You Are the Music: How Music Reveals What it Means to be Human (16 page)

We even see an effect of music on movement when people are sitting at their computer. Chien-Jung Lai and colleagues
⁴⁰
explored the effects of music tempo (fast or slow) and listening scenario (the same music continuously; the same music while browsing different web pages; and different music while browsing different web pages) on behaviour in an online store. Participants viewed more web pages and underestimated the passage of time more when they heard fast music. Playing different music was associated with more browsing, overestimating time passage and poorer memory for what had been seen. Continuous playing of the same music resulted in the best memory for the online store.

This last study asks new and important questions about the relationship between background music and our movement in commercial worlds. It is all very well measuring pace and time perception and showing that music can alter both, but studies need to focus on what people take away from their shopping and eating experiences if we are to understand how these visits may alter future consumer decisions. You may have moved faster in a store on one occasion because of the
music but if that left you with a negative impression or no memory of the products then we must question the value of this strategy for the business.

Does music make us spend more?

In the last section we saw a relationship between slow tempo music and spending more in a supermarket, probably as a consequence of how much more slowly we move around the aisles. Furthermore, people spent more money in a restaurant in Scotland when they heard slower music. But do these results replicate? And, importantly, do they hold for other consumer environments?

When it comes to money spend, research has had more luck manipulating genre rather than tempo or volume. That is not to say that these other factors are not potentially important contributors to how much we spend, but the strongest results have come from altering music at the level of genre.

Charles Areni and David Kim
⁴¹
looked at the influence of playing either Top 40 music (The Traveling Wilburys, Fleetwood Mac, Robert Plant, Rush) or classical music (Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Vivaldi) in the background while people shopped in a wine store. When people shopped during the classical music phases they spent more money (an average of $7.43 compared to $2.18) and purchased individual bottles that were more expensive.

This finding has been supported by a British study carried out in a restaurant. Here people chose a more expensive meal when classical music was playing as opposed to pop music,
⁴²
though this effect was driven largely by people spending more on starters and desserts as opposed to main courses or drinks.

Why we choose to spend more in certain musical conditions is still a debated issue. One possibility is that people enjoy their time more in these environments. The classical
music used in these kinds of studies tends to be instrumental only and it may be that people enjoy the chance to chat with a fellow diner or shopper in the absence of vocal music and as a consequence of this good experience they felt more inclined to spend. A simple preference for classical music in the people tested also remains a potential explanation for the effect.

Another possibility, and one that has captured more media attention, is that the music creates an environment which primes a context-appropriate response: in a more upmarket place we are subconsciously driven to spend more money because we feel it is what we are supposed to do. This may be the case. Alternative research, however, suggests a flipside to this theory whereby classical music can have a negative effect on purchases in some environments. In one study people were found to leave a restaurant earlier and consume less alcohol when background classical music was played as opposed to pop, jazz, easy listening or even no music
⁴³
.

There is a hidden factor in all of this that may help to clear up why the same genre can have positive effects on spending in one environment and not in another. There is not one simple formula for the effect of music on either movement or spending; it depends on ‘fit’.

Musical fit

One of the biggest influences on how we react to music in the commercial world is the level of fit with the environment. You can forget most of the effects highlighted in the last section to do with moving faster or spending more money if the music does not fit with the surroundings. In such cases, people are more than likely to take a quick scan and walk right back out again.

What is musical fit? I consider commercial musical fit to comprise two different ideas: how music aligns with an
individual’s perceptions of their immediate environment (the shop or restaurant) and how well it agrees with their subconscious ideas about the brand. The success of musical fit influences what we choose to buy and, more generally, how we feel about a brand and the likelihood that it will inspire loyalty in the future.

Instant choices

Musical fit can prime our impulse buys. The most famous example is that of the supermarket where researchers played either German or French music. When French music was played, French wine outsold German wine by roughly 3:1. When German music was played, German wine outsold French wine 2:1. In an echo of the finding reported by Ronald Milliman, the wine shoppers were generally unaware of why they had chosen a particular bottle.
⁴⁴

Another nice example for you romantics out there is the study in a flower shop. Céline Jacob and her colleagues played either romantic music, pop music, or no music in this environment. The mean amount of money spent on flowers was significantly higher in the romantic music condition compared with the other two. The pop music condition did not lead to an increase in the amount of money spent compared with the no music condition.
⁴⁵

These two studies together demonstrate the effect of musical congruence in priming consumer behaviour. The music in these cases fit with the environment as well as with a certain instant reaction (indulging in romance) or selection (wine from a particular country). There is a strong argument that the music inspired these choices.

