Live music is known to give you goosebumps; a study reveals why

Live music is known to give you goosebumps; a study reveals why

Live music makes your skin come alive through goosebumps.

It’s such a weird phenomenon when you listen to music and you know you’re enjoying it but then you REALLY start to enjoy it because your skin breaks out in a goosebump dance.

I’ve experienced it many times, but never put more thought into why this happens; after all it’s not a physiological ‘survival’ tactic.

Well, Matthew Sachs from Harvard University set out to draw a conclusion by combining the results of his experiment with existing studies on the same subject.

In his study, he monitored the heart rates and skin conductance of subjects who listened to three of their favourite pieces of music in order to gauge which aspects of the songs induced the goose.

He found intensity of lyrics, rising pitch, harmonic intervals and collective crowd singing to be key factors in goosebump moments.

A gander at goosebumps

Many previous studies attempting to investigate this subject have been typically been conducted in a lab setting, but now MR Sachs is taking his study to where the magic happens.

‘’It’s hugely exciting to be able to explore the physiological correlates of aesthetic emotions for the first time during live performances this summer.”

Barclaycard carried out a survey in conjunction with the study revealing some interesting insights:

-The emotional effect of a live performance is enhanced by being among friends (41 per cent) or singing with the crowd (41%)

-18:37 is the optimal time for a goosebump moment

– Rock music was voted the most goosebump-inducing genre (31%), followed by pop (29%), indie (7%), house (6%) and classical symphonies (5%)

-27% believe watching their favourite band perform is more likely to cause goosebumps than getting married

The live music goosebump tour will commence this summer, hopefully bringing more multiplying chills and some further insights.

Sourced