Friday, September 19, 2008

Musical Personality?






















Recently, I read an article about how people's musical preferences bring out their personalities. Apparently, a study has been conducted by a professor of Herion-Watt University in Scotland to correlate the link between a person and his or her choice of music. There is also an ongoing survey that people can take anonymously on their website http://peopleintomusic.com to know more about how their music interests determine their personality. Some of the questions in this survey are pretty interesting to respond to.

So far, the results based on the responses from people all over the world indicate the following-

Jazz and blues listeners are people with high self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease.

Classical music listeners (includes Indian classical too) are people who also have high self-esteem, creative, but are more shy in nature, not outgoing.

Country and western music listeners are considered hard-working and outgoing.

Reggae listeners are creative but not hardworking, while rap lovers are outgoing.

The research also pointed out an astonishing similarity between classical music listeners and heavy metal fans that they are both creative, but not the outgoing types. Also, the professor has found through his research that those who drive sports cars and have blaring music through their radios, are the ones who are mostly high income folks while the folks who listen to softer, relaxing music are lower down on the income scale.

Now, that the research results are out, it would be good to pause for a moment and think about what type of music each and every one of us listen to and try to understand more about our natures. I think that for most youngsters who get exposed to western music in their teens, a lot of it comes with the crowd that they hang out with. If your friends are talking about a cool band group that does rap or hip-hop, then there is the tendency to get hooked onto that. At college and later years as one matures, one learns to listen to more genres and appreciate the various types of music.

As for as Indian classical carnatic music goes, a great deal of it comes from growing up in a traditional family where music is very much a part of the household. It is only natural for folks who were raised in that environment by hearing their grandmothers and mothers sing become more attuned to that. Also, children growing up in those kinds of households are sent to learn the basics of the swaras etc. from a music teacher at a young age. There are sections of those youngsters who become interested in pursuing the interest as they navigate through school and college, while there are others who drop out after a while.

Whatever be the music you listen to, it is always good to know more about why that particular genre interests you and also help understand yourself better. After all, at the end of a tiring long day, listening to good music is one of the few things that can be soothing and relaxing.

Have a great weekend...

10 comments:

Cham said...

Great post, i never heard about it :) So by simply asking a quest with someone which type of music he/she likes might reveal some surprise :)
Have a Great weekend!

Srikitchen said...

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Deepthi Shankar said...

that was a nice read .. i have always enjoyed classical music I guess that explains my nature too

Krishnan said...

I love listening to TFM, both golden 602 and Ilayaraja. I love Gulzar's Hindi film songs. Don't know what it says about my personality.

Priya said...

Nice post about musical thingy.

Lakshmi said...

my mother is a classical music singer and I cant sing to save my skin..give me old hindi songs anyday

AJEYA RAO said...

I found the questions very difficult. I could not think of one album...recently any music is of my interest...Flute...Sitar...santoor...carnatic....hindustani.

mitr_bayarea said...

All-

Thanks for your comemnts, since the study was done in Scotland, they didn't have a genre for cine music.

Raju said...

Very interesting.. Recently I read a post about relationship between Raagas and color; and another between raagas and time of the day. I checked the original website.. The questionnaire was quite elaborate and it resembled the standard psychological/sociological surveys.. Good job..

Usha said...

Amazing to know that classical music fans and heavy metal fans have some similar traits, who would have thunk it :) good post very interesting:)