House Music Makes You Happy

By Katie Stott

Seeing Fred Again play live must be at the top of more than a couple of bucket lists. This is a fact which does not seem to bother the man himself. Many artists spend months alluding to tours, advertising dates, and giving fans plenty of time to plan in advance. Fred, however, announced that he was playing in Glasgow around a week before the event was to take place. Panic ensues, and after scrambling to get my hands on tickets, cancelling weekend plans and a couple of apologetic last-minute phone calls I was set to go.  

The night before, and an email arrives in my inbox from Fred. It would be easy to mistake this email as a text message from a friend, given the total lack of capital letters, frequent abbreviations, and joyfully unprofessional tone. However, as much as I wish I was best friends with Fred, the email was only to inform concert goers that their cameras would be covered with stickers. Fred explained that he wanted to achieve a “level of togetherness”, and a feeling of “being innnn it”, that enjoying a concert through the lens of a phone camera can sometimes obstruct.  Unsurprisingly, placing a paper sticker over people’s phone lenses did not stop them from taking photos and videos throughout the concert. Despite this, it is not difficult to argue that Fred still achieved the sensation of elation and community that he wished. It was obvious that the feeling created by his music was present regardless of the presence of phones, waving over heads in the audience. 

Fred Again at his very best (https://www.fredagain.com/)

Fred Again exemplifies the feelings of euphoria often felt through house music, as his concerts and own attitude while performing create such an infectious feeling of exhilaration and joy. However, this feeling is replicated a hundred times over in crowds around the world, from stadiums to house parties. As house music is characterised by being music to dance to, this already offers part of an explanation. Dancing, as any physical activity such as running or other forms of exercise, automatically releasing endorphins into the bloodstream. They are a type of neurotransmitter, or messenger within the body, that can decrease pain and stress levels. They also increase feelings of wellbeing, so can make you feel a sense of happiness and elation when you dance. However, people dance to all sorts of music. This very same effect could be found by dancing to folk music, or pop. There seems to also be an immeasurable magic about specifically house music which goes beyond this, making listeners feel euphoric.

One particular study offers an explanation for this through higher tempo of the music. On average, house music tends to have a higher tempo of around 130 bpm. This study, published in Nature, exposed individuals to 3 different tempos of 56 bpm, 106 bpm, and 156 bpm. By measuring the mood of participants, the study found that a faster bpm causes a rise in positive emotions. This is because music and tempo have the ability to alter our emotional state and boost our mood, through the effect they have on activity within our brains. Higher tempos alter the activity of the auditory cortex, which is responsible for the processing of all sounds that enter our brain. This then engages with other brain regions, such as parts of the amygdala, which play a key role in emotional processing. Music also has an effect on the limbic system. These regions of our brain (including the hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala and hippocampus) are responsible for management and regulation of emotions and behaviours, among other functions. It is sometimes known as the emotional nervous system and helps to link physical wellbeing to emotional wellbeing. This means that it is a key part of emotional responses to sensory stimuli, such as music.

House music also has a specific, very familiar, attribute which interacts with our bodies reward system, and can cause a release of dopamine. The beat drop! A staple of club and electronic dance music, a beat drop is a phrase within a song involving the music building up, and creating tension through rising tempo or increasing frequencies. Then after a brief pause, the music comes back in, often with a sudden change in the rhythm or bass accompanying the full force of the beat. It acts as the climax of the song, and the building-up of the music before the beat drops builds anticipation. Listeners tend to feel elated during this, as dopamine floods the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that works in the reward system circuit. During this part of the beat drop, the regions in the brain responsible for pattern recognition are also activated. As the tension builds, we expect and wait for the beat to drop.

When it does, this also triggers a dopamine release, leaving us feeling satisfied for correctly predicting the resolution of the music. The more build up there is to this, the higher the payoff. It might be fair to say that the same theory applies to house music – the more you listen, the happier you feel.