what looks good _to us_ and then more specifically _to you_ emerges entirely from context, mostly cultural which is hard to reduce. I'm also not convinced anyone could explain to me why the sounds I like sound good to me, even in the broadest strokes. Especially since I hear "that sounds like shit" from others all the time.

I think music is the stupidest thing ever. People say to "put your feelings into it" but music doesn't have any inherent feelings other than replicating the conventions that society bases it on. It's closer to abstract art where the meaning doesn't matter as much as the culture around it.

tree

>>118952
There's a psychological element to music. The vast majority of people will associate the same general emotions with certain pitches, tempos, chord progressions, etc. You're not going to listen to a heavy metal song and say it sounds calm unless you perceive sound in a way most people don't.

>>118951
And I think the above might point to what I'm looking for better. There's a well established psychology of why certain sounds and smells and tastes and touches make us feel a certain way, but I feel like there's barely anything of the sort in terms of sight. We have color theory, but that's it.

>>118954
I don't think it's instinctive. It's a learned interpretation. I think there's a fair bit of musical research to back this up

>>118948
I like drawings with Sunflowers in them because they make me happy. That's cultural context because someone decided sunflowers represent happiness and artists use them to represent that emotion in their works.
On an instinctual level, I know we prefer things to be symmetrical (faces, paintings, etc.), I've read some evolutionary psychology explanations as to why but I'm skeptical of them. Things like ¨emphasis¨ in drawings are easier to notce, there must be a whole methodology on how to do a painting but I don't know much about art theory.
>>118955
I only know we prefer the music and sounds we listened to when we were younger because the brain slowly loses neuroplasticity over time

I'm not someone that can really understand the "art" stuff where people look at a scribbled painting and make up 20 paragraphs of why it's anything other than a scribble, but I do appreciate the beauty of nature and such. For that stuff I think it's just the ability to see stuff that looks "healthy", like a forest instead of a literal cesspit. Cities are ugly, but they probably wouldn't need to be if people built then for beauty instead of efficiency.
For music there's the harmony thing that means dissonant sounds hurt and this is why I don't like stuff like heavy metal (screaming and stuff), but I don't know why a piano sounds peaceful.
Eeehhhh... well, I guess it's just the cliche saying "I don't know art, but I know what I like".

I think that it's dependent on the individual and their values, interests and upbringing and thus how that forms the lens that they view the world with. So basically context like >>118951 said.
I think there are some more universal contexts like trees and cats. But even then that's not fully universal, there are many people that hate cats particularly in places like Australia where some people view them as a pest and a threat to native species.

>>118954
>The vast majority of people will associate the same general emotions with certain pitches, tempos, chord progressions
I think that kind of understanding is as rudimantary as "pictures of happy people look good" or "pictures of kittens look good". There is still no understanding why, just that it is.

as a side note I was informed by a science person that specifically the perception of tempo and scales is also influenced by cultural context.

Also did you notice how this went from talking about goodness to talking about emotional content? I think that needs to be noted.

I think birds are cute but my cousin is afraid of birds

I could believe that people with no cultural reference would associate violins or maybe even certain piano melodies with somber stuff. I think the tones are kind of similar to crying. People get an emotional reaction to baby animals crying, particularly domesticated ones like cats (that basically tamed humans in the process), so it makes me think instruments could have a similar effect. It's just an assumption of mine, though, and I'm heavily biased.

>>118960
>I only know we prefer the music and sounds we listened to when we were younger because the brain slowly loses neuroplasticity over time

Is that really true? I don't listen to any music that I used to listen to when I was a teen/young adult any more.

>>119042
What I read was trying to answer why older generations tend not to like the music newer generations listen to. I also don't listen to a lot of music from my teens but you won't see me bumping modern mainstream genres like kpop or mumble rap/hip hop.
I don't think neuroplasticity ever goes away and there's a lot of myths around it, not sure. I don't have a source because I read that years ago, Sorry.

>>119044
>I don't think neuroplasticity ever goes away
It decreases with age and experience. It's the reason why the "time feels faster as you age" phenomenon is a thing.

>>119044
>>119045
I wonder how much neophobia comes from social pressure. I feel like there's this unspoken rule that you're not supposed to get into anything too new or different from what you already like once you've hit your 30s.

The way people on imageboards tend to talk about neuroplasticity is overly simplified and generally combined with the cynical crabs-in-a-bucket thing since people tend to be overly negative. It does weaken as an adult, but not to the degree that people thought decades ago. Will you learn a new language in your 70s as easily as you would if you were 6? No, but the same is true if you were in your 20s. What does change, however, is motivation and the amount of free time people may have.



>>119045
>"time feels faster as you age" phenomenon is a thing

That's generally seen as a result of routine and the brain working on autopilot. I remember reading that one way you could remedy this is do make simple changes in daily actions, like changing the route you take when driving and so on. If you're doing things unconsciously then time feels like it's moving faster.

As for the musical tastes thing, I wonder if it's related to the way our personalities are pretty much locked in place by the time we hit 15 or so. Maybe musical taste is somehow influenced by this, but who knows?

>>119045
>It's the reason why the "time feels faster as you age" phenomenon is a thing.
No, that's really just routine, as >>119092 said.

>>119092
Completely agree with this. I don't like the pessimism around it.

>>119092
>>119104
Yeah, more and more it feels like a convenient excuse for tunnel-visioned people who can't stick to a hobby/skill. They should focus less on lacking a younger brain and more on maintaining a younger mindset, that stubborn drive that keeps you going even if the results are shit. Sure that's helped by being a kid with no real obligations, but I still believe most people have more free time than they think to learn something new.