Listening to songs can cause a physiological response known as “frisson” | Hacker News Reader

Listening to songs can cause a physiological response known as “frisson”

bigthink.com

288 pointsmhb150 comments

“Expectancy violations (e.g., harmonic, rhythmic, and/or melodic violations) are strongly correlated to the onset of musical frisson, such that some level of violated expectation may be a prerequisite.”

Interesting. The Spotify playlist didn't do much for me, but when I think of a couple moments in songs that always give me chills, they all feature that pattern:

Nightwish, Ghost Love Score, Wacken 2013 @ 9:22, affectionately nicknamed the "Floor-gasm" by fans. The melody line feels like it's already gone as high as she can possibly go and is just going to descend by a couple notes. Instead she takes it up another 5th to what feels like an impossibly high note, and then holds it there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47e_961OQWE#t=528

Dream Theater, A Change of Seasons, @ 13:01 and again @ 13:28. It follows one of the odd-time-signatures, chromatic-only jam sessions, and then the band teases an end multiple times starting @ 12:40. When the jam session finally resolves into 4/4 time and the guitar comes in with those held power chords, you're like "Ahhh...." and then just as you start grooving along to that rhythm, the guitars/bass/drums drop out entirely and it's just acapella vocals over keys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZKrwJzGg0k#t=730

I too was thinking about Ghost Love Score. I get it especially when watching reaction videos when noticing that others are getting it. So, it might not just due to the music itself, but also be a social/emotional effect. I have literally have weekends where I only watched reaction videos and got it over and over again.

My favourite moment in Ghost Love Score is much earlier in the song, at t=158, "into the blue memory". That transition and the melodic line following it ("still I write...everything I may ever be") is pure gold.

And the greatest frisson moment in the whole of Anglican choral music: the Nunc Dimittis from Herbert Howells' Gloucester Service.

Start listening at the beginning of the Gloria (well, listen to the whole thing if you can, but if you're pushed for time start here):

https://youtu.be/4jmxJa4kMGM?t=131

The famous frisson moment in this recording is at 2m57: "as it was". Three reasons. One is the shifting chords in the organ part and the tenor/bass parts that lead up to it (the "expectancy violations"). The second is just the pure thrill of trebles soaring to a top A like that. And the third you only get if you listened to the Magnificat beforehand, which in its natural environment - a service of choral Evensong - you would: the "as it was" in the Gloria of the Nunc is _almost_ exactly the same as it was in the Mag... just a beat later. Pure "expectancy violation" again.

Howells is full of these moments. The big, crunchy, discordant Amen in the Gloria of the Magdalen Service is my favourite - where the harmonies are offset by a crescendo/diminuendo/crescendo sequence in the choir, all on the same note.

That was electric. Thank you. I have also had a few of those experiences singing and some old Benjamin Britten masses.

The ending of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 does it for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYM54vhLYTU

Beautiful, I also like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQadcm_dwEM&list=WL&index=10 - Libera

> Nightwish, Ghost Love Score, Wacken 2013 @ 9:22, affectionately nicknamed the "Floor-gasm" by fans.

I saw Floor Jansen live last month. It was to a different song, but it was the first time ever that live music gave me goosebumps. And I've seen a lot of live music.

Floor is one of the best living vocalists and she is absolutely incredible live.

Her cover of Phantom of the Opera with Hank Poort is absolutely divine.

https://youtu.be/plCScjvDOJM

You need to be at least a little bit in the mood to give this effect a chance I guess. If you play the songs on your phone in between finishing breakfast and taking a dump, not much will happen. I know some of the songs on that list gave me that feeling in the past, now I only need to find some time to give the others a try.

One of my favourites is Symptom of the universe by Black Sabbath.

It's a classic Sabbath style tune with a hard hitting riff, solid drums, vocals and all that. The song seems to be winding down after the 4 minute mark with a standard fade out.

But then something magical starts at 4:23.

Gives me the chills every single time.

https://youtu.be/4qDYa2aIBxw

It feels like this is an example of a song structure that frequently leads to frisson, where you have a standard pop song (verse-chorus, repeated about 3x, maybe a solo), a long instrumental part that feels like an outtro and often has irregular rhythms or key changes...and then the song reconvenes with a vocal part that's either a small variation on the original pop song or something totally different. Other examples of this pattern:

Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody @ 3:05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ&t=150

Pink Floyd, Echoes @ 19:12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBca3xf-j3o&t=840

Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother @ 19:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fku7hi5kI-c&t=1080s

Ozzy Osbourne, No More Tears @ 4:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprfjfN5PRs&t=220

Styx, Come Sail Away @ 2:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5MAg_yWsq8&t=140s

Metallica, Master of Puppets @ 4:50 (mentioned in the article)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obBdrfUMzU&t=270s

Meatloaf, Bat out of Hell @ 7:38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ES7ueI7p0&t=420s

Eric Clapton, Layla (original version) @ 3:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WUdlaLWSVM&t=170s

Piano Guys ft. Taylor Swift & Coldplay, Love Story Meets Viva La Vida @ 3:43

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k&t=185s

This is a common thing in the Metalcore scene at least around 2005 - 2010. All That Remains, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, etc. It's still pretty common though. Very heavy music followed by super melodic choruses. Some songs even feature acoustic bridges and instrumentals. The contrast between verse and chorus really pays off the listener.

