depending on whether I'm listening to Pink Floyd or not.
And then whether or not music has lyrics. If it's
um as lyrics and you can understand these lyrics, then
you're gonna be processing language through Broca and Wernicke's areas,
which we've talked about before, Two great areas. What was
that in We talked a lot about linguists in the
two areas. There's so many shows. No, man, I have

(17:48):
such a hard time. It didn't come out very long ago.
I think it was in UH the one on prohibition UH,
and it activates a visual cortex, because you know, when
you close your eyes and listen to music, you're probably
gonna visualize something. Well, that would that would lend credence
to the idea that music is associated with movement. Yeah. Sure,

(18:10):
as we check movement with our eyes. I see really
high glossy music videos. When I close my eyes, I
just see money for Nothing over and over and over again.
You see the the day glow in the purple leopards print. Um.
And it can also trigger the motor cortex, of course,

(18:31):
because that that's what you start tapping, the hand, tapping
the feet, bob in the head like in the disco
episode when he played some of that music. Even though
I don't like that music, it still gets the head
bob and oh it's good music, so you say, and
activates your motor cort text whether you like it or not.
And the Cerebellum, I think is the last one. And
that's pretty interesting because, um, that means you're like following

(18:54):
the music and trying to figure out where it's headed
based on what you've heard before. Yeah, because we love
to keep our ourselves occupied. Sure, Um, that's not the
last one. There's a medial prefunnal cortex. Yeah, you're right, um.
And that word also is usually pronounced pre frontel um.
And that one is the one where are that unlocks

(19:17):
our memories? Like the music goes in there as a
key and goes and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah,
what's one of your old old ones? Uh? Hot Blooded?
What does that gave you? It was I think of
myself as a little three year old cowboy boots because
that was like the first song I ever knew the
lyrics too, so I walked around singing hot Blooded. Nice?

(19:40):
How about that? That's pretty good. My big one is um,
how Deep is Your Love? By the Bgs. It makes
me almost want to cry when I hear it because
this one day when I was like in the third grade,
that was a bully that was not even picking on me,
but he just scared the crap out of me on
the bus one day with his bullying. And I was

(20:01):
such a little wimpy kid, you know, And I ran
to my dad's office he was principal, and he wasn't there,
and I was. She was just like, you can wait
for him, and I was like crying, And how Deep
is Your Love? Was on the on the the Hi
Fi and Uh, to this day, it just still makes
me incredibly sad to hear that song. See you like
this guy, Well, it makes me cry it moves you.

(20:22):
Or like Centerfold by Jake Giles Man that always takes
me to like the skating rink. Yeah immediately, ye good. Um.
So if you want to talk about memory, you should
go look up. Um have you seen the video on
YouTube I posted about the guy in the nursing home.
I don't follow you on Facebook, jerk. Uh, it's pretty amazing.

(20:44):
Just go to YouTube and put in man and nursing
home reacts to music. And there was this this old
timer in a nursing home who it showed him before
he listened to anything, and he, you know, it's kinda shaky,
had a hard time stringing together sentences. And then they
put these headphones on and played like Cab Calloway and stuff,
and all of a sudden his speech is fluid. Oh dude,

(21:06):
it's like remarkable and just gut wrenching to see this. Well,
they were saying that the medial prefrontal cortex is whe
of the last areas to go with alzheimer exactly, So
you may have trouble with just about everything else, but
music can still unlock memories. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's awesome.
It's cognitive vanta stin is uh. And then there was
another study with UM. They studied this woman who had

(21:28):
damaged to her temporal lobe and she couldn't distinguish between
like melodies and things, but she still had the UH
in the in the m r I machine had the
emotional reactions lighting up that you would anticipate with like
quote happy music or sad music. Yeah, pretty amazing. Um.
Again it's like the MafA tribes people. Yeah, so we

(21:50):
have a pretty good idea that this this that our
brains are being activated these certain regions are right. We've
seen it in the mr iye that's full of listening
to music in MR eyes while scientists of studying them
they love that kind of stuff. Um. And so from
that and like that Alzheimer's revelation, we started to realize like, okay,

(22:13):
well maybe we can like artists, um, create music or
art too, um to get you in with the emotions. UM,
maybe we can kind of use this as like a prescription.
And hence music therapy has been born and it's actually
been proven as um what was the UM noun for efficacy? Efficatic? Effective? No, way,