In general, consumers are more likely to purchase products when the music associated with them is well matched. This is because, cognitively speaking, we love a situation where nothing is clashing or competing for our limited
attention and where, consequently, the drain on our processing resources is minimised. Well-matched music can create this kind of easy-to-process environment and act as a seamless ‘cue to execution’.
⁴⁶
These effects, matching associations and positive reactions, also work for brands.
⁴⁷

Michael Beverland and his team revealed the importance of musical fit on customers’ idea of a brand through a series of twenty in-depth interviews.
⁴⁸
Music was found to be an important initial signal as to the brand’s position, image and quality. Another clear result was that when a person perceived well-matched music and store/brand image they experienced delight that then fostered brand loyalty. One of the most telling quotes was provided by a person identified as ‘Melissa’, talking about a furniture store:

‘It’s South American music and it’s got that whole ethnic feel. I love it. The music fits in perfectly and it almost made the environment more jovial… It’s like it could be in South America, because of the music… You just feel welcomed there, you feel at ease’.

The secret messages in music

Our impression of a brand is not only influenced by how well the music fits but also the ideas or messages the music communicates on top of this congruence. Mark Zander asked 132 people to listen to 30-second radio commercials for a fictitious brand of mineral water and then rate the endorser’s personality, their brand impression and their future buying intentions.
⁴⁹
They heard three different musical backgrounds to the same advert: lively swing music, a slow piano ballad or no music at all.

All the music was rated as congruent with the brand but the two musics created different impressions of the spokesperson and the brand, and provoked different reactions. The
endorser was seen to have the most self-control when he spoke over the lively music. With the quiet music the brand itself was rated as more ‘soft, reserved, devoted and gentle’ as opposed to those who heard the swing music, who rated it as more ‘agitated and animated’. Moreover, Zander reported that these brand associations were quickly learned and hard to undo, as participants had made a connection between music and advert, preferring always the first versions they heard, after only a couple of exposures.

All this research highlights the multiple levels on which music can operate and why it is so important to go beyond simple ‘fit’ and think about what the music alone may contribute to consumer messages. Music is capable of being a player in a brand concept but you must be careful to understand its impact on top of this supportive role.

In this chapter we have taken a tour round the world of work from many different angles and explored how and why background music can influence the way we behave, think, react and feel in work environments. The next step in music psychology research will be to move away from searching for largely fruitless generalised effects (there is no one ‘best’ music for work) and strive towards effective assessment of critical variables, such as feelings of control and consumer reactions, in the many individual varied and complex situations that make up our modern working world.

In the next chapter we will take a breather from all this thinking about work and indulge in some relaxation. We use music for our play even more than we use it for work; it is inherent to many of our fun rituals surrounding sport, dance, romance and TV/films. How and why has music become interwoven within our play activities and how does it affect our precious downtime?

Chapter 6

Music at play

‘There’s people making babies to my music. That’s nice.’

BARRY WHITE

The last chapter examined how music has woven its way into the many different manifestations of our working world. This chapter will expose how music is also an important part of our downtime, our leisure – our ‘play’.

It is not surprising that music has become such a central part of our leisure time, as it’s clearly something that we enjoy. However, music consumption by itself is not something most of us tend to do much anymore. By that I mean it is rare for people to just sit quietly and listen to music for pleasure. In my case the last time I did anything like that was well over a month ago when I decided it was time I sat down and listened to the 45s I had been given by my dad. I had a great time reminiscing and dancing around (yes, I do that) and thought to myself, ‘I should do this more often’; naturally, I have not done it since.

Some of you will be regular concert goers or festival attendees. This is probably as close as most of us get to a music-focused, relatively high-investment activity in the modern world. On average I go to the opera, a show or a gig two to three times a year and I always have a wonderful time but it is a treat rather than a regular pursuit. Most of us could, if we wanted, just sit and listen to music any day of the week,
as I did that one rainy afternoon with my dad’s 45s. But the fact is that we don’t.

Music psychologists exposed our lack of interest in focused music listening by conducting Experience Sampling Method (ESM) studies, where participants are prompted at regular intervals during their everyday life (typically by text message) to report on their music listening behaviours and reactions. Using this method in 2004, Adrian North and colleagues
¹
confirmed that music was far more likely to be heard during leisure as opposed to work time but also that this music exposure was mostly heard as a backdrop rather than being the primary focus of attention.

A recent follow-up study by Amanda Krause
²
confirmed that, thanks to modern technologies, music has moved into nearly every aspect of our leisure world. Moreover, Krause made the important point that this evolution of music listening has been an active decision on our parts rather than a passive reaction to the boom in music access. We put music in our play time because we want it there.