>Piano Guys ft. Taylor Swift & Coldplay, Love Story Meets Viva La Vida @ 3:43

I got an unskippable YT double ad at exactly 3:42. I hate YT so freaking much.

Intro to Money for nothing gets me every time. When the chaos resolves to that crunchy riff i get chills. You need to listen to it where the drums are actually hitting you though.

If you like that, I suspect you'd enjoy Breaking Into Heaven[1] by The Stone Roses. It is a much longer walk (as in a few minutes long), but I highly recommend sitting through the chaos until it resolves, as you say.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nu5YLoaxHc

The last few minutes of I Am the Resurrection by The Stone Roses are pretty reliable for me.

I suppose that's also how songs wear out with time and/or repeated listens. Fittingly, any frisson seems to be the first to go.

I'll contribute Stellenbosch University Choir's rendition of Say Something (by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera). The arrangement capitalizes on the choir's dynamic range; by remaining relatively soft throughout, the sudden loud, tutti passages (1:38 & 3:51) have great effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnPAIFn32A

I find that choral performances of pop songs work really well, though they're regrettably but understandably rare. Interestingly, the focus on dynamics isn't present in the original, duet, or Pentatonix version of Say Something, so no frisson moments there. Someone listed Bohemian Rhapsody--can also compare with Stellenbosch's version:

https://soundcloud.com/uschoirkoor/bohemian-rhapsody

For me, this depends on the composer. E.g. Beethoven moments wear down quickly on repeated listening, while Bach's moments are more durable.

(10 days later...for the record): Turns out choral covers of pop songs are more common than I'd remembered. It's just that the most relevant search term is popchoir/pop choir, which wasn't obvious to me until I noticed it used in several video titles in sequence. These tend to be performed by less formal community choirs, which makes sense. And though many have mic setups, the point about choirs being difficult to record still applies.

The interesting bit is that many European languages have converged on the same juxtaposition of the lexemes <pop><choir>, with the former consistently being a loanword from English. That is, there are lots of search results to be found by translating literally to terms like popchor (German), popkoor (Dutch), поп-хор (several Slavic languages), or popcoro (several Romance languages), plus hyphen and space variations.

> Expectancy violations (e.g., harmonic, rhythmic, and/or melodic violations) are strongly correlated to the onset of musical frisson

Listening to Funkadelic's Maggot Brain album while under the influence of strong hallucinogens turned my regular frissons into full blown waves of pleasure in my body, which I remember were directly correlated to harmony, call-and-response and the play of consonance and dissonance that's so taken for granted in music.

A dissonant chord would make me tense up, and the subsequent resolution would just feel like a blanket of warm pleasure rolling over me.

The first time I heard Maggot Brain, I was on hallucinogens.

It was probably the most ecstatic I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

I will never ever forget that day.

> when I think of a couple moments in songs that always give me chills

There are a couple of songs giving me chills when I'm singing them myself. Not every time, only when I'm in a appropriate mood. So expectation violation doesn't seem a cause.

I don't know exactly what "contrasive valence" is, but it sounds more like it. I think my chills correlate with a qualitative change in an emotions. The short moment when one emotion is transformed into other induce frisson. Some change in a way how I interpret things, or how I feel about them, or both. It must correlate with some properties of a music, because it is one of the ways to change emotional content, but it is not the cause. Sometimes it is one of the causes in a chain of causes.

Thinking about it, not every transformation of emotions gives me chills, sometimes I get tears in my eyes without any chills.

I never thought I'd see Nightwish on HN! they are amazing

on the theme of Nordic chills, does anyone remember Árstíðir - Heyr himna smiður (Icelandic hymn) in train station?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=e4dT8FJ2GE0

Love seeing Dream Theater on HN. The first I heard of the term "frisson" was a discussion on the dream theater forums, and I was interested to see that some people don't experience it at all.

Another DT song moment that gets me is in Scarred, climaxing with the lyric "Sometimes I feel I should face this alone, My soul exposed, It calms me to know that I won't".

Awake is one of DTs best album, I’m a huge fan of Jordan Rudess but listening to Awake there’s just that “something special” that Kevin Moore added to the band that is indescribable and unmatchable.

Always fun to see Dream Theater brough up outside of fan forums, they’ve been my favorite band for over 20 years.

A Change of Seasons is one of the greatest compositions of all time, in my opinion.

Breaking All Illusions is another track that just gives “that feeling” though it’s a bit “musically dense” so it might take a few listens to really digest it for some.

Disappear and The Spirit Carries On are also the only songs that have ever made me cry like a baby.

Not even a Nightwish fan and just that little snippet of the song gave me chills. Like immediately. Maybe I'm a fan now? Thanks for that.

Thanks for mentioning that Nightwish song. I hadn't listened to them in 18 years or so and I completely missed that they switched vocalists again. She's utterly amazing and her stage presence is formidable.

I'm wondering if this counts as fission: East Village Opera Company, "When I am Laid in Earth Redux", the key shift(?) at 2:22.

Afaict, frission isn't a quality of music itself, but rather a chill-like response you may have while listening to certain songs. If you get frission while you listen to a song, then yes, it counts as frission to you.

Edit: but yes, this key shift is rather beautiful and unexpected.

