On Saturday, Movies on the Radio begins a month-long series devoted to horror film soundtracks and those scores that “chill spines.”
But just what is it that causes a piece of music to create a tingling in the spine?
A growing body of research is devoted to understanding why music can create "chills"—feeling goose bumps and shivers on the neck, scalp and spine—and why some people seem to experience them while others don’t.
Last month, the website Buzzfeed looked at ASMR, or “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.” This self-diagnosed condition is a hyper version of goosebumps that begins as a tingle in your brain that can creep down your spine. It's usually triggered by odd sounds like folding napkins or crinkling a bag of chips. The external “triggers” differ from person to person (this phenomenon has spawned an online following including a website of ASMR Videos.)
Chills appear to be linked to the reward chemical dopamine, which has also been associated with addiction. It produces physical effects that cause changes in electrical skin conductance, heart rate, breathing and temperature.
In 2010, researchers Emily Nusbaum and Paul Silvia at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro asked students about how often music gave them chills, goosebumps or made their hair stand on end. "Although most people report having music-induced chills sometimes, some people never have them and other people have them incessantly,” they wrote in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. “This wide variability invites the attention of personality psychology."
The researchers found that openness to new experiences was the best predictor of who is likely to react to music with chills. Individuals with an open personality also tended to listen to music more often and were more likely to play a musical instrument.
Their comments mirror those of Lisa Margulis, the director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas. She told Buzzfeed that the literature in music cognition suggests that one-third to half of people experience chills in response to music. But an astonishing 90 percent of performing musicians get them, as do “people who rank low on the ‘sensation seeking’ dimension of personality. Margulis says that for such individuals, "a few measures of Mahler is enough" to get their spines tingling.
What gets your spine tingling? Leave your comments below.
Comments [17]
Beethoven's Symphony #5: transition from 3rd to 4th movement.
"The Final Countdown" film score.
Night on Bald Mountain (an arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's edition made by Leopold Stokowski in one of my favorite movies of all time, Fantasia)
I second the Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts, especially if you reconstruct, in your mind, the premiere, which was entirely in the dark on a cold December day, with only candles in the orchestra for illumination.
Also the finale of Chopin's Funeral March sonata, if it's played with manic intensity and if you know the program (think Werther), and the end of the funeral march from the Eroica, again, if you have the program.
Great question...oftentimes this happens to me and I don't know what I'm listening to!
But here are a few:
Bach's Double Violin Concerto
Puccini's "O Soave Faniculla" from La Boheme
Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, Second Movement
Beethoven's Ninth
Chopin's First Piano Concerto, Second Movement
Some music that gives me chills:
The fourth movement of Mahler's First Symphony (when I've attended a live performance, even my chills get chills!)
The last movement of Mahler's Second (Resurrection) Symphony
The first part (Veni Creator Spiritus) and the final chorus of Mahler's Eighth Symphony
The beginning of Mahler's Fifth Symphony
Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla, Siegfried's Funeral March, the Immolation Scene, and various other portions of Wagner's Ring
The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
"The Dream of the Witches' Sabbath" from Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
The fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony
The final act of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake
The final section of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Ravel orchestration)
I'm sure there are some others, but these are the main ones (I get chills even just thinking about them!)
For me, it's usually the end of a work that gives me THE CHILLY'S. Just a couple examples would be after the final notes of GUSTAVE MAHLER'S: First Symphony, The concluding moments of SHOSTAKOVICH'S: Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad)when the theme of the first movement returns in the brass and you know the city has regained its dignity. Just waiting for that long chord(?)building to a climax is almost unbearable for me. When it finally ends, I can feel the shivers begin. And even The VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS: Thomas Tallis Fantasia (as the strings fade away)does something to me. They just don't write stuff like this anymore. FRED
Interview with the Vampire
Dracula, the one with Gary Oldman. Great score.
Nessun Dorma
Baritone aria from Pagliacci, Si Puo, Si Puo
In questa Reggia
Finale Act 1 Turandot
Opening storm at sea Otello
Finale Otello
Magic Fire Music
Entrance of Gods into Valhalla
Siegfried Funeral Music
Contessa Perdono from Le Nozze de Figaro
God, I really need a few pages for this one.
Brahms's Deustches Requiem (especially the first movement (Selig sind, die da Leid tragen (Blessed be those who suffer)) and the first part of the second (Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras (All flesh is as the grass)). I always have an irrational feeling that I am tempting fate just by listening to this music!
Also, as I have said elsewhere, Dvorak's Slavonic Dance no. 12 (Opus 72, No. 4), which I find achingly beautiful.
So many pieces ...
Barber Violin Concerto (First and Second Movements)
Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet (First movement)
Intermezzo from
Pietro Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo
Corelli - Concerti Grossi, Op.6 No. 1
And so many more!!!
Although it doesn't really give me the chills (other than for its sheer beauty): whoever thought of making Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor -the- music for mad counts and insane scientists playing the organ at all hours of the night?
The Immolation Scene from "Go"tterda"mmerung" and "Wotan's Farewell" and "Magic Fire Music" from "Die Walku"re" do it every time.
While you're probably looking for examples from the "classical" repertoire, I get goosebumps when I hear the last strain of Sousa's "The Stars & Stripes Forever" especially when the trombone section comes in with their countermelody and the work is performed by an exceptionally fine band.
Puccini arias and, believe it or not, this little known piece of music:
http://youtu.be/mZ50x_-eHgI
Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky." If you've ever seen the Eisenstein film, the chills are deeper!
High notes in certain arias give me chills. Two examples are In Questa Reggio from Turandot and also Nessun Dorma.
Berlioz's "Grand Death Mass" and Strauss's "An Alpine Symphony" trigger that response in me from sound recordings and videos alone. I can well understand why many of those at the premiere of the Berlioz had "nervous attacks" and fainted.
I don't know whether "chills" is the correct term, but the Egmont Overture has an effect on me similar to this!
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