(22:44):
that's a an effect. It's effective. Okay, thanks Chuck, Sure
go ahead, man, something bad just happened to me. Okay.
Well yeah, so music therapy has been born and it's effective.
It's been shown effective, effic had of exactly like uh
for instance, Well, they think it grows as we grow

(23:07):
like this, this tie to music and emotion intensifies this
we grow even though they've seen it in little babies. Babies, Yeah,
it starts early, right, Yeah, but like you know, fast
tempos and a major key will tend to make someone
happy and it just you kind of take it for granted,
but like there's stuff going on there to make this happen.
And like minor keys, D minor the saddest of all

(23:30):
keys slow tempo. Is that the Devil's key that's from
spinal tap, but it is it's a very sad key
and minor keys when you hear it, especially as a musician,
you you know, it just lends itself to like darkness.
I wonder if that's the Devil's key. There's something called
like I think the Devil's key. Yeah, I can't remember

(23:51):
what it is it's worth, like, maybe we'll do it
smarter in sixty seconds on it, I would love to. Okay, Um,
but as far as uh study these go with medical benefits,
they have found that UM at cal State University that
hospitalized kids, we're happier during music therapy when they could
play something along with like a teacher on guitar, let's say.

(24:13):
Then even getting like toys and puzzles like they they valued,
and we're happier during music time than playtime right there. Uh,
like just playing doing their own plaything just stunk compared
to playing a triangle. Yeah, I was always like putting

(24:33):
a bad mood when I was given a triangle or
a recorder? Do you remember recorder lessons? Mandatory recorder left?
Why was that the one? Probably kids is easy? Yeah?
What did I guess? The recorder lobby was much stronger
when we were kids than it is today because you
don't see those any longer. Yeah, well there was no
read on it, like it's just any kid could pick

(24:54):
up a recorder and play. You don't have to hit
it just right with like the flute or and then
what were those ones dicks? They were like ribbed sticks
that you just like zip along one another because there
wouldn't corduroy. Yeah, this is a percussive instrument. I don't
know the name of it though it was boring. Uh,

(25:14):
the augmented fourth, my friend, it's the Devil's Key. We'll
have to check that out. Maybe our guests can play it.
Oh yeah, um, which is coming up soon by the way. Uh,
breakup songs. I was a little bit I couldn't quite
figure out if they've proven that a breakup song. It
seemed like all anecdotal, like you know, of course I

(25:36):
will survive, is gonna pump you up if you're gonna
show him, or you know, she's always a woman to me,
will make you weep. If you love Billy Joel and
your girlfriend love Billy Joel and you just broke up,
well it feels good to pear those songs and to
cry it out because your medial prefrontal cortexes is crying

(25:56):
out for that. I guess, yeah, because I mean, like
you have a memory formed in relation to a song, right,
But no, I think the point that Congress is trying
to make is that there's not a study out there
that showed that breakup songs have a certain effect. No
one's done that yet, but she did lay out like
a pretty good case for how it would work. Why

(26:19):
people were walking around knowing that like, yeah, this, this works,
this has its effect. Right, Well, she's saying, like there's
this um this Rutgers University anthropologists named Helen Fisher, who
studies the effects of breakups, and basically she is the
one who came up with the concept of the breakup
as a going cold turkey on an addiction, like you

(26:42):
can compare it to cocaine. And the reason why is
because when you're in love with somebody, your limbic system
is stimulated, and then when that's taken away, all of
a sudden, this stimulation that you used to have is
not there any longer, your olympics system, it gets kind
of irritated. What Congress saying is that it makes sense
that music, which has been shown to stimulate the limbic system,

(27:05):
probably does some sort of number on it to kind
of wean you off that cold turkey person. You just
oh okay, you just yeah, got you. That makes more sense, now,
that's yeah, But there wasn't an actual study, You're right, okay.
But she also pointed out that music um has been
shown to be a pain reliever. Yeah. This one study

(27:26):
in from two thousand eleven found that cancer patients undergoing
mastectomies had lower blood pressure and lower anxiety when they
played music prep during the operation, even in post op
and um. And not not an enormous amount. It's not
like a shot of morphine or anything like that, as
like point five, uh half a point on a ten

(27:50):
point scale, you know, the pain scale, the line drawing
of the person. Just like, I never know what to say.
They're always think I need to say a lot so
I'll get a better pain pill. Well, they ask you
like one to ten. I know, that's why I always
say ten, okay, but I never I mean, it's hard
to qualify. If you want to get the good pain pills,
you have to stay eleven. They think that's hilarious. Have

