Hearing live music may be more emotional than listening to a recording of the same tune because it brings about greater activity in the part of the brain linked to processing emotions:
Sascha Frühholz at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and his team composed 12 pieces of music, each lasting 30 seconds. Half were written with the aim of expressing negative emotions, such as sadness and anger. These were slower, less harmonious and included more minor chords (和弦) than the remaining songs, written to arouse positive emotions.
The researchers then employed 27 people who weren't musically trained, to listen to these 12 pieces twice—once performed by a live pianist, which the participants heard through a speaker, and once as a recording. The order they listened to them was randomly assigned, with 30 seconds of silence in between. People didn't know when they were hearing a recording or live music.
While listening to the music, the participants lay in an MRI scanner (扫描仪) so the team could monitor their brain activity. The pianist then adapted the volume and speed of the piece according to the brain activity. For example, if someone was showing little activity in response to a positive piece of music, the pianist might play louder.
"Recorded music is net adaptive to now a listener is responding, but live pianists often adapt the music to the audience to get the best response from them," says Frühholz.
Live performances of both the negative and positive pieces led to increased brain activity in the left amygdala, the region of the brain that is strongly linked to assigning sensory stimuli, such as sounds, to certain emotions.
The recorded tunes caused much less, and more inconsistent, activity in the left amygdala. This matched how emotive the participants rated each piece of music after the experiment.
The findings show that live music strengthens our emotional response, probably due to its free-flowing and active nature.