Your body feels the notes too!

This is going to sound farfetched but I would like you to bear with me. There is a physical response to the music you hear. There is no coincidence that you get the feeling to shake your rear, or head bang when you hear your favorite sounds. As well as this physical response, there is a very basic emotional response too. Each note pulls up a different part of your mind.

Regarding to how the physical response works, I have not entirely found what notes cause this. I believe this varies much more than emotional response believe it or not - we're all moved by music in our own way.

Looking at an example:



Don't just listen to it. Meditate on it. Use headphones and really feel it. Make it high quality.

Where the lead guitar comes in at :09 you can feel something going through the top of your gut that makes you want to move. A slide at :17 and it kicks into the chorus riff. Focus on your neck, right where the top of the shoulders are - the knot in your neck. Assuming your into the music, your muscles are already moving!

You don't even have to like the music to feel this effect. You can just sit there and meditate on it you'll find yourself moving. The same goes for every style of music.


Next order of business, the basic emotional response. I took my basic knowledge of color theory and applied it to the bass when I learned this. Arranging the notes in a wheel, I got an image like this on my notepad:



You have your perfect 4th 5 notes away going clock-wise and the perfect 5th (power chord) 7 notes away, also clockwise.

After looking at this, I grabbed my bass and played every note over and over until I found a pattern. I eventually did. That feeling in your gut is controlled by what note is played. For lack of a better word, I'll describe the place where you feel emotions as your gut. I would assume that no two people are exactly the same in this regard.

If you have your bass and amp with you, go ahead and play a B note. What octave you play it in does not matter. 2 on the A string is what I used. Do the same thing that you did with the song from earlier, feel the note. Now play a C#, 4 on the A string. You should notice that you feel these notes in completely different parts of your gut. Now C, 3 on the A string. This note rings out almost everywhere at once, it's interesting.

(If you do not have your bass, but have sound, follow the exercise with thishttp://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/music/piano/flute.htm)

Really focusing on this, I was able to find that C# is the lowest note that you feel. You feel it at the base of you. Going up one fret at a time on the A string, 5--6--7--8--9--10--11--12--13--14. You'll find that the position of that feeling moves. It's going up until it reaches the highest part of your gut. This is B, which is the highest note. Then C, where it rings out in no one spot.

This is the same for every octave, lower sounds have a more round, punchy feel while higher notes have a sharp feel. In regard to chords, the inital feeling seems to be provided by the root note.

How exactly this applies to music I don't know yet. But it's interesting to learn about... I first heard this from my brother and I thought he was nuts. Spending quality time making love to my bass, I found what he was talking about. I have never heard anyone speak of this topic, so I figured I would post my findings and see what you guys think of it. I'm working on music that provokes a specific emotion - things like this is very helpful to know.

I'll be making a post soon regarding how each note effects you in different ways. The Buddhist monks always hummed B flat because it has been proven that it makes you think, for example.

I agree that you feel it. Music is amazing. When you hear music you like your brain lights up in all the right places. By that I mean that all the parts of your brain associated with pleasure become active.

It's my opinion however that it's so much more than just the note that makes you feel. It's the way it's played. The key. The combination of other notes. The chords. Everything comes into play. There's a reason that when I listen to Metallica I want to head bang and when I listen to Phish I want to get up and just move around grooving. A lot of it has to do with the type of music.

I do agree that it's extremely interesting. But at the same time isn't it kind of obvious? People overlook it but it just makes sense. Why would humans go through all the trouble that we do to learn instruments, play music, and listen to music if there was not a real response from our body?

McSnuggles wrote: It's my opinion however that it's so much more than just the note that makes you feel. It's the way it's played. The key. The combination of other notes. The chords. Everything comes into play. There's a reason that when I listen to Metallica I want to head bang and when I listen to Phish I want to get up and just move around grooving. A lot of it has to do with the type of music.

I do agree that it's extremely interesting. But at the same time isn't it kind of obvious? People overlook it but it just makes sense. Why would humans go through all the trouble that we do to learn instruments, play music, and listen to music if there was not a real response from our body?

At the core, music is just an arrangement of sounds. A bit more complex and you have notes and percussive sounds. Focusing on each individual note is of course no way to say why this song makes you feel this way. This is merely a look at how each individual sound has a unique effect - this in itself is amazing to me. Going into using different rhythms and note combinations, you provoke many different emotions. Much too broad to cover on a case to case basis.

Any mental response provides a physical one as well. But I do agree with the fact of it being somewhat of a 'duh' thing.

McSnuggles wrote:I agree that you feel it. Music is amazing. When you hear music you like your brain lights up in all the right places. By that I mean that all the parts of your brain associated with pleasure become active.