Instead of listening in a focused way we have brought the music that we love into the background of our leisure time, in much the same way as we have invented ways to bring it into our working lives. When it comes to play, however, we have been more inventive than we have been at work; we use music for numerous rituals and pastimes including dance, romance, cinema and exercise/sport. In this chapter I will explore all of these activities, uncovering the role of music and exposing how important it is when it comes to maximising our enjoyment.

Music and dance

Dance is rhythmic movement. The origins of dance stretch far back in human history and, as far as we can tell, dance and music have always been intricately linked. There are languages
that make little differentiation between the words for dance and those for music.
³
Music and dance also have many overlapping purposes. Performance of either makes extensive use of movement and sound, allowing an individual to demonstrate skill and stamina as well as empathy. They are mediums by which we can make expressive gestures, with the aim of both communicating and triggering emotion in an audience.
⁴
Music and dance may also have both evolved as part of a human coalition signalling system, allowing us to form and strengthen social group bonds, and signal group membership.
⁵

Having said this much, music psychologists pay relatively little attention to dance in their research, preferring instead to study music in isolation without its long-standing cultural partner. To a certain extent this is justified as there are many forms of music that were never intended to be paired with dance. And some forms of dance can be beautiful in the absence of music. The fact remains, however, that music and dance go together naturally for humans, indicating that they must, at some point, have been combined to communicate something unique and special. What exactly does music add to dance, other than a simple auditory signal to bring us together?

Animals move to the beat

We gain interesting insights into the reasons why music and dance may have come together by looking at animals and their ability to move to the beat, which is an important component of dance.

There are numerous examples of animals that use coordinated vocalisations or movement displays as signals. On the vocal side, gibbons and cuckoos duet to defend their territory, while whales, mice and skylarks sing to attract a mate. On the movement side, Jamaican lizards bob their heads and perform
vigorous push-ups to attract a mate while mute swans rotate in synchronised circles to regulate their borders. Finding an animal that both vocalises and synchronises beat-like movements however, is another matter.

One reason for a lack of dance-like behaviour in animals may be that the majority are not able (or willing) to move to the beat in music. I am not talking about clever synchronised movements here; I am talking about the equivalent of tapping your foot to the beat. For most humans this is easy. For most animals this is seemingly impossible.

Humans may be born with the understanding necessary to move to a beat. The beat, the thing we tap along to in a great track – the pulse of music – is not something that necessarily needs to be explicitly audible in music. Musicians do not need to emphasise the beat of music constantly in order for us to sense the pulse. We are capable of extracting the beat from music and, in most cases, a good beat will entice us to bob our head, move our foot, or snap our fingers.

Beat that is not audible is often referred to as ‘implied’; it is something we perceive out of the sound, like the way we extract a sense of depth in a flat picture. A great example of the use of implied beat exists in groove-based music where the beat often emerges from a complex, multilayered and syncopated pattern of rhythms and instrumentation. Groove music is present across a range of genres including funk, soul, hiphop, drum and bass, jazz and world music.
⁶

You don’t have to be a trained musician or even an adult listener to get ‘beat’. Henkjan Honing and colleagues demonstrated that newborn babies, even when they are asleep, exhibit an identifiable brain wave signature in response to a violation of a basic beat.
⁷
In Chapter 1 we saw that Honing made use of implied beat, using simple drum patterns, and measured the responses of newborns to a dropped beat. The significant change in their brain wave signature in response
to the dropped beat indicated that these infants were sensing the beat, as they reacted when it went away.

Honing conducted a follow-up study with adult rhesus monkeys to determine if their brains showed a similar beat detection response. It turns out that those monkeys were sensitive to the basic temporal structure of the music, such that they noticed when important notes were removed. But their brains did not respond to a dropped beat.
⁸
It appears that some of our closest ancestors hear music at only a surface level, without the cognitive skill of extracting the hidden groove.

It is not only our closest animal relatives that apparently lack the ability or inclination to move to the beat. There is little evidence that animals like dogs or cats, which have lived in domesticated situations with humans for thousands of years, spontaneously respond to the pulse in music without being cued or pre-trained.

Oddly enough, though, this lack of interest in moving to the beat is not true of all animals. So far scientists have identified a rather strange-sounding collection of animals that may be able to move to a beat. These include some species of parrot, songbirds, dolphins, bats, seals and elephants. What do we have in common with this motley assortment of creatures, and what does this tell us about the nature of music and dance?

