Anyone here with "musical anhedonia"?

[Joe13]

I can appreciate good music and recognize talent, but really it does nothing deeper for me. Even the best music that's not obnoxious noise, I can take it or leave it. It's always been that way for me. I would be perfectly content living in a world without music. My wife says that's sad, but I don't know any different. How can I? She says it's like a neutered dog not knowing what he's missing. He's fat and happy and couldn't care less.

On extremely rare occasion something musical will strike my fancy out of the blue and I'll actually like it. It's surprising when it happens because it's so rare and unpredictable, and typically something that is really not me.

I'm going to really regret starting this thread, aren't I...

Hey, we all have our quirks so good on ya for sharing one of yours - that takes balls.

I am on the opposite spectrum and music can affect me deeply and provoke some very intense emotional responses.

I also sorta play guitar and the people that make it look easy and effortless cause me intense jealousy as well as I have a great respect for their talent.

I have found that while there are others who can denote more then myself, that I am able to pick up on subtleties that most people are not aware of when I bring it up.

Cheers and keep doing your thing

 

[gmerkt]

I have anhedonia for certain types of music.

I wonder what the word is for the neurological condition for people that can't appreciate or derive pleasure from abstract art?

I have the same problem. There was an article in the Seattle Times yesterday about chronic funding problems at the Bellevue Arts Museum, located in an eastern suburb of Seattle. Whose charge is contemporary art, craft and design. This is a big, fancy (but contemporary architecture) building that needs lots of care and feeding. Of course there are staff whose rice bowl depends on the existence of the museum. Their main source of funding is donations because gate fees, class fees, and booth fees from vendors are never enough. And how often do random, not-artsy people go to such a place? I'm thinking mostly one and done if at all. So the museum has become a kind of self-licking ice cream cone, with the local art community being the primary host of people who are involved with it. And lots of those people don't have the kind of money that is needed to keep it going. They have put the arm on the big money donors time after time and many of those have reached the point of exhaustion. "Unrealized financial expectations." Because starry eyes in the arts community believe that everyone else is interested in what they hold dear.

 

[arakboss]

From Wikipedia: "Musical anhedonia is a neurological condition characterized by an inability to derive pleasure from music."
It affects between 3% and 5% of the population, so it's apparently more common than I thought.

"For those who experience "musical anhedonia," listening to a song is halfway between boring and distracting—and their brain activity reflects that."

It's nice to finally realize that I'm not the only one. I realize and can appreciate that music is important to most people, and I'm probably missing out on something really good in life, but I don't think you can really miss something that you've never experienced. I've had friends drag me to concerts two or three times when I was younger, a terrible experience every time, loud and obnoxious, hated every minute of it. I've felt bad about that, thinking maybe I just didn't try hard enough to appreciate music, or maybe I'm just cold and uncaring as I was once told when I said I wasn't into music. At least now I know.

You know what fixes MA, Rap "music". It's like listening to talk radio but they talk real fast. That way you won't get bored.

Subject matter is usually about big booties or gunning down your neighbors.

 

[po18guy]

Oddly enough, it does make me feel a little better knowing that it's not just a weird personal preference, and yes, I've experienced all types of music, some I can appreciate a lot more than others, but nothing that inspires me, ever, in my life. And yes, I know some of you will ridicule me for that, but I'm used to it by now.

My wife and kids all love music, so I'm glad I didn't pass it on. To me, music is mostly just obnoxious noise. That is NOT a judgement call, so music lovers don't have to get upset with me.

Tin ear? Tone deaf? Now we have a disability name for it. Can you apply for handicapped parking?

 

[OldBroad44]

@CLT65 --
Very interesting. I had never heard of musical anhedonia. Thank you.