(28:11):
you said that this one goes to eleven. That's the
second spinal tap reference. Um. Yeah, and that's actual physical pain.
It shows to ease a little bit. But where it
really comes in handy is as like an anxiety reducer
and as an emotional woob. Yeah. They found that people
who suffer from anxiety, they actually responded to music as

(28:34):
an analgesic more than a pharmaceutical. It is, and it's
not just them like you you mentioned, like blood pressure lowering.
Other studies have been conducted that showed that pregnant women
um were less stressed out than when they listen to music.
UM people uh with cardiac patients, their blood pressure lowered,

(28:56):
um immune systems were boosted in post surgery patient's like,
there's it has this really great effect on us. It's
pretty pretty obvious why it's. It's the Olympic system has
a calming effect. I had that happened to me once,
actually to my detriment. I was uh so living in
New Jersey at the time. I was going to the

(29:16):
bank and like really stressed out about getting to the
bank before it closed, and this song came on about
that I've never heard before. Like halfway there, I get
to the bank, it's like literally like a minute and
a half for this bank closes, and I could not
get out of the car. I couldn't quit listening to

(29:36):
this song. Well, its song was that I can't remember now,
but I literally remember watching the dude come up and
locked the door in front of me and sitting there
in my car and thinking, you know what, this is
worth it because this is amazing and I'm not stressed anymore.
And who cares about the bank? That is? That is
quite a song, Yeah, and I think it probably pounce
some checks because of it. But who did you go

(29:57):
back and listen to the song after you're looking at
I wish I could remember what it was. This is
a long time ago. That's really made them like a
classical thing because I broke down at Carnegie holland cried
one time. Yeah, Beethoven's like I did, uh, Beethoven's ninth
Oh to Joy with like the full choir. That thing
pumped in joy man, oh to joy? Yeah, oh joy.

(30:21):
Uh that's right, that's like those are the lyrics. I
just activated your were Nikki's area. Now you activated another area?
What else you got? Nothing? Man, I've had plenty of
those A lot of times. It's live music that gets
me because of the shared experience. Um, but it can

(30:43):
happen on just you know, in a movie or a
television show. Yeah. Like I said, you married the moving
picture and music together for me, and it's like it's
all over. It's like chocolate and peanut butter. You got
any good breakup songs, any good sad songs are you like? No,
but only like I think who doesn't do that, you
know when they go through a breakup, to sit around

(31:03):
and listen to like the most Morrow's stuff you can find,
like put on the Smiths and the Smith's the Cure.
One of my all time favorites was a Secret Machine
song called the Loan Jealous and Stone good Audio kill you.
M Yeah. Strangely, Genesis Ripples is really yeah, that's a

(31:24):
great one to me, Like, but that one is so
magnificent because it depending on my mood, it's either sad
or very reflective. It's not it's not ever like happy,
like yeah, I feel like I'm gonna go take on
the world. It's not that kind of song. But it's
not necessarily like sad. It's just contemplative in a lot
of ways too. And there's a range too, you know.

(31:46):
I think with the breakup, like at first, you do
want to just keep being bummed out and so you've
gotten it all out of your system, and then that's
when you want to put on you know, I had
the Tiger Well. Also, Molly pointed out she wrote the
second article, I think she points out that. Um, if
if we are hitting our um limbic system with music
and we are, it's like a drug, we become addicted

(32:08):
to it, then there's a really good case for unplugging
and not listening to music for a while. I don't
know about that, which kind of points out something that
I've known for a very long time. Good listen to
stuff you should know is very refreshing. That's true. Yeah,
we have a special treat here, Chuck. Okay. So um,

(32:32):
we've been talking about the idea of experiencing music like
unpacking it and experiencing music and art. We should probably
talk to somebody who packs that a great way to
say it. Thank you, Um we have you might remember
him from the Mountaintop Removal mining episode. Mr Ben so

(32:53):
Lee is joining us again. That's right, and we're gonna
get his insights on a music and emotion as an
artist and then as a special treat. Just like last time,
he's going to play for us. So our second musical
guest is the same as our person. All right. Uh
so let's just get been in here. It's like magic

(33:17):
then soil he is in the studio. Wow, that was Ben,
Thank you for coming. Oh it's my pleasure. Hello. Thanks,
it's good to be here. It's good to be here.
So we did things out of order and Ben actually
just played although through the magic of editing, you will
hear that song in or songs afterwards. Okay, do you
have to give away all our secrets? I know, but
I just wanted to say that I was supercharged after