+1 for Dream Theatre. Progressive metal is my number one source of Frisson. Brutal, heavy lows followed by soaring, melodic highs really does it for me.

Before I learned of the name frisson, I always thought it was an adrenaline response.

I'm not that into metal bands, but I figured I'd give your examples a listen. At first I didn't think much of it, but right at 9:22 when she hits that note... frisson!

I'll reply with the best examples I know. It's likely that this phenomenon is very personal, though.

Carlo Gesualdo, Tenebrae Responsories. Three nights full of "Expectancy violations", unparalleled word painting, cross relations... definitely do reference the text in translation, because the word painting is a huge part of the beauty of the work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtYMrQjbSak (1 of 27)

Bruckner, 4th symphony, finale. https://youtu.be/o0g82i784bw?t=4440

Bruckner, 8th symphony, finale. https://youtu.be/elVHvTrEM34?t=5610

The 8th symphony is titanic, but worth it if you can set aside 2 hours. I like Celibidache's recordings best.

What a surprise reading your comment citing Nightwish! When I read the post headline, I immediately thought about the Nightwish song "Amaranth". It was really the most powerful, memorable and long lasting frisson I had ever experienced.

One of the definitive examples has to be Radiohead's How to Disappear Completely [1]. 2 or 3 great frisson moments in there. The big one is toward the end, when the strings decay and smudge into atonal textures (very very heavily influenced by the 20th-century composer Penderecki) and then suddenly come back into focus as the song climaxes.

It's just so incredibly well-done that I feel like even people who only listen to classical and jazz, or whatever, would have to acknowledge they really landed something there.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W6HhdqA95w (4:25 would be a good place to start, but it's not nearly as good if you don't listen to the whole thing)

I notice that most frisson moments have a nostalgia connection for me, possibly unlocking the feeling I had experiencing that thing at a younger age when everything seemed more awesome.

Some examples, each about 10 seconds before.

https://youtu.be/ir5_fajcohM?t=252 (whole sequence has many, this one the biggest) https://youtu.be/t3mA6gwPbzw?t=42 https://youtu.be/7oelg2Ik8-M?t=35

High pitched vocals also often do it: https://youtu.be/bo_efYhYU2A?t=96

Or amazing visuals paired with music: https://youtu.be/65zm8ozcWl4?t=120 https://youtu.be/YFR-cJ4OM6M?t=422

I remember discovering this phenomenon in high school and my buddy dubbed it a metalgasm, when you feel the blood draining from your face, the goosebumps and all of those other feelings.

A few years later I launched metalgasm.com (early 2000s), it is offline now, but it was a place to record your metalgasms or frissons (which I never had heard of until now) with timestamps so people could explore new metal and sort by sub-genre tag and know which songs are the most metalgasmic and which parts to look out for. There is so much to discover and sometimes you think you don't like a genre, but you just haven't found the right band or songs to get you started.

I can tell you that Ghost Love Score had the most entries and Dream Theater made up most of the rest of the site. It's fun to look through what's still on the Internet Archive. Maybe I should rebuild and launch the site again for fun.

That Nightwish video already gets into the flow half a minute before peaking at the time stamp. Very effective. The Dream Theater track does nothing for me, it sounds too clean cut.

One I remember from my childhood that always did the trick is the Yu-Gi-Oh theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjdNz071O4E.

I can't overstate how important music is to my productivity.

What I listen to is extremely dependent on my mood and energy levels, but I almost always have on some long playlists (or better still, a single long youtube video, with adblocker on of course).

When I need calm, awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSrQ_c904M

Upbeat productivity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-NXWQ9QZwo#t=27m13s

When I want to be distanced and creative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI4-HUn8dFc#t=26m54s

When I want something fun (although also a little distracting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SolEjKrcg4E&t=39m11s

Lol are you me? I listen to the exact same. Will add this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q3_fB1LqV0

I'm only a few minutes in, but it's amazing, thank you for sharing.

JimTV is great for this. https://youtu.be/wTvkT6Q_CwI

Heavy metal works for me, for upbeat productivity.

Specifically black metal and blackened death metal for me.

edit/ And Sludge.

Same here. There is someting with the almost complete saturation of the mid- and upper frequencies of BM that focuses me like nothing else.

If anyone has a good starting point for a BM newbie (preferably a playlist or album), please suggest.

Lots of different styles that can fall under BM but here is some:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3LHSxySCaooKrQxuLtuYSV?si=OVS...

Wolves in the Throneroom, kind of dreamy artsy style. I'd like to think of these guys as the Pink Floyd of BM.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5t5tP8dVwdyI8yTShWcIzX?si=zzL...

Satyricon, started out oldschool and raw, evolved to a more polished more produced (clean vocals even!). This album is right at the start of the more polished style but still quite a lot of energy.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4a4g7PAi7KRsCQykBFqE5E?si=4LG...

Darkthrone, about as raw as it gets while still good. 2 guys and a porta studio, never played live.

https://open.spotify.com/album/63NhXXsb7BNEtLCTnYzub2?si=8qL...

Feminazgul, deep in the nerdery now. Queer themed with Tolkien inspired/ripped lyrics.

Can definitely confirm that. It's one of the few genres (with general Metal, some Crust/Sludge/Old-school Rock being among the main alternatives) that's able to touch me on an emotional level while managing to keep my attention without me zoning out.