However, I have aphantasia. This is the inability to voluntarily form mental images. Not even a dot, circle, or straight line. About 1 to 3% of the population has it. It doesn't affect spatial skills. So, for example, I do well on tests that require identifying which of a set of images represent the test image in a different orientation. However, if someone says "visualize an apple" I get nothing. This affects memory too. I only rarely have dreams with visual content, and then not much. however, when physically exhausted after a day of field work as I lie in bed full color images can come to mind. By themselves. Back several decades ago when I occasionally smoked pot, I would also get spontaneous visual images when falling asleep. Its enjoyable to just watch and see what presents itself. I occasionally get spontaneous metal images, sometimes very vivid ones. The biggest obvious problem is I have a horrible time remembering faces. I would never be able to succeed as a politician or salesman. Or even as a waitress. Many or most movies are difficult for me to follow if they have more than just a few characters or unless I read the book. However, I had self-invented the first few weeks of algebra and geometry--not uncommon for kids with high levels of math ability -- but also symbolic logic and analytic philosophy. And then in college I invented another mode of thinking I call Taxonomy of Language that doesn't correlate with any whole field of math or logic I've seen so far. (Though I doubt if its original with me.) Its especially great for experimental design. And I also learned to deliberately shift between two types of thinking, one that kicks up spontaneously new ideas and one that is very efficient at ordinary routine thinking. Maybe the brain capacity I don't use on being able to form mental images gets used for greater abilities in other directions. I noticed even as a little kid that I tended to be either much better or much worse than everyone else depending on the particular thing.

Bret Weinstein and Eric Weinstein, brothers, share a certain kind of color "blindness". However, its not really a simple liability. It also causes greater ability to see contrasts. So, for example, they would be better able to see a predator creeping up on then in twilight than people with "normal" vision.

I think there is so much variability in how human brains work that we don't really have much understanding of what its like being anyone else.

 

[OldBroad44]

The three most vivid cases where I had what seemed like a spontaneous mental image, it was shared with someone else. That is, we got the or a closely related image simultaneously.

I'll tell you the wildest one. I walked past a friend of mine who was sitting at my dining room table reading something on the way to the kitchen. Suddenly I stopped and looked back at her. I had got a sudden very elaborate mental image. I was on a broad marble porch, a.marble pillar to my left, a broad set of marble stairs in front of me with a group of people at the bottom. I had been lecturing to this group. They were all men. So was I. We were all wearing white togas or some similar garment. One of the group I had been speaking to was my friend, though not in a female body. But I knew it was her. There were more classical buildings behind her, whether Greek or Roman I don't know enough to know.

My friend looked at me and said, "That was the strangest thing. I just got this image. In ancient Greece. You were up on a porch lecturing, and I was one of the students or members of the audience..." She described the togas, the building behind me, the fact that we were all men. I had not seen the building behind me. I wasn't facing that way. And she didn't see the buildings behind her that I saw.

So we discussed it and speculated that the scene we imagined was real. That both of us actually had experienced what we saw at some point in the past. And if that was true, reincarnation had to at least in some sense be real.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Your only available alternative is to do what The Accountant did to try to grow a soul.. namely involving extremely loud musicnoise, a strobe light and a stick.






Lulz

 

[Spitpatch]

I have the same aversion to electrocution, amputation and ugly fat chicks.

...and all the time I just thought it was just me.

 

[Yarome]

I know some of you will ridicule me for that, but I'm used to it by now.

Just to be clear. My mockery is not toward you or your inability to be emotionally moved by music. My response to that? That's cool with me, Bro. To each their own and no skin off my nose. I think abstract art is stoopid and my kids kindergarten art projects are vastly more interesting. So what? No skin off anyone else nose is there?

My mockery is toward the scientific community that defines what is "normal" and then spends copious amounts of time, money and resources to prove and classify a "neurological disorder" that is divergent from their model of "normalcy"... that really doesn't even make a dogs butt lick of a difference in the world.

"Look at me! See what I published? My life now has profound purpose!"

I'm more like.... after years pursuing "higher education" that's the best you can come up with to help mankind? My question. Who were the smucks that got conned into funding that study? Let me guess.... taxpayers(?) I just know that if it was my kid, who I had spent 100's of thousands on their education and that was the summation of their scientific contribution to society... I would be PISSED!

 

[CLT65]

Tin ear? Tone deaf? Now we have a disability name for it. Can you apply for handicapped parking?

I wouldn't think of it as any kind of disability, more like being free from something that bogs most people down. I could even work in music, like a super Simon Cowell on a music competition show: "You suck" and "get off the stage" to everyone. (just kidding)

No I'm not tone deaf. I can hold a tune just fine, can sing fine if I want to. There's just no emotion in music for me. I'm fine with quiet music in the background, used to listen to the oldies station while I worked back in the day.

I figure if there really is 3-5% out there like me, surely there will be someone here who understands. When I found that article on it yesterday it was like a lightbulb lit up in my brain: yes, that's me! That's exactly me!