(33:39):
doing this podcast on music and emotion to experience that
with you in a room with just a few other people. Well,
I can't wait to hear what you've been talking about. That. Well,
that leads me and I see, by the way, into
my first question, which we talked a lot about in
the podcast about um music and emotion and how it

(34:01):
depends on whether or not it's live. Like there's a
difference emotionally whether or not it's live music or like
on a CD. And as an artist, I mean we've
got scientist perspective. As an artist, what has been your
experience with playing live and with how fans receive it
live as opposed to on a CD. Well, you know,

(34:21):
there's on recordings, there's kind of the there's a lot
of room for the listener to um place their own
images and their own ideas into the music and everything,
and it's there's certainly room for that in the live
show as well, but they're also visually seeing what your

(34:42):
body is doing when you say these words, and of
course physical body language is a huge part of of
how we manipulate the meanings of things, and I think
that has a huge amount of input, Um, But I
also think that sometimes it can confuse things. You know,
sometimes people can be seeing you and kind of be

(35:02):
so overwhelmed with what was happening and how it's happening
visually on stage that it doesn't necessarily they don't get
to focus on what might impact them as much musically.
So I think I do think there's two music affects
people differently in live and then recorded settings. That's pretty
much what I said. I think he kind of just
confirmed what you said to me. Um. We talked about

(35:23):
there's a theory that one of the ways music moves
us is because we it's it's a stand in for
human movement. So that would make a lot of sense
that if you're also seeing movement while you're listening to music,
you're just have your mind blown. It's a stand in
for movement. Huh. That's what what was his name, Mark
Changzi something like that. Yeah, that's his theory. That's why

(35:46):
our emotions are unlocked through music is because we we
um visualized movement and we can feel empathy towards human movement.
So the music just reminds us of that movement. It's
a theory. I think he's working on it still. I
think there's I think be interesting to see how it
gets to that part of the brain and what path

(36:07):
it goes through, whether you know, because music kind of
exists through this kind of backdoor in the brain, maybe
the place where speech began and then got its own
apartment later on in life. We we talked all about that.
You're gonna love this podcast. I've got a question, Okay,
So one of the things we talked about Ben was, um,

(36:28):
how when you're observing art or when you're listening to music,
it's like you are unpacking, um, what the artists put
in there emotionally, or the artist is using some sort
of cues to trigger your own emotions. As an artist,
on say the packing side of this whole equation, do
you ever just go like this note is gonna make

(36:50):
everybody just weep on cue or this one's really gonna
get them, Like, do you ever do you think like
that or is it more when you're creating something that
you're you're end of putting yourself in there and it's
open for interpretation. I think there's there's generally two ways
I go about it, and both of them have their
own dangers and pitfalls. When you think when you try

(37:12):
to think of a musical device that's going that can
and will affect people in a certain way, especially if
you're talking about anything with words and music, Um, there's
a danger of kind of watering, watering the emotion down
to something that can be to affect people in a
broad way. Um, not something on Broadway, just people being

(37:35):
affected in kind of like a like for pop music.
We'll just use that as an example. You know a
lot of times when you're listening, you hear things and
sounds and musical repetition that's used because people feel like
it will be a hit or will affect a lot
of people. And uh, And of course when I'm writing songs,

(37:57):
sometimes I could think that I'm being that I can
be too personal with an idea, Like I can get
something that's so personal I'm packing up that bag and
I'm putting you know, undy's in and all this other
stuff and like too specific, and you lose people because
they can't relate to that specific item. But if you
talk about the gesture that's there and try to find

(38:18):
that the essential human expression that's in there, um, then
you have a universal idea, even if it springs from
a very personal experience. So if I was going to
say that another way, I think I would say that, Um,
when you're packing up the bags, you have to be
careful not to be too personal, um, because otherwise you
can lose people. People can almost feel like, um, not

(38:41):
necessarily grossed out, but like they're like they're seeing something
that they shouldn't see or it's too private, Yeah, exactly.
And and so what you need to do is figure
out how your private things relate to their private things
and so create a personal experience that has some type
of universal meaning or expression to it. So when you're

(39:05):
packing the bags, you leave out like the metaphorical leather
hood with the zipper mouth, Yes, I'll leave that out.
And Norton, nor do I make repetition of things that
everybody knows is already there all the time. You know,
like if everybody knows that the doors are closing and
chatting all the time. You don't use that musical device,
which is to say you don't just like, for instance,

