Can statistics beat emotions in music?
Have you ever wondered what goes into making a song? I know I sure have which is why I reached out to two different lofi hip-hop producers and asked them some questions about their songwriting process. Each of these producers has been making music for years and have been featured on some of the most prestigious lofi live streams/playlists.
I really wanted to understand where they got their inspiration from and how they pieced together different sounds and instruments to make a finished work of art. Additionally, I wanted to know if they considered how well the music would increase concentration or if they just focused on how the track feels.
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Cover to Kupla's most revered album "Kingdom in Blue" |
Acheté and Andrew "Laffey" Stephen. Luckily within a day, they both replied with some great answers to my questions. Both artists had very similar flows when it came to laying out a track which I thought was interesting. They similarly started with some chords and a melody and added more instruments such as drums and bass afterwards.
What I found was much more interesting was asking if they specifically chose sounds that would contribute towards concentration. Both of them replied by saying they didn't think about it during production, opting instead for sounds that evoked emotion or told a story.
Lofi music is most often used as background music for concentration and the vast majority of listeners are there for that very reason, yet producers don't even take it into account when they're writing.
In my last blog, I talked a little bit about an AI called brain.fm that curates a radio of endless music that is scientifically proven to be the best possible music to increase concentration. Lofi producers on the other hand don't even think about how their listeners will be able to concentrate and still bring in hundreds of thousands of listeners every single day. Something about the way the melodies and beats make listeners feel something emotionally while they listen can out-preform a robot dedicated to finding a better solution.
This makes me think a lot about music and art in general because no matter how smart a robot can be, it still can't match a human in creativity and expression. In my future research, I want to look into how lofi music can affect emotion as well as concentration compared to other genres of music that are used to focus and relax.
What do you think? Will robots ever be able to match humans in emotion? How much can music impact your emotions? Feel free to leave a comment, or ask me a question and I'll do my best to get back to you. Check back here in a couple weeks for my next post where I'll dive deeper into how emotions are impacted by music.
Loved the post! I think music is a very inherently human thing and I don't think AI will be able to create something that has the same impact as human's music and the stories told through them. Although I think AI will be able to create something similar in the future, it just won't have the same impact. I was also wondering where I could find the two artists you wrote about, their nicknames are their artist names right?
ReplyDeleteTypically, emotions serve as a distraction from work and often prohibit concentration. I find it quite interesting that both artists you mentioned said they focused on evoking emotion rather than sounds that increase concentration... and that it seems to be working better than the AI-generated music. The human mind is certainly an enigma.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Halia, in that I find it puzzling why emotion-invoking music would help in concentration. I've tried multiple times in the past five years to listen to music while working an it has NEVER worked for me. I always get slowly sucked into the beauty of it and lose more and more concentration on the task at hand. I wonder whether or not the effect that music has on a person's concentration can be influenced by the person themselves? Like does it really work for everyone? Is it just a case of finding the right genre for the right person?
ReplyDeleteThe relation between the style of music you listen to and how well it helps you concentrate is amazing. Whenever I study, I always listen to music that doesn't have any words, or just beats on YouTube. I think it's better for concentration mainly because it just serves as background noise, and you don't pay much attention to it. I think for many people it can be different, but that's just what works for me personally.
ReplyDelete-Justin