‘Snowball’ is the name of probably the most famous animal in music psychology. If you have not heard of him then he is easy to find by typing ‘snowball dancing’ into your preferred search engine. Snowball is a male Eleonora or Sulphur-crested cockatoo (
Cacatua galerita
) who first came to the attention of science in 2007 when he arrived at the Birdlovers Only Rescue Service in Indiana (USA). He was dropped off at this shelter with an accompanying CD of his favourite dance songs. Aniruddh Patel and his colleagues have spent many hours
since observing Snowball and putting his ‘dancing’ to the scientific test.

The researchers took Snowball’s ‘favourite song’ (‘Everybody’ by the Backstreet Boys) and altered the original recording speed to make versions that were both slower and faster by up to 20 per cent. They then filmed his dance-like movements, paying particular attention to the synchronisation of his head bobs to the beat of the music.
⁹

Snowball did not move much to the very slowest versions of the song but he did bob along frequently to many of the faster versions. In all cases his head bobs were fairly well aligned with the beat, certainly above chance levels. This result represents a remarkable feat considering Snowball is highly unlikely to have ever heard his favourite song at these fast tempi.

The discovery of dance-like musical synchronisation
¹⁰
in a non-human animal gives us clues as to why music is so important for our dance rituals. Animals that are capable of synchronised beat movements, like Snowball, rely heavily on links between the auditory and motor parts of the brain, as these facilitate the ability to vocalise and imitate other animals’ cries. These facts lead people to speculate that the ability to vocally imitate may have driven the evolution of musical synchronisation.
¹¹
This theory relied on there being no evidence for spontaneous beat synchronisation in animals who are not natural vocal mimics; and no such evidence was found for quite a few years until just recently when somewhat reasonable tapping to the beat was found in a female chimpanzee called Ai and a female California sea lion (
Zalophus californianus
) called Ronan.
¹²

We definitely need more evidence of flexible rhythmic movements in true non-vocal mimics before we dismiss the vocal imitation theory of musical beat development. And even if vocal mimicry can’t explain the development of musical
synchronisation by itself then maybe a combination of ancient drives is responsible.

Animals such as Snowball rely (as ancient humans relied) on vocal mimicry as a crucial element for social bonding and display rituals, which also frequently includes the use of coordinated displays of movement. At present, the idea I find most compelling as an explanation of why Snowball and I both like to move to music is that the past survival of our species relied on the coordination of sound and movement for important signals.

This theory leads to the intriguing idea that music and dance co-evolved together in humans, since both social vocalisations and movement displays were useful to us, at some point in our history. Dance and music could send a more powerful message in close proximity than either could accomplish in isolation; important messages like ‘we are a couple’, ‘we are a group’, ‘we are together’ and ‘we are strong – so watch out!’

These animal studies give us hints about the origins of the pairing of music and dance but we need to look at our own behaviour today to understand how we currently use both art forms and what they may usefully communicate in the modern world.

Of the two main animal reasons to combine sound and movement, defence or mating, modern humans tend to go for the latter. There are examples of ritual human defencemotivated displays still in existence, one being the New Zealand rugby team’s use of the Māori Haka war dance and cry (most typically one called
Ka Mate
) before international matches. The nature of modern conflict has minimised the demand for such demonstrations in general, but music and dance for romance has never gone out of fashion.

Sexy dancing

When we move our bodies we give away all kinds of information about ourselves: age and sex, the state of our health
and fitness, and more subtle inferences such as our emotional well-being, truthfulness and confidence levels. All of these cues are useful for someone with romance on their mind. Music provides a way to facilitate these communications as it allows us to show off our ability to synchronise and respond to the beat and emotionality in music.

Geoff Luck and his colleagues from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland conducted an experiment to determine exactly how much information we gather from dance signals.
¹³
The researchers made use of point-light display technology, where an individual wears a set of sensors at key points along their body that can then be illuminated against a dark background. What you see from the point-light display is identifiable as human movement but is really just a group of moving dots. This means the viewer’s judgements are unaffected by any other attractiveness cues that might draw their attention.

Luck used this technology to ask the question, what type of musical dance moves are most appealing to a potential mate?

In this experiment 62 heterosexual adults watched a series of 30-second point-light animation clips of both men and women dancing to music from the techno, pop and Latin genres. Luck and the team had previously rated each video on seven different body-movement-related criteria: 1) body symmetry, 2) hip-body ratio, 3) shoulder-hip ratio, 4) hip-knee phase angle, 5) shoulder-hip angle, 6) hip wiggle and 7) downforce. The video watchers were asked to rate the dancers for femininity/masculinity, sensuality, sexiness, mood, and interestingness.

For women watching men, ‘downforce’ was most strongly related to ratings of sensuality. Men who danced with a lighter touch, making more use of bounce, for example, were perceived as more sensual. In their final conclusions, the
researchers considered this aspect of the male physical display to be the best indicator of attractiveness in dance.