It's my opinion however that it's so much more than just the note that makes you feel. It's the way it's played. The key. The combination of other notes. The chords. Everything comes into play. There's a reason that when I listen to Metallica I want to head bang and when I listen to Phish I want to get up and just move around grooving. A lot of it has to do with the type of music.

I do agree that it's extremely interesting. But at the same time isn't it kind of obvious? People overlook it but it just makes sense. Why would humans go through all the trouble that we do to learn instruments, play music, and listen to music if there was not a real response from our body?

Totally agree!!

This is an awesome post....

I sense a sticky!

Well to see a more open result try more open and clear beats.

For example this song:

Notice it?

Protoplm wrote:At the core, music is just an arrangement of sounds. A bit more complex and you have notes and percussive sounds. Focusing on each individual note is of course no way to say why this song makes you feel this way. This is merely a look at how each individual sound has a unique effect - this in itself is amazing to me. Going into using different rhythms and note combinations, you provoke many different emotions. Much too broad to cover on a case to case basis.

I totally agree with you. It's extremely interesting. And it is the singular sounds and how they affect you that combine to give the full effect of the song.

Now I've always thought this is interesting too. The way that silence can have that exact same feeling. During a rest in a song you feel this longing like you know something is coming and you really, really want it to. Listen to the song Cliff posted and feel that rest in there. I've always found that something that a lot of musicians, sadly, overlook. Or listen to a song that you really love and then immediately afterword you have this feeling in your gut. You want to hear it again. It's truely amazing.

McSnuggles wrote:

Protoplm wrote:At the core, music is just an arrangement of sounds. A bit more complex and you have notes and percussive sounds. Focusing on each individual note is of course no way to say why this song makes you feel this way. This is merely a look at how each individual sound has a unique effect - this in itself is amazing to me. Going into using different rhythms and note combinations, you provoke many different emotions. Much too broad to cover on a case to case basis.

I totally agree with you. It's extremely interesting. And it is the singular sounds and how they affect you that combine to give the full effect of the song.

Now I've always thought this is interesting too. The way that silence can have that exact same feeling. During a rest in a song you feel this longing like you know something is coming and you really, really want it to. Listen to the song Cliff posted and feel that rest in there. I've always found that something that a lot of musicians, sadly, overlook. Or listen to a song that you really love and then immediately afterword you have this feeling in your gut. You want to hear it again. It's truely amazing.

Ah, I completely overlooked rests in this whole topic, but I suppose that fits back into rhythm. Knowing what not to play is more important than knowing what to play in some cases

Dmanlamius wrote:
This is an awesome post....

I sense a sticky!

I don't feel this deserves a sticky - it wouldn't in a more structured forum. If you want to make this note worthy, I think you should make a thread and link to certain posts across the forum that are much worth the time. Doc's post on the 1 finger technique and many of Smaz's posts come to mind.

My grammar also isn't exactly perfect either, I'd be hard pressed to fix everything .

Very true, but i'm very much into the "etheral" side of music as well.

There is a lot of technique, and physical stuff on this forum, and in my lessons, but I am very much a feeling and ear player. I wouldn't want to emulate a structured forum, as...well, there are loads of structured forums out there, and it's not really me! Talkbass is talkbass, Kris is Kris.

I study, tai chi and I meditate. I relate it all to music. I'm writing a book, about thinking out of the box a bit, and approaching bass ( and music ) in a different way.

So your post resonated with me, as it's something my friends and I discuss a lot. We go into it a lot deeper, though, applying physics and geometry. It's scary how music and scince are related.

No sticky, then. I'll make it a blog post for now.

Blog Post!

Cliff em' all wrote:Well to see a more open result try more open and clear beats.

For example this song:

Notice it?

seriously that scared me
in the rest just before the song really kicks in i felt my muscels tighten and i started getting shivers down my spine
music trully is awesome

this may explain why rap that is just drums and vocals is so dry and never really conveys any emotion

maxf13 wrote:this may explain why rap that is just drums and vocals is so dry and never really conveys any emotion

Nay, rap is all about the notes and the groove. You have an up beat, usually somewhat complicated beat that drags everything together - leaving your focus on the notes the vocalist hits and the rhythm. Probably leading to you remembering what the actual rap sounds like, but nothing he's saying.. the hook in a song is what makes you remember it - without that hook the song is.. not there in your head. Same applies to vocals.

Ironically Hip-hop is the opposite way, using a simple beat that is along the bpm of your heart. This keeps the rhythm in check with your body, so you don't focus on it. This leaves a nearly generic sounding beat to most hip hop songs and has almost all the emotion/focus on the lyrics..

While hip-hop is on an unrelated note I felt like ranting.