 

[solv3nt]

Just to be clear. My mockery is not toward you or your inability to be emotionally moved by music. My response to that? That's cool with me, Bro. To each their own and no skin off my nose. I think abstract art is stoopid and my kids kindergarten art projects are vastly more interesting. So what? No skin off anyone else nose is there?

My mockery is toward the scientific community that defines what is "normal" and then spends copious amounts of time, money and resources to prove and classify a "neurological disorder" that is divergent from their model of "normalcy"... that really doesn't even make a dogs butt lick of a difference in the world.

"Look at me! See what I published? My life now has profound purpose!"

I'm more like.... after years pursuing "higher education" that's the best you can come up with to help mankind? My question. Who were the smucks that got conned into funding that study? Let me guess.... taxpayers(?) I just know that if it was my kid, who I had spent 100's of thousands on their education and that was the summation of their scientific contribution to society... I would be PISSED!

If my kids want college money from me. They best do a major or trade that pays $60k starting in today's Dollars. Anything less isn't an investment on my part and I'll invest my money elsewhere, like more guns.

 

[CLT65]

60k isn't that much anymore. We had an opening where I work recently, probably 70k with a moderate amount of OT Throughout the year. We had very few applicants and ended up hiring a 24 yo guy with no experience.

I thought it was a pretty good job with good starting pay, for someone with no college education or experience, so it surprised me how little interest there was.

Unfortunately my kids won't get much college money from us; you can't give what you don't have.

 

[solv3nt]

60k isn't that much anymore. We had an opening where I work recently, probably 70k with a moderate amount of OT Throughout the year. We had very few applicants and ended up hiring a 24 yo guy with no experience.

I thought it was a pretty good job with good starting pay, for someone with no college education or experience, so it surprised me how little interest there was.

Unfortunately my kids won't get much college money from us; you can't give what you don't have.

It really isn't, but it's much more than the $40k that you get from $20 minimum wage. We've been socking away $150/mo per kid since they were born, which should give them around $70k.

 

[CLT65]

We wanted to save up to help them with college, but my wife's medical bills have gobbled up whatever extra we've had over the years, probably 100k after insurance just in the last decade or so. Sometimes life happens. I never got a dime from my parents, worked for it on my own.

 

[357 MAX]

I have known people with your condition, not judgmental at all. but i am totally different. as a truck driver for many years music got me through many long nights. with half a dozen 50,000 watt stations in the western US. you could choose your poison. an old song from the past could cause me to choke up and bring tears to my eyes, not from sadness but from joy! when the 50,000 watters changed to talk format i was totally pi$$ed, where did my music go! too bad the music changed in 1992 when the music industry was taken over by people with no appreciation of music, all the music was gobbledygook to my ear after that!

 

[po18guy]

I wouldn't think of it as any kind of disability, more like being free from something that bogs most people down. I could even work in music, like a super Simon Cowell on a music competition show: "You suck" and "get off the stage" to everyone. (just kidding)

No I'm not tone deaf. I can hold a tune just fine, can sing fine if I want to. There's just no emotion in music for me. I'm fine with quiet music in the background, used to listen to the oldies station while I worked back in the day.

I figure if there really is 3-5% out there like me, surely there will be someone here who understands. When I found that article on it yesterday it was like a lightbulb lit up in my brain: yes, that's me! That's exactly me!

You might be the best music judge of all. I love a good tune as much as anyone I suppose. But not everywhere and all of the time.

 

[Certaindeaf]

anhedonia? you hedon!

 

[Provincial]

And I thought it was just that I didn't like the style of Leo Sayer.

 

[CLT65]

At least I'm not a musical hedonist!

Actually some of my best friends might be described that way, one in particular. I think every minute of his day is filled with music in one way or another, and I can fully respect that.

 

[CLT65]

However, I have aphantasia. This is the inability to voluntarily form mental images. Not even a dot, circle, or straight line. About 1 to 3% of the population has it.

Stuff like this interests me. The inner workings of the human brain are miraculous. It doesn't take much for something to be slightly askew, and you often hear stories of someone with some kind of mental glitch, who has a particular strength in another area.

Here's another weird one- I don't remember colors. I'm not colorblind, but my memory sure seems to be. My wife will be referring to someone or something, like a person wearing a blue shirt or driving a green car, and I might remember the person or car, but absolutely no memory of color, unless it's something that really stuck out. I can barely remember what color my own house is unless I'm standing right in front of it. Just another weird glitch, a quirk of the brain.

Maybe there's a fancy name for that too!