(39:27):
in dubstep music, there's a very simple musical pattern that's happening. Basically,
there's a big build, usually for about thirty two bars,
where it's just there's no low end or anything. There's
just big build, build, build, build, and then there's something
called the drop where the base drops back in and
it's like it's supposed to be like this quake of
emotion that happens and everybody's head started just going up

(39:49):
and down, and um. You have to be careful because
it's a pretty simple device and there's lots of different
variations you can do in that on that, but if
you do it too much or too similar each time,
then people are just like, ah, is that just a crescendos. No,
it's not a crescendo, it's a it's a it's an orchestration,

(40:10):
it's an arrangement thing. So a criscendos when things just
kind of grow in volume, and uh, this is much
more of arranging sounds, so that there's some that are
absent and you know, they're going to return, but how
you bring them back in and create anticipation is is
the strength of your composition as a As a dub

(40:32):
step artist, I guess good stuff. We actually have an
article on that and it's on my list dub step.
Robert Lamb will kill you if we record dub step? Uh?
So Ben? As an artist, do you think, like we
talked a lot about the emotional kick like the drug
and you know it releases dopamine and it's actual, there's
science behind it going on? As an artist, do you

(40:53):
find it more difficult to still get that kick or like,
you know, when you hear a song, do you think
I was like as a musician, like, oh I hear
what this person is doing there? Or is it just
still pure emotion going on? Or does it very um?
I think as an artist, once you start repetitively doing something,

(41:13):
there is a tolerance that builds up, which is kind
of a sad thing. Um, And people kind of find
ways to convey that they're still getting that stuff when
they're really not. That makes sense, especially in a live show,
like you'll see a rocker contorting themselves in all kinds
of weird ways and then after the show, they act
like just you can tell that they're not completely high

(41:34):
off of off of the show, at least they're they're
just kind of like, yeah, thanks, um, as opposed to
someone who you've just seem to go through a pretty
magical musical experience and you and you can tell that
everything that they had just kind of came out of
them and they're either bouncing around or they're just completely
a puddle on the floor. You know. I remember seeing
Andrew Bird play a show like that once and he

(41:56):
just gave everything to it, and you can tell he
was having an overwhelming experience and stay went to talk
to him afterwards and he was just he was basically
a puddle. He was a human puddle at the end.
He had just kind of given everything, and you know,
he talks about that and in some of his songs
as well. That actually was one of my other questions
as an artist on stage, like how do you night
after night? How do you draw that up? And does

(42:17):
the emotion of the audience, Um, how much do you
feed off that? And can you you probably just can't
whip that up, so like how does that all work? Yeah,
that's something I probably have to think about how to
answer just for a little bit. But like I guess
the basic question is, like, what's the difference between a
good show and a bad show? Yeah? Sometimes up to

(42:41):
me what was good and bad? Because sometimes I'll have
what's sometimes when I'm playing a live show, I'll have
what seems to be a fairly kind of mundane night,
like nothing really special instrumentally happened. I didn't shred really
much on anything, and I didn't really feel impact. And
then people walk up to this show, walk up to

(43:01):
me after the show, and they'll be kind of having
this intense emotional reaction to it, you know. Um So
there's all kinds of stories and networking going on when
you're playing live on stage. People are getting to know you,
they've spent two hours getting to know you. Uh, They're
checking all kinds of visual cues from you, and of
course you're actually talking to them and telling stories. Um

(43:24):
they're taking cues from everybody else in the audience. So
there's kind of like a tribe build up mentality. Um So,
I think part of it is getting everybody to participate
socially in the show, if you want to get to
that in that energy place where something overwhelming happens to
you and the audience UM, and that usually starts with

(43:47):
it's very much like a combustion, like you have to
ignite it in some way and you feel that coming on.
Like have you been in a show where you feel
like not so much as happening and all of a sudden,
all right, now it's going on. Yeah, you can definitely
feel it when it turns on. There's a a sort
of friction in the room, if that's a good word.
There's some there's definitely some type of resistance that you

(44:10):
can move with, if that makes sense. Like in dance,
when you're doing like ballroom dance, even though the motion
is very fluid, there's a lot of rigidity in it.
Like between partners. You have to you have to kind
of push against your partner and they have to be
rigid to be able to communicate the movement to them,
because you're not gonna be okay, spending the right degrees now,

(44:31):
dip down forty five, You're not gonna use language to them.
You're you're touching and pulling, and but you want to
do it in a fluid, very connected way, and you
can you have that same sort of push and pull
with the audience where when you push against them you
can hear them here or feel them kind of get excited,
and then when you pull back, you can hear them
kind of breathing more. Uh. And when I say pull back,