It use to for me too. But these days I need to chill more to Dark Ambient.

on the other hand I cannot listen to music and work, if it's music I like.

Yep. Either I tune out the music or I can't focus no the work.

I recently threw together a simple website for this purpose – love those YouTube playlists, but having YT open during my work sessions was hurting my overall productivity.

https://radio.writing.fm

Thanks for sharing. I can’t listen to songs with lyrics when I work - but the structure of the music seems to have the frisson, although I’m usually so far in a work groove that it doesn’t necessarily make my hairs stand up, but instead subconsciously motivates me more to get into a flow. Usually it’s mostly electronic (ie https://m.soundcloud.com/kobeyo) or classical. When watching classical live I get the frisson. When I’m at an electronic event they really play with the buildups and the frisson seems like the goal (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=quoAVYJfDuU)

My dad constantly listens to the same era of music, the 60s and early 70s…like every night. I think this brings back memories of when he was growing up and of the times (lots of political / social changes) because he just starts ranting about high school and super detailed small things that happened to him like almost 50 years ago. I speak three languages and can’t remember anything from my past almost. The music really puts him on a time machine, it’s pretty interesting to observe…it’s like this frisson thing is going non stop.

Thank you. I mean the thanks, but must listen later. This comment will remind me.

After working with and without music for over 20 years I think working without music makes me more productive, working with music is more pleasant.

For me, music is only helpful if I'm in the flow. If I'm trying to figure something out (i.e. in the creative part of work) it only distracts, but for the parts that are more mechanical, music is a great catalyst.

Nice to see that other people love Donkey Kong. Here's what I have to share.

When I study (mostly algorithms and mathy stuff) I listen to this: https://youtu.be/daOaDBIh9xo

For chilling I prefer this: https://youtu.be/CKAc3nYEatw

For coding session (where I need to be creative) I listen to this in loop (usually 9-10 times in a row per session (I code a lot, mostly JS (I got a different song for Rust, I feel like for Rust different brain regions need to be activated))) https://youtu.be/AnEfB1F9BaY

When I travel to work (literally _travel_ to work, I choose working locations far away from my apartment, so I can walk there. The furthest was like 20 miles.) For this, I listen to this: https://youtu.be/0ttYoJk5sHY

I briefly mention this phenomenon in Designing Sound [1], and have since learned there are several forms of it elicited aurally.

As well as the pleasurable goose-bumps associated with positive musical emotion there's another kind, an 'uneasy' frission that is the feeling of hairs on the back of your neck raising.

While the "Wilhelm scream" is the most talked about sound design cliche, probably the one familiar to most of you will actually be the "doom tone" (60-100Hz noise bands), a signifier of "space", "evil" etc - think of Vader's "force choke".

It's a great example of a fear response that is hard-wired, because it represents danger, avalanche, thunder, earthquake or stampeding animals. We have deep auditory circuit, and evolutionary advantage to run away.

The other kind of frission stimulated by very high buzzing seems more mysterious. I discussed with sound designer prof. Mark Grimshaw, who amongst other things is an expert on the horror/suspense genre [2], as to why some screeching (bat-like) or buzzing sounds might give us such creepy feelings. It turns out the sound of mosquitos causes the hairs on the neck to stand up - likely a defence against being bitten when we were much hairier creatures.

Still mysterious, I think, is the reason nails on a blackboard "hurts your teeth", and the exact mechanism and function of pleasurable frission is still a mystery as far as I know. I suspect it may have a social signalling utility, much like blushing. In times when we were much more attuned to each others' body states there could be an evolutionary advantage to signalling when we feel good about something.

[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/designing-sound

[2] https://sonicfield.org/sonic-virtuality-sound-as-emergent/

Could you link to an example of a doom tone?

This album is full of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjrvXtDwEFc

When the T-1000 appears: https://youtu.be/vIfUW5-qkc4?t=10

Not a link, but many (most) David Lynch movies/shorts have a low background drone that is discomforting in an otherwise normal scene. It often changes tone with shot changes giving the impression that impending physical danger is approaching or receding but never comes.

More than almost any other director, his movies make me “feel” a particular way (mostly uncomfortable).

For anyone interested: When removing the dialogue audio channel from Twin Peaks episodes, it is nice to discover the rich tapestry of sound design hidden underneath. Listen to the sounds extracts these layers for you personal enjoyment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZMZEaK4lQ

I believe it's frisson, not frission

s/frission/frisson : You're right indeed! there'e what happens when the previous article you're reading is on nuclear power :)

Commenting to refer in the future.

Note that you can favorite comments as well as articles. It's in the info bar next to "flag" on the write reply page. You can retrieve them later through your profile page.

I've read those explanations of 'avalanche, thunder, earthquake, stampeding animals' before, but I think those are bunk. Most of those are far too rare to cause evolutionary pressure. Wolves, on the other hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrU4OY6W1qE

Used for a nice effect in music too, in Ben Frost's the carpatians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qheTGTNxRVs

Try listening to that in a dark room!

I used to love the subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/top/?sort=top&t=all which is now kind of inactive.

