I Stopped Feeling Music and I Feel It Again

For many of us, listening to music goes beyond just a leisure activity. Information technology's the soundtrack that affords cinematic grandeur to activities as banal every bit getting the motorcoach to work. Information technology's the backdrop to our agony and ecstasy; our nights out and our hangovers the next day. Whether you're into the soft meditations of Frank Ocean or the thrashing chords of Teenage Fanclub, it can be difficult for music lovers to imagine not experiencing it and so intensely. Just for the estimated 3 to five percent of the population who feel musical anhedonia, listening to music offers little to no pleasance.

To understand musical anhedonia, it's helpful to consider what happens to the brains of music lovers when they listen to music they like. "You lot're hearing a complex audio so you get a lot of brain activation," says Professor Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at UCL. "When you hear a song yous take a real emotional connection to, there's data showing that your brain's reward system is engaged. You lot get a release of neurotransmitters which are associated with winning a real prize, so there's an element of the enjoyment that yous'd get from something concrete like gambling or recreational drugs. But, crucially, you only become this response through music y'all like."

In a sense, musical anhedonia can be divers as the absence of this reaction. "In that location was a study done with people with anhedonia where they were played music and didn't fifty-fifty show a hint of this reward response," Professor Scott says, "but they did bear witness it if you lot scanned them while they were gambling and they won. It's not that their reward systems aren't active, they're just not activated by music." It's non and then hard to imagine what this is like: in a sense, nosotros all experience musical anhedonia when we listen to a vocal that does nothing for united states of america. It's just that they experience that with all of it.

For some people, musical anhedonia is a life-long trait, while in other cases information technology may be a response to trauma or a symptom of disorders similar low ("information technology's not a disorder in and of itself," clarifies Professor Scott.) It could be something that changes over time, or something you're stuck with. Some don't miss listening to music, while others really, actually practice. I spoke to a number of people who have experienced musical anhedonia, for different reasons and in unlike means. Here are some of their accounts.

Westin: "I've learned information technology tin exist a bargain-breaker when dating"

I've always had a disconnect with music. As a kid, I'd sing along to certain songs on the radio with my family, just it felt a bit forced and I mainly just did this because other people were. It wasn't until late high schoolhouse, when I genuinely stopped caring what others thought of me, that I was more than open about not liking music.

I've experimented with quite a few different genres – everything from country to rap to EDM and heavy metal – only it's all substantially the same to me. I can enjoy certain songs for their lyrics if they're well-written, only at that point I'd rather merely read the lyrics like a verse form. I also sometimes get a kick out of picking sure instruments from a more complex score, such as orchestral soundtracks. That's simply if I'm incredibly bored, however.

I do sometimes feel like I'chiliad missing out. The idea of just hearing some sounds and having information technology motion you to literal tears is very alien to me and I think it'd be fascinating to experience something like that. I've definitely accepted it, though. The virtually depressing aspect is that information technology tends to be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. I've had a handful of dates become very well and seem like they could plough into something more, but upon learning I don't similar music, it's simply besides much for them. It'due south a consistent reminder that music means a lot for a ton of people, and sharing that with others is very important to them too.

Matt: "At festival shows, I'd have no idea what to do with my hands and body"

I grew up in a 'musical house' (although I hate the idea of calling it that). My dad was in bands all his life and he was constantly playing the guitar. I plant it incredibly irritating and even so exercise. We'd continue these long drives down the state and we'd always have to listen to some awful prog music. Eventually I managed to go out of it by convincing them to listen to audiobooks.

For my 18th birthday my friends all chipped in and got me a ticket to Oxygen (a festival in Ireland). I actually didn't want to go just I couldn't throw such a thoughtful gift in their faces. I enjoyed every bit of it except the actual music (and the toilets). At the Foo Fighters, all my friends were doing festival things like putting their easily in the air or singing along or whatever and I had no idea what to practise with my hands or torso or anything. I idea everyone looked ludicrous. I remember some lad I didn't know leaning over and saying in my ear "what's your problem?" because I had my arms folded. Not enjoying music was alienating, but also tinged with this feeling of superiority I had near not liking it. Basically, I thought everyone else was the idiot for liking it rather than realising I was the weird 1.

Things changed when I was 21. I was the station manager of my college radio station and I became friends with the music editor. I started listening to his radio show and something just clicked. He kind of de-pretentious'd music for me and convinced me I was wrong for thinking it was pretentious. I tin safely say I'grand at present genuinely into music. I mind to it, I read well-nigh it, I sentry documentaries most it.

I'm not sure whether I regret the years I didn't like music. I didn't go through any stage of trying to await like I was in Razorlight, unlike about of my friends,. I'm glad I don't have any nostalgic attachment to the shit, apolitical indie music of the early 2000s.