(44:53):
I mean that can be volume, that can be tempo,
that can be uh frequency range you're including in. There
can be a lot of things. And of course, as
a chela player who did a lot of time sitting
in the back of the orchestra, you I got to
spend time paying attention to that from an orchestral standpoint
where you're on stage with A D people playing to

(45:14):
an audience of however many people, And so that's an
even trickier thing because you got to get the A
D people to create the spark before the audience can
really start combusting, like you can really start feeling that energy.
And that second chair clarinetis is always just messing it up.
Did you play clarinet? Okay? Um? But sometimes the audience

(45:37):
can walk in and create something that may not have
been there otherwise. I really I felt that too, um
where maybe you had a really crappy day or maybe
you just you don't have any energy left after doing
a bunch of media or traveling on the road, and
the audience walks in and they're just they've got an
idea and an expectation that is just buzzing or around

(46:00):
the room, and suddenly you kind of get this encouragement
or a feeling that you're going to fill their cups.
You're gonna you're gonna really have an emotional impact. But
there's no one way that I get my self psyched
up for it to generate that spark. There's not like

(46:20):
one tool, there's no drug that I use. It's just
kind of one of those things where I try to
from the very beginning, it's I try to write songs
that have that personal experience and in it for me
that that igniting artistic moment. Whether whether it's um, you know,
a love song, or whether it's a song about something

(46:42):
stupid that happened between politicians, or a belief in um
some type of social change, or it's or a war
song or something like that. It can be any sort
of thing. When I write it, I tried to be
really honest and genuine about something that really moves me
so that whenever I play it over and over and
over again. The three time I play it, I can

(47:05):
still look back into that song. And for me, it's
very much like that. When I play a song, I'm
I'm remembering and and kind of reliving a little bit
of what happened in that song, but not just what
happened to that song, what happened when I played that
song for the first time in front of a certain
group of people, or when I played that song on
Stuff you Should Know or whatever you know. It kind

(47:27):
of a creates experiences in it, and so that keeps
me getting excited about it, and I think that probably
helps ignite things. Um, have you ever made a stranger
weep with your music? And if so, how do you
feel about that? Now? When you say stranger, you mean
like somebody who just just walking by, has no clue. No, no, no,

(47:47):
not necessarily, just somebody you didn't know, Like somebody who
came to see one of your shows, and like you
look down and you saw like they were crying and
it was obvious it was because your music had brought
something out in them. What was that like? So it's amazing, man?
What is it like? So when I'm when I'm playing,

(48:07):
when I'm playing a song that has a heavy emotion
to me like I've got this one song called Panning
for Gold, and I wrote it about my grandparents who
both had dementia, and UM as they slipped further and
further into that it was it's Alzheimer's and which was
caused the situation of dementia. UM, they kind of forgot

(48:30):
all the good stuff that they've done in the world.
And I used this character, this spiritual character of God
forgetting all the stuff that he created, UM in the
song as a as a kind of like a lyrical
device to show that it's our job to remind each
other of how all the beautiful things that are in

(48:52):
the world. And UM, that was what the song meant
to me. And that's when I first started explaining to people.
But I quickly learned that people would weep to that
song all of their various reasons. The song had was
so um sticky as an artistic idea, the idea of
someone old for getting something that a young person was

(49:14):
supposed to reconnect them with. H or maybe it was
about protecting or preserving something that the audience would all
fill their own minds with ideas and they would just weep,
and some of them would be leaping for joy, someone
would be missing somebody and it was a real, real
mix and I had no control over it. That's the

(49:36):
that's the thing. That's how it feels. It feels like, ah,
I've I've. Even though you feel like you've impacted somebody
in a deep way, you don't feel like you've got
any control over how it happens. So I guess that's
kind of what I was asking was, do you you
don't feel do you feel responsible for putting that out
there and the people are crying or like that you're

(49:57):
just playing and they're attaching they're thing to it. I mean,
usually the thing that coordinates with it is I feel
like I've had a really genuine expression in the song,
you know, from a performance standpo, I feel like it
was a really honest performance. At the time, I'll feel
good about the performance, but I don't really feel like

(50:17):
it's something that I did. I feel like, if I'm
being really honest, it can happen. It's something that I
can create a situation for, but I don't feel like
it's something that I do. I feel like that's kind
of like the communal choice or that person's that person's thing.
Earlier in the show, we talked about each other's um.
We talked about music and memory and how it's tied