Surprisingly to me, music didn't work as well as images/text for inducing frisson. For example I reread this piece very often: https://i.imgur.com/jrlpeme.jpg

Conscience of a Hacker [0] does it for me.

[0] http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

I accidentally clicked this on my phone. Skimmed it. Read the last paragraph. Ignored it. Thought about it. Can confirm: it worked.

Almost every line of this does it for me, every time.

https://i.redd.it/kv1vxq40nam21.jpg

my favourite

Thank you for this

Hmm, I spot checked a bunch of songs in the list and only listened to songs I haven't heard of and I didn't get goosebumps or any hint of frission once.

But I get goosebumps / etc. all the time when I listen to music I like, even songs I've listened to 50 times.

Is it really considered "scientifically proven" at that point? It sounds more like "if you like music, you'll probably get goosebumps when you listen to specific segments of songs you like".

What's really interesting to me is YouTube recently released a new feature into their video player that shows how frequently a certain point of a video was replayed. Even calling out "most replayed" with a label in the timeline. I'd be curious to see if frission points are associated to that.

I listened to 2 songs I like and in both cases the most replayed label was near the frission points.

This song's replay graph lines up with that perfectly for me, there's a large spike of replays at https://youtu.be/xHE5g9YgkFg?list=RDKAJhswlEdTo&t=163 but the "most replayed" part is 2 seconds after the build up. If I listen to 2:42 to 2:57, I will get a small amount of frission at 2:58 and then 2 more bigger "frissions" at 3:02 and 3:05.

I'm not saying it can't happen organically with an unheard song, I'm sure it can. But, sticking with the Dream Theater thread, I KNOW these events happen in their songs, I know where they'll happen, I know when they'll happen, and even give all that, they're still exciting when they do.

A musician friend of mine said that a key aspect of music is "surprise", and, obviously surprise can happen anywhere and everywhere. But the downside of surprise is that it can only happen once.

At Knott's Berry Farm, they have a log ride. Very nice log ride, lots of thematic elements scattered about. It also has a dark section, everything is blacked out. (Spoiler) In the middle of the dark section is a drop, and it's very surprising.

Ride on it again, though, and it's thrilling. You know it's there. You know it's coming, but it's a thrill nonetheless. How many times have you been on a roller coaster and said something like "Here it comes!".

Dream Theaters music, for me, is filled with these moments. When I first listen to a new DT album, inevitably, I won't like it. It takes me a solid 10 times to get in to its "groove", to find it's surprises. In the end, it grabs hold of me and I look forward to those "moments".

And, to do so, I'll listen to the whole song. I won't skip to "just that moment", because it's not the same. I'll listen to the whole 20 minute song to get to the moment at the end, "journey is the reward" kind of thing. You can't reduce a 20m song to those few crescendo moments.

Surprise is a decoupled feeling from enjoyment I think. Having a good surprise in music is great because you think "wow, I can't believe that was so good" but then you can enjoy it 100 more times over the next 5 years.

I can like a song a lot the first time I hear it and often times that is the basis on whether or not I'll listen to it again or semi-routinely.

I really do think "likeness" plays a major role in the frission itself. I listened to a couple of tracks in the article's list multiple times since my original reply and felt nothing. I can appreciate the workmanship that went into creating it but it didn't spark anything and I'll likely never be inclined to listen to them again.

Music is an extremely complex subject, there's so many variables that go into filtering what you like and dislike. There's also a huge amount of things that go into bucketing a track into "this is basically torture" to "I'm embarrassed to listen to this alone" to "acceptable background noise" to "I would be upset if I could never listen to this again".

Spotify playlist from the article: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/54ZA9LXFvvFujmOVWXpHga?si=...

Noticed Ave Maria is on that playlist. It’s obvious why it’s so famous but hearing it recently in The Batman definitely gave me “the feeling” the article is taking about.

Schubert's "Ave Maria" is the one that gets to me the most, although I associate it with action scenes where you can not hear the protagonists, with glass breaking in slow motion, from movies and video games.

Music is a big part of my life and I get this a lot. I've seen particular shows where this has been such a thing I remember it years later.

Jeff Buckley's Grace is an album that does this for me - I recently got the chance to listen to it at a Pitchblack Playback (https://pitchblackplayback.com/), which I absolutely recommend to any music fans. The heightened senses do very strange things to you, especially when it's already an evocative record!

Fwiw, the "frissons" (free-saws) is the cajun word for "the heebie-jeebies".

Not just Cajun, more generally a French and french-derivatives word.

Previously reading on this topic and found out only a small percentage of people feel music emotionally. I was very curious, as my experiences are very intense, from frisson to full blown breakdown, chills, crying and overwhelmed completely.

Was recently 'diagnosed' as gifted but there's no explanation as to why I feel music so intensely. Perhaps part of the whole thing, I became an autodidact musician and music is pure bliss to my ears.

I'm probably on the gifted spectrum (145 or something on raven matrices online test) and music is indescribably beautiful to me. Not always but often. Music also often makes me laugh, when it discovers an unusual space. I get the same emotional reaction to new intellectual insights.

I've experienced frisson at great moments in music but only when fantasising about performing the music (or some part of it) myself. I did a lot of this as a teenager...

the article claims the playlist is "scientifically verified" ... but doesn't seem to cover the science behind the list construction or verification. is there a background article somewhere else?

