Chamber Music-Induced Chills

L ast night I attended the candle-lit evensong choral services at Kings’ College Chapel. The 28-voice boys’ choir sang the service.

A t various moments, chills went up and down my spine, listening to the organ and the beautiful voices reverberate through the large sanctuary. “Why does the body do this?” I wondered. Go to PubMed and have a look!

C hills seem to be related to distinct musical structures and the “reward” system in the brain, including parts of the ventral striatum, the midbrain, the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex. Considerable research has recently been published on “chills”—as “leading indicator” correlates of emotional “rewards” that the brain is just now processing and propagating to other parts of the body, and as near-term “trailing indicators” of individual cognitive and emotional peaks just-past. Phenotypic measurements of physiological arousal (skin conductance response, heart rate, heart rate variability, etc.) consistently show peaks during chill episodes. Replication of the original studies have confirmed that chills are a reliable marker of emotional peaks that are induced by structures in music, that are temporally associated with self-reported subjective feelings with physiological arousal.

F or example, Oliver Grewe, Eckart Altenmüller, Reinhard Kopiez, Frederick Nagel, and others at the Institut für Musikphysiologie und Musikmedizin in the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien, Hannover, find that people already familiar with the music are more likely to feel shivers up their spines at characteristic, predictable moments:

• At transitions from loud to quiet;
  
• Upon the entry of a solo voice or instrument;
  
• When two (or more) parts have harmonic contrasts, such as close-harmony with beat-frequency interference between the notes'/formants' spectra; and
  
• When the music evokes memories of past experiences that were emotionally intense.

T he responses of people who are not already acquainted with a piece of music are, in general, weaker and less predictable.

I n terms of programming for chamber music presenters and ensembles, these findings may lend some support to the traditional precept of including at least one familiar work in each program.

A s listeners or performers, in terms of explaining why our reactions to a work on first hearing are sometimes less vivid or shivery than we would like or expect, the lesson seems to be “Wait awhile. Give it multiple hearings. Assimilate the piece over time, and see what it does to you later.”

A nd, as composers, there is probably no surprise in these findings. Devising chill-inducing structures and mechanisms to create and resolve dramatic tension is what you do and have always done. Understanding the neurophysiology of music-induced shivering and spine-tingling doesn’t provide you with any new tools beyond the ones you already comprehend and routinely use. The aesthetic decisions about when and how often to use them remain the same as always.

I f you’re interested in the recent research on music and shivering, have a look at these papers (links below) to read about various bits of the physiologic mechanisms of music-induced “chills,” such as are known so far.

• Eckart Altenmüller contact info at Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, Dept. Musikphysiologie
  
• Blood A, Zatorre R. Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proc Natl Acad Sci 2001;98:11818-23.
  
• Boso M, et al. Neurophysiology and neurobiology of the musical experience. Funct Neurol. 2006;21:187-91.
  
• Grewe O, Altenmüller E, et al. How does music arouse "chills"? Investigating strong emotions, combining psychological, physiological, and psychoacoustical methods. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2005;1060:446-9.
  
• Grewe, Kopiez R, Altenmüller E. Chills as an indicator of individual emotional peaks. Ann NY Acad Sci 2009;1169:351-4.
  
• Hailstone J, et al. It's not what you play, it's how you play it: Timbre affects perception of emotion in music. Q J Exp Psychol (Colchester). 2009;62:2141-55.
  
• Oelmann H, Laeng B. The emotional meaning of harmonic intervals. Cogn Process. 2009;10:113-31.