(50:38):
to memories and very evocative of You know, a lot
of times songs from like your childhood will keep getting
really specific with a certain memory. And you know, one
of mine was the BGS and a very specific memory, Josh,
what was yours hot Blood in my Foreigner? But I
think everyone wants to know what's the first thing that

(50:58):
comes to your head when you about a song from
your past, from your childhood that really evokes a very
specific memory, Like when you hear it, you're just there. Yeah. Well,
at this point, I've got a bunch At this point
in my career, since I've written a lot of music
and experienced a lot of music, I've got a huge
pile of them. Um. You know, there's a couple of

(51:20):
this this song Wayfaring Stranger traditional Tune. When I play
or sing or hear that song, I go immediately back
to sitting behind my grandfather's house and um, hearing him
play that on fiddle and sing. Um. There's other weird
songs like two Dy Fruity is the song that I

(51:41):
got over stage fright for for some reason. Yeah. I
was in uh grade school choir and I had terrible
stage fright at the time. It was like fifth grade
or whatever, and I was playing chill at the time,
but I was singing in the choir and just I
just couldn't get with it. I was like, I shouldn't
be up there, shouldn't be up here. And at some
point I was kind of food and I looked out

(52:04):
and like there was kids on roller skates and the
hula hoops and the parents were all laughing, and I
was up on stage singing, and I was like, wait,
this is this is affecting people. This is really fun,
this is really affecting people. I can just see myself
up there. I just started shaking. It's like doing food.
Oh rude. And I just I went I go straight
back there whenever I hear that song. That's funny. Yah.

(52:27):
And as a musician, like, what has been your what's
been your best moment as as a fan of music
when you've been in the audience and feeling you know,
that spark in that fire in the room. Mm hmm.
It wasn't that long ago that I saw an artist
named a Neus Mitchell familiar with her at all I

(52:49):
think I know that name. It's really good. She did,
Um she did this kind of contemporary telling of the
story of your ID. It's and Orpheus, but she did
as a folk opera with like Audie d Franco and
Greg Brown and um, gosh, what's the guy from bon

(53:12):
I Just yeah, dude, Yeah, she put together all those
different folks and and created this modern contemporary telling of
it and it's so beautiful. But anyhow, I saw her
performing live and she's just got this way about how
she she just loses herself and and and it's like

(53:33):
she's trying to shake off these words that she just
has to say. Um. Yeah, that's the that's the most
recent times in the audience. I mean, she's just she's
really breathtaking the way she would just flip the words
out and try to Yeah, it was almost like she
was trying to shake off the emotion and when she

(53:54):
shook it off, it ended up all over you in
the audience. That's awesome. It's kind of like galli or
it's very much like Gallagher. I love hearing that is that,
you know, as a music fan, to know that you
can still go out there as a musician and you're
not jaded or cynegal and yeah you can still get
lost like that, Oh, get super lost in it. I
mean right now. The most overwhelming sound that I hear,

(54:15):
of course is an orchestra, because I spent a lot
of years playing in them. And then I also think
they're so um special now because we have so few
of them that are playing at super high levels, because
so many orchestras have closed down, and um, I think
that's a really interesting thing because orchestras ask you to
change your social habit at least for us young folks.

(54:38):
When's the last time you went and saw an orchestra,
either of you? Well? Mine was actually my one of
my best stories from seeing alive. I saw Beethoven's Night
that Carnegie Hall and uh, the oh de joy thing,
Like literally I was sitting there crying like a little baby.
But I think that's probably the last one I saw
that when the dudes come in. Yeah, actually I saw
The Decembrist a couple of years ago with the Land

(55:00):
Symphony Orchestra, which is pretty great. Yeah, a couple of
years ago and as banded with the orchestra. What about
the orchestra? It's been a while and it so yeah,
and I think it's because orchestras ask us to change
our social habits so much to come see them, you
know what I mean for us young folks, like we
don't see shows in concert halls and pay sixty bucks
to do it, and we're a time and we're a

(55:22):
time sitting seats. I don't have drinks, you know, like
and and so even though it's one of the most
um incredible sounds that we create as humans, I mean,
it's it's really powerful sound when you get a full
orchestra there plan as you as you know from your experience,
but we still don't do it because it's so outside

(55:44):
of our zone. And I wonder you know what that
means as we become more and more visually based, like
what does music mean to us? And how does it
really affect us? And and how as musicians can we
uh still affect people in the same way regardless of

(56:04):
an environment. And that's a that's the biggest challenge facing
us right now because most you know, most of our
music is being consumed at MP three quality through people's
you know, phones, streaming or watching an MP three video
or YouTube video something. So you know, as a musician,
I'm looking for the best way to affect people, uh,

(56:25):
and the best way to convey my song or art
or whatever you want to call it. And nowadays it's
just it just gets consumed so many different ways, and
you don't you have no idea how people are gonna
resonate with it, if they're going to resonate with it.
So the best shot that you got at it is
writing something that's really genuine to you as an artist
and then performing it in a really passionate, genuine way.