I wish there was. There's so much subjectivity and context that feeds into whether you experience "frisson" when hearing a song.

I was very surprised to see Infected Mushroom in the playlist. Psytrance is the last thing that will give me goosebumps. Though I'm sure there are people out there who have imbibed, who have a connection to music like this.

Psytrance gives extra frisson, but most people have to be high on something to appreciate it. I know that the nootropics I've taken are working when psytrance goes from being slightly annoying to listen to to being awesome.

I was wondering that myself, as reading the list I suspect it's got something to do with people reporting they experienced the feeling from that song. Too many bands had their most popular song featured, and while it could be that songs that cause frisson are more popular it seems more likely that more people listening to the song makes it more likely to be reported.

If they had some program check some huge library of songs for ones that have some sequence likely to cause frisson I'd expect the playlist to be far different.

After reading this, I’m reminded of the Sanskrit concept of adbhuta. It can be roughly translated to wonder, but in the sense of witnessing something otherworldly or supernatural.

The Nāṭya Śāstra elaborates and articulates on 8 rasas in the performing arts, including adbhuta. Truly an interesting work.

I haven’t heard that term in a while.

I remember one of the most profound statements I’ve ever heard about music.

I was channel-surfing, a number of years ago, and paused on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. He was putting on a record (yes, the round black things), and said ”Music helps us to feel things.”

That's very poignant, thanks for sharing! I also feel that, in many cases, music helps catalyze my emotions. Positive or negative.

I found the explanation of the article very weak.

In my own experience it is caused by an 'overload' of emotions. When I had a burnout the same thing happened, but much faster. After reading into it I came to the conclusion that it must be a disorder in hormones.

So after reading this article I wonder if a frisson is in fact an 'overload' of hormones caused by a huge amount of emotions. And that this causes a mismatch between your emotions and what you are feeling.

I want to see what these songs look like in frequency space. Especially around the part where the frisson happens. I'm willing to bet they have a common frequency or multiple of a common frequency as a main component.

Long story short, the brain does most of its representation and signaling with frequencies of brain waves. Just like certain bands of the EM spectrum are reserved for TV broadcast and other parts are reserved for WiFi etc, certain bands of brain waves are reserved for motor-sensory IO. If by sheer coincidence you come across a sensory stimulus that oscillates around the carrier wave frequency used to carry that same stimulus, you should experience some funny interference effects.

Throughout evolutionary history there wasn't really a problem using these carrier frequencies because in our natural environment you're not going to accidentally run into a blinking bright light or loud sound with exactly the right pure frequency. Then we invented instruments and later electric light and oscillators.

The relevant band of frequencies is around 30hz - 60hz. More likely than not the musical examples contain beat frequencies rather than directly containing sound in this part of the spectrum.

Great article, I think it nicely articulates something any of us music/ live music fans have always intuitively known. It’s one of the coolest things about music, and the clearest sign you found a song that really resonates with you. The songs that trigger this will be different for everyone I believe.

It’s interesting this phenomenon is actually being studied & quantified in the lab. Also interesting, no joke just by reading the opening description, an actual ‘frisson’ reaction was triggered in my body. Weird!

I also want to point out, for me, this is why my favorite genres/ bands are ones where improvisation are a central component. Jazz, blues, bluegrass, jam bands. I think on average they give me more frisson.

By far my favorite band is Umphrey’s McGee. I’ve seen them about 40 times live and I can’t get enough. Every show is a unique experience. When I see shows, I want to be surprised. And Umphrey’s consistently delivers every single time. You never know what to expect. Their improvisations are so good, it always blows my mind! They take you on a musical journey, through so many peaks & valleys. It’s the ultimate live ‘frisson’ experience!

> ...Johnny Cash’s “Hurt.”

Feel the need to point out that is a Nine Inch Nails song covered by Cash.

> Reznor praised Cash's interpretation of the song for its "sincerity and meaning," going so far as to say "that song isn't mine anymore."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurt_(Nine_Inch_Nails_song)

They were listening to the Cash version, so the sentence is fine as is.

Arvo Part - Spiegel im Spiegel. Listen to it in the dark, with your eyes closed, on a good pair of headphones.

Im not a music fan, and it’s my favorite. Does something to my brain. Highly recommended.

Pink Floyd - Echoes surely is one of the best recipes for frisson. However for me Royksopp - Forever is the absolute number 1 winner in this category. It feels like those guys have really cracked the code with this one. Just listen for at least 20s before 3:10: https://youtu.be/nM_txL43iFM?t=170

Didn’t work with me, but then again, I listen to way too much fusion.

Good headphones can also make a difference.

In exchange for Röyksopp, I present you the ending of Pacific Heights' "Buried by the burden" (the music video features point cloud/LIDAR imaging, a bonus): https://youtu.be/XBUdCBxrhZo?t=168

Thanks, that was a pretty awesome ending. Reminded me the first minutes of "Makeup and Vanity Set" - `A Glowing Light, A Promise`. Which is also frisson inducing for me.

I think the feelings music can evoke in a listener (real, physical feelings) have a range and grammar that is not quite encapsulated by "Frisson" - though it's definitely a good word for the phenomenon as a whole.

