The Reason Behind Musical Preferences
Everyone's experience with music is different than others, and tastes change over time. Though there is one thing that is true, music plays a huge role in everyone's life. Either to express, reinforce or alleviate emotions, artists have achieved this for their listeners since it seems the beginning of time. But how different can we all really be when it comes to our preference, and what is the reason behind this?
Some of our music preference is cultural. Certain combinations of sounds may be more common in particular geographic regions. Lifelong familiarity with these patterns would be a reason to prefer them.
In another study, infants and babies of musical mothers were placed backstage during the performance of the mothers. In each performance, the baby that belonged to the mother currently performing was the most soothed, and the music played by other mothers was not as effective.
In 1990, Nim Tottenham studied musical preferences of kids who were seven years old at the time. She played them the top hits (for her group, the #1 in the USA was by the Backstreet Boys). In 2012 when these kids were 22, she looked at musical preferences (and emotional comfort- defined by biorhythms) while listening to various songs from different eras including those which were on the charts when they were children. The music that they experienced as kids had the greatest capacity to reduce anxiety.
Lastly, our peers can have some influence when it comes to our musical preference. Every generation seems to have its own music mostly favored to those that belong to that time that the older generations “can’t understand.” We introduce each other to different music styles and bond around our own brand of music.
Overall it is hard to pinpoint the exact reason someone might have an attachment to a certain genre or style, but looking into the explanations above can give at least a little input. Without our unique preferences things wouldn't be as interesting anyways. Next time you’re listening to your favorite song think about how different that choice would have been 5 years ago and how your own taste has changed over that time.