(56:49):
And in some ways that harkens back to how we
got all started with this thing, which was a bunch
of people sitting around playing music, not professional musicians, playing
two audiences and um, and that's I mean, that's what
people originally were willing to start paying for. Yes, that emotion,
that kind of those those endorphins hit and yeah, all

(57:11):
that stuff that that emotion, that physical effect on your body. Yeah,
I've seen some of the best stuff I've seen has
been like in the subways of New York. You know,
I saw Gota do uh wild Horses by the Rolling Stones,
just by himself acoustically, and no one was paying attention,
And it was one of the most awesome like versions
of that song I've ever heard in my life. Yeah,
and no one was paying attention. Help for you, I

(57:33):
think a couple of people were, but yeah, yeah, well,
I mean that's just it is. How do you get
this kind of goes back to when we just first
started talking, is how do you get folks to pay
attention and get them to realize that there's their stuff
here to be felt and had without whatever using musical

(57:54):
devices that water everything down where you're trying to use
repetition and loudness and big crazy sounds to get their attention,
and you know, you make sure not to leave any
spaces in the song because Heaven forbid you lose their
attention or they not give it to you. Um you know.
So that I think that's one of the challenges for
us is as musicians, as we um march on into

(58:17):
this technology technology ages, not letting the huge pool that
we're swimming in from an industry standpoint where we're trying
to compete for attention or CD sales, whatever you wanna
call it, um affect how we actually make our music. Right,
you still need to make something that is genuine to
yourself otherwise you're not gonna be happy playing it. And

(58:38):
then if you're not happy playing you have got zero
shot at affecting people emotionally. If you don't affect people emotionally,
then they're not going to come to your shows. And
that's really all that we got these days. If you
gonna want to be in a professional musician, been solely
doing things right. When's the album coming out? The new
record Halfway Man's come out September sept Where it's the

(58:59):
best place to buy it? Um, iTunes is a great place.
Um these days, you can get it pretty much anywhere,
but iTunes is a fine place. And you're on tour
right now. Yeah, on tour. We're on tour in our
sweet tour van Tammy as well as on bicycle. All right,
this will be coming out probably close to the release
date of the CD, so you are going to be
on tour this fall as well. Yeah. Absolutely, I'll be

(59:21):
all over the country riding your bike two shows at times.
At times we'll be riding our bike. Most times we'll
be in our tour van and we'll be hitting all
the towns in this country. Ben Silly dot Com. Anything else,
I'm good, Ben, Thanks for coming you were like the
best interview, like literally that was that was a little
bit cyclical. You know, I had to I had to
work my way around some of those answers. You elevate

(59:43):
it to my friend, but you know good. That's the
great thing about this show is that you all let it,
let it comes, not try to design it's existence. We
would fail. I appreciate that. But traditional wrap up. If
you want to get in touch with me and Chuck
and Ben Silly, we can pass things along to him.
You can tweet to us at s Why SKA podcast.

(01:00:05):
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know, and you can send us an email
to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. Killing Young Today
that out and feel this on the high. Don't tell

(01:00:27):
me to slow down. You see I grew up this week, tee.
This shows in highlights. Don't sucking leaves fell into today,

(01:00:48):
Willow like a time you've been through this Sha looking
for hid All I need is one but you yeah,
study I guess he is. If you want something down right, oh,

(01:01:14):
you got to do it to say that. If you
want something bad enough, you got to do what you say.
It's a man in a cage he's started like a

(01:01:38):
feel for the time. We this people who got the
right nicking bess on my car? Your sneak or I
can't look. I know this gout to be a day
a way. And if you ain't gonna do it, I
guess I'll have to because he and you are something

(01:02:09):
d right. You got to do it. Sit and you
are something bad enough. You've got to do it. SI
do your chip. They gotta do your chip. H go

(01:03:53):
do you got to do it? Ship, you got to
do it. You go. For more on this and thousands

(01:04:24):
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com, brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
Are you