For example: I could listen to Kenny Kirkland's piano solo on Sting's Bring on the Night live album - and when Kenny (utter jazz genius that he was) starts playing around with semi-discordant alterations to the normal song progression, I will get a powerful skin crawling sensation and involuntary muscle contractions (a bit like being tickled). A real physical response to an apparently unrelated sensory input.

Whereas, if I listen to certain tracks by the Verve, it will affect me in completely different ways - equally powerful, but different.

It really is fascinating - like a separate language that can communicate with our subconscious. Perhaps it is largely different for different people though - I wonder if the music that affects a person most strongly would correlate with any other aspect of their personality, of mental outlook.

> According to a 2019 study, one can experience frisson when staring at a brilliant sunset or a beautiful painting; when realizing a deep insight or truth; when reading a particularly resonant line of poetry; or when watching the climax of a film.

And meditation. I relatively frequently experience frisson during meditation, even when there is no obvious realization of some truth during the sit.

That’s funny because I produced a remix with an original beat I composed over a 2pac acapela, and the number one comment I always get is that the song gives people chills and goosebumps.

https://youtu.be/sHKdWOL1q8k

Sure enough, it does give me chills pretty fast. Do you reckon you could put it on Spotify or at least publish a higher quality file? The MP3 download seems dead

(Nvm for Spotify - it's there just not in my country :( )

Does frisson change with age? Or is it perhaps just how "into" music one is that changes with age?

I felt a much stronger emotional response listening to music in my teens than I do now, and consequently don't as often get the frisson.

I think that in your tweens your identity is more tied up with music than later on. In my and my friends' case we would literally define ourselves in terms of music: the bands we'd listen to signalled a lot about who we were and how we felt about the world. I guess if you do that, you're also more emotionally invested in the music.

I get this from nearly every song on Pet Sounds. Listening to music that causes frisson can be a quasi-religious experience, and I'm sure the feeling is something experienced by many when practicing religion as well.

I've experimented with external vagus nerve stimulation devices and it's my opinion that this sensation, along with "ASMR tinges", has to do with stimulation/activation of the vagus nerve.

From the perspective of a totally corrupt theorist, the response may not entirely be a positive thing. Richard Taruskin wrote about it in the opening essay of The Dangers of Music and other Anti-Utopian Essays[1].

> So much one may elicit from a pithed frog, and—if you remember your high school biology class—under conditions that are not dissimilar. Philip Glass, indeed, speaks frankly of eliciting a “biological” response from his audience. Here are his own words on the opera whose effects Wilson described:

> I decided that I would try to write a piece that left the audience standing, and I’ve almost never played that music without seeing everyone leave his seat; it’s the strangest thing, almost biological. In fact, sometimes I’ve done concerts where I’ve played the Spaceship [i.e., the Einstein finale], and then as an encore played the last part of the Spaceship, and the same thing happens again.

> But no, there is nothing strange about this: it’s basic behavior-modification therapy, and so far from spontaneous or liberating, it is calculated authoritarian manipulation. I find it sinister. My first contact with P&P came in June 1983 (yes, I’d been avoiding it) at a little festival sponsored by the New York Philharmonic and organized by the orchestra’s then composer-in-residence, Jacob Druckman, around the theme “Since 1968—A New Romanticism?” Druckman’s keynote essay in the program spoke optimistically of the “reemergence of . . . Dionysian qualities: sensuality, mystery, nostalgia, ecstasy, transcendency.” What I heard, in John Adams’s Grand Pianola Music, was an attempt to reduce me to an autonomic nervous system. My body responded to the programmed thrills and chills even as my mind protested. I, too, felt gooseflesh—and, I’ll admit, gooseflesh at a new-music concert was indeed a novelty. But it was a gooseflesh brought about not by way of evocation or epiphany but by anesthetizing the conscious mind and then administering a series of galvanic shocks. For me the experience was frightening. What had won so many over left me feeling diminished and degraded. And I guess I’m sounding like old man Adorno in spite of myself.

[1] https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520268050/the-danger-of-mus...

My immediate reaction to this is "that's a very high-brow way to condemn music eliciting a primal response". I get it, if people raving to brain-numbing bass sounds is low-brow, then how is captivating an audience with music of any form any different?

But look, you could make arguments in the same vein about how evil it is to eat good food, or enjoy a good sleep. Or sex. Giving in to primal desires is not a-priori bad, particularly when it is on your own (and whoever else is involved) terms - like voluntarily going to a concert. I hope the author doesn't react to those "reductions to autonomous nervous systems" with the same disgust, or they'll have a sad life...

Taruskin is writing in the context of the western literate (i.e. classical) tradition of music, and he was very sceptical about the mainstream, hyper-intellectual way of composing as represented by who adhere to serialism and other structured devices which eschew immediate pleasure. He is saying here that those other composer (mainly minimalists who wrote what he called pattern-and-process music) who have more immediate appeal do not necessarily represent a panacea for the woes of modern classical music.

The western literate tradition has a long history of emphasising the co-existence of intellectual understanding and the immediate appeal of the notes. Beethoven is the most famous (or notorious) example, but scholars have traced it back to as early as the turn of the 16th century[1]. Like food and sex, which can be enjoyed with different amounts of complexity and intellectual involvement, it's reasonable to say once in a while, "this time, we can do a better little better than mere animals".

