This week we are going to explore the experience of Frissons and music.
What are frissons?
This term was coined back in 2011 to more fully explain the experience we have of when music gives us goosebumps. When it affects us so deeply, beyond words, that we have an autonomic nervous response. It is a combination of visceral physical sensation throughout our whole body and strong emotional resonance that alters our state.
When we listen to music , we don’t just listen with our ears and have an auditory response (see my previous blogs), but a heart, being, and body experience. We respond with emotion, sensation, transcendent states and changes in behaviour, such as the way we dance.
What happens in our body during a frisson?
Frissons can include chills, goosebumps, emotional responses such as laughter, tears, joy and an opening of our heart. Maslow describes the opening heart as a peak experience, involving a moment of “awe, ecstasy, or sudden insight into life as a powerful unity transcending space, time, and the self”. It has been found that frisson experiences activate the same neural reward pathways related to Dopamine release and emotional processing regions within the brain that also work in conjunction with our muscle activity. Verbal language is relatively new compared to non-verbal and instinctual responses and Frissons tap into this primal response mechanism.
When are we most likely to experience them?
We are most likely to experience Frisson during sudden peaks in loudness of music, or when there are unusual harmonies or grace notes used. There is such a thing as musical expectancy, where we expect certain harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic patterns. When these patterns are not followed, we can experience frissons. Personally, I always get Frisson when I hear the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan. Something deep inside me responds automatically. I am not Muslim, but my body doesn’t care. I have a psychophysiological response.
Other contexts for Frissons
Other experiences of Frisson may occur when chord progressions descend in fifths to the tonic and when the melody is within the human vocal register. We can also experience frissons when we have a deep resonance to information being shared, or to a person we are highly magnetised to. It could be the body’s way of electrically and chemically noting an electromagnetic match, that activates the ANS and Dopamine release as well as norepinephrine. We feel charged and euphoric, not needing food as much, due to lower levels of serotonin, and in an altered state. Then the chemicals shift when we go into the bonding and connecting phase, such as with the release of oxytocin and vasopressin. Once we are in relationship and perhaps have ‘our song’, this can trigger frissons as we are transported back to memories of the times we listened to this song. In this sense it is autobiographical.
Biohacking Frissons
Check out some frontier technology developed in Australia, long the lines of transhumanist biohacking. Not my cup of tea but you may be interested in what is possible.
https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/frisson/overview/
for more on Frissons check out this in depth article.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790/full
To connect with me for a sonic journey to explore frissons for yourself, get in touch, and check out my offerings page for more information.
Have a great week
Soleil
