Why People Like Music

Many elements of music are related to the role it plays on the human psyche; this creates the true wonder of music. Here, I'll point out "why people like music" by illustrating how music can influence the heart rate, breathing and the overall cardio vascular health of an individual. Anything with psychological and physiological control like that is bound to appeal to us, both consciously and subconsciously.

Listening to music physically alters the heart rate along with the rate of breathing, our overall cardiovascular health. Of course, the subject in question (the person listening to the music) will have a different response than that of another---according to age, culture, what that person has been exposed to, distinguishing personality traits, and all around personality differences--although humans have been found to have similar reactions to different types of music (i.e., heart rate increase with faster rock or metal music, while listening to music with a slow or meditative tempo has a relaxing effect while slowing a person's breathing and heart rate).

In the case of a trained musician, this physical alteration is typically heightened. Accordingly, the more interest displayed, the more heightened the physical alterations.

So to answer the question, "Why do people like music?," anything with the ability to either excite or calm a person simply by being exposed to the auditory sense of hearing alone tends to create temptation to repeat this action. This is not newly discovered, either. According to Wikipedia's "History of music" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music]:

Scientists now believe that modern humans emerged from Africa 160,000 years ago. Around 50,000 years ago these humans began to disperse from Africa reaching all the habitable continents. Since all people of the world, including the most isolated tribal groups, have a form of music, scientists conclude that music must have been present in the ancestral population prior to the dispersal of humans around the world. Consequently music must have been in existence for at least 50,000 years and the first music must have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life.

B David Ferrel