[1] https://www.routledge.com/The-Crisis-of-Music-in-Early-Moder... The

I think certain songs provoke an increased response from me, after I've listened to them a few times already. For example, Warning's "Watching From A Distance" [0] (c/w metal with sad themes) gives me that feeling around 2min 15sec when the main riff drops. But that didn't happen until after I heard it a few times.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGqUo7a7J_I

My absolute favourite is Nara by E.S. Posthumus. For me it brings Frisson to a whole new level. It's not just (strong) goosebumps, but an almost overwhelming feeling.

Yes! Two other songs of this type that work for me are

Audiomachine - Transcendence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwZ5-P3FnEk)

Two Steps From Hell - Heart of Courage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2iC1aCPbKA)

And another one: Zack Hemsey - Waiting Between Worlds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H529fng2Sfw)

I'm surprised I didn't see any mention of Tool in here, while many Tool songs can give this weird, supernatural, out of this world, feeling, at least for me.

Pneuma is one of those great Tool songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FssULNGSZIA

And it's not just the sounds, the lyrics themselves help invoke this feeling as well.

From my experience and from the comments here, frisson seems to be highly personal—what works for you won't work for me. And we can all agree that there is more going on than subverted expectations.

My two cents: context often plays a role. How a particular song "lands" in an album or live set is often the source of the frisson.

Obligatory recommendation: Wojciech Kilar - Love Remembered (Dracula soundtrack)

Oh yeah. I have a 100% guaranteed goosebumps song -- Yes, Anastasia by Tori Amos. Right around the 8:25 mark, but it helps if I listen to at least 2 minutes leading up to that point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUazhfLiG6U

For me, more frisson is evoked by some of the passages in this rendition of Elgar's Cello Concerto than by anything else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPhkZW_jwc0

I do find myself crying alone when get deep into a song I like, it is not sadness, not happy Ness , but overload of powerfull emotion I can describe, could happen with techno, rap, or other music style. I didn't feel this article was referring to the same thing.

Melancholy

Tend to get this and notice when listening to Oneohtrix Point Never. Others too, but he sticks out.

The opening 3 seconds to Certitudes by C418 triggers this in me so reliably that I can rewind it and just trigger it over and over again.

https://youtu.be/72fGruG_LSY

How can it be possible that Coming Back to Life by Pink Floyd is not in the list?

None of the music posted on here causes me frisson. This is why I won't post songs that never fail to give me frisson because everyone's tastes are different. But anything by Squarepusher is an exception :)

I've used frisson as a metric of whether or not I like a song without having known it.

Interesting that Metallica's Master of Puppets is on the list, instead of One or Welcome Home, as those two have more of an effect on me.

I get it from many things. Even this japanese ad for beer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4f8lm_5MBE

This is something that certain kinds of throat singing elicit in me.

Pretty much everything on the Classic Groove Salad. A lot of it is 1990s-2000s Trip Hop, Lounge and Downtempo which checks a lot of the boxes mentioned in the article.

https://somafm.com/gsclassic/

1970s Fusion music is similar for me - a lot of "violated expectations" due to combining genres that had never gone together before (Jazz-Rock of Mahavishnu, Latin-Rock of Santana, Latin-Jazz of salsa, etc.) Back in the day, you'd listen to a Fusion radio station (e.g. KRE in Berkeley - no longer exists) and every song was amazing and even better than the last played.

If it's due to anticipation and violated expectations, how come the same song can still give you goosebumps even after you know it very well?

Because you still have the same expectations about how music should be structured the second time you listen to it. But the effect wears off after some time. Try playing it 20 times on repeat. It won't do it anymore. But that's mostly temporary, if you come back to it after a while it should work again.

I don't think it's about expectations at all. For me it's about the state of mind I'm in when I listen to it, same song will or won't give me goosebumps based on where my head is at even if I've heard it hundreds of times.

That's a different effect. There are different reasons why you react to music. You can have a strong emotional reaction for example because it was played during a key moment of a movie you really liked, or while someone broke up with you, and then this feeling is forever fused to a song. And recalled through it. But it is well understood that music in general connects with us by meeting and breaking expectations we have about music.

Just throwing my classic frisson song into the mix:

Vessels - A Hundred Times in Every Direction

I found the song about 12 years ago, still gives me chills every time

Aaron Copland: "Fanfare for the Common Man", goose bumps, chills and shudder every time I hear it

Anyone else notice correlation with caffeine? I tend to get these some time after my 2nd coffee of the day.

Yes, also, if I'm really tired then I don't experience frisson.

I think this does not count for reggaeton as it only causes brain cells destruction

I can trigger this at will.

When I was on one of my ketamine trips I realized music is one of the purest forms of communication as the vibrations reach beyond our physical manifestation.

So cool to see #34 turn up on the list.

Horripilation

It's been a while I haven't felt goosebumps, I used to feel them a lot when discovering new aesthetic songs. I guess ASMR can still give me some but it would be nice if there was an online recommender system/community for songs that especially are prone to give goosepumps, beside this specific playlist. ideally one would look for goosebumps inducing zick constrained within a specific genre. I love to see if people get goosebumps with a high probability at the same time in a song.

I usually feel light and flying feeling listen to Jimi Hendrix guitar solos.

In case you don't know, you can convert spotify to youtube playlists via e.g. https://soundiiz.com/

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