Jeffrey: "Right now, I take 22 songs I can listen to, from my whole life"

I never really thought about the fact that I didn't relish music until I was around 12, when the divergence in my feelings for music became a lot more obvious. I remember people listening to and talking about it all the time. In nearly social circles you had to exist able to talk almost music, or else you would be left out. So I listened to other people's music, but I just couldn't become into it.

I would occasionally find a song that would bring me a pocket-size corporeality of enjoyment, but that always faded later on I listened to information technology a couple of times. Equally of correct now, I have a total of 22 songs that I sometimes listen to in the automobile. That's all the music I've been able to muster from searching my whole life. Half of these songs come from anime, video games or movies, and most of them have no vocals. My taste could be described as something like "ballsy music" – it tends to evoke feelings of action or pumps you upward. Even this, though, doesn't make me feel all that much.

I have always been odd. Musical anhedonia was just another way I felt different than others. I feel like I've missed out on friendships and social situations because of it. Just I don't really feel similar I am missing out from feeling an emotional reaction to it. Personally, I would notice it annoying feeling something every fourth dimension I heard a song. Emotion often clouds judgement, and so having emotion be brought to the surface by sounds seems like a disadvantage.

I accept definitely accepted that unless I receive some kind of weird brain injury, I volition never enjoy music like other people will. It doesn't bother me that I don't feel much from music. What bothers me more is the social isolation and loneliness it can contribute to. I wish musical people were more accepting of non-musical people.

Raluca: "Could I never hear music again and be fine? Yes"

I was probably in my late twenties when I properly realised I didn't like music, which is weirdly quite late. I'd moved in with my boyfriend and he had music on all the fourth dimension. One time there was no getting away from information technology and information technology was always in my infinite, I realised I didn't enjoy it. If I was lone (and that is still the case to this solar day) I would never have music on. We had many conversations, even rows, nigh it, only I mainly made out like the problem was just that it was likewise loud. Maybe considering "I just don't like music" is such a weird affair to say.

I practise feel like I'm missing out on a big part of the homo experience, merely it's non something I think about a lot. I find information technology an odd thing (I've never met anyone else with this). I've definitely come up to accept information technology, merely I don't talk virtually it actually. I've mentioned it in the past to people and I feel it makes me look 'not fun' or similar someone who isn't intelligent or cool enough to get the genius of, I don't know, Bowie. I do get it on an intellectual level, I really do, only does it practice anything for me, emotionally? No. Could I never hear whatsoever of it again and be just fine? Yep.

I understand why people beloved music and believe that information technology'southward 18-carat. But I too think a lot of information technology is affectation (and I take that I may be wrong, and this might just be lack of empathy on my part), particularly when someone is very intense about it. Oh, you lot tin can't go on if you can't listen to the Chemical Brothers at least in one case a twenty-four hours? "Stairway to Heaven" makes y'all cry? Delight.

I am more of a visual person for sure. I enjoy film and visual fine art, especially the modernistic, unusual, whimsical 'my child could have fabricated that' stuff, installations, etc. I paint sometimes (badly), I've made jewellery and been in some terrible am-dram every bit an adult. I have felt emotional in the presence of incredible nature or architecture. I AM FUN, dammit!

Christopher: "Every solar day I try to listen to music, to discover some pleasure in it, merely I just experience bare"

After smoking a marijuana strain that was either grown with pesticides or simply also strong, I take been experiencing musical anhedonia for about five months. I was an avid vinyl collector before and it's extremely painful to stare at a collection sitting and gathering dust because information technology'southward most of no use anymore. The shame of not being able to empathise the beauty of a Berlin industrial track merely makes me sad, because I've almost forgotten how good they are.

Every day I try and mind to music to run across if whatever sparks occur, but I never feel whatever pleasure, no matter how skilful the songs are. It's just blank. I don't want to sing the lyrics. There is no attachment to whatsoever song, no thing the depth of nostalgia it had previously. Information technology's amazing how our brains can work and what they are capable of. I think that every time after I listen to a song and I just feel nothing.

I have been able to find pleasure in other things, though. I've always been a big fan of fashion, mainly shoes, so I've been replacing my fourth dimension with that. I am glad I tin can all the same capeesh aesthetics and the dazzler of some artwork, simply I don't feel a surge of joy when I see something marvellous –instead I encounter it from a logical standpoint. E'er since the anhedonia hit, I've had to alter my mode of thinking about things.

@fudwedding / @teaplz

This article originally appeared on VICE Britain.

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Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a35gz8/no-enjoyment-dislike-music-what-is-anhedonia

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