"Why does music make us emotional?" Good question, and one that Luke Turner has regularly pondered, as a lifelong music fan, music writer and founder of the Quietus. He set out to find some answers in a recent episode of the Why? podcast, by talking to Catherine Loveday, Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Westminster.
Over the course of a fascinating half hour, the pair discussed everything from music's visible impact on the brain to its role in communication and the similarities and differences in how different people and different cultures hear, process and value certain forms of music and varieties of sound.
Particularly interesting to me was the pair's talk of the "reminiscence bump" and the fact that our emotional attachment to music is especially strong during our teenage years - which partly accounts for our tendency to return to the familiar and its more extreme manifestation, the depressingly closed-minded complaint that there's "no good music" anymore. Loveday attributed this intense youthful attachment to psychological/existential insecurity and the process of identity formation, which explains why someone rubbishing your favourite teenage artists smarts so much. I vividly recall mocking a good friend's love of Britpop and it being received like a savagely personal attack.
Loveday was recommended to Turner as an expert interviewee by Jude Rogers, who spoke to her for The Sound Of Being Human. The episode felt like a taster for Rogers' book, and (personally speaking) served as another reminder to pick up a copy.
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