How Music Paints Your Character

Music makes a huge impact on our psyche and mentality, it’s one of the essential factors influencing our development and becoming what we are today.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Plato

It’s not accidental at the beginning to mention the words of the well-known philosopher as it’s due to such prominent authorities we often appreciate, give importance and understand the role of significant-to-life values and phenomena. One of such essential factors that makes our life more emotional, picturesque and gratifying is music which place in our psyche and character formation is irreplaceable.

The sound of each melody that we like so much does not give us mere pleasure at the given moment, it most importantly affects us psycho-physiologically, leaves a trace on our development and even more concisely music paints our character.

It is scientifically proven that music has a direct influence on the cognitive skills of human, his way of thinking, learning and working memory, personal and social development. And here again it would be worthy to mention the words of another famous authority, Nietzsche, who wrote in “Twilight of the Idols” that without music, life would be a mistake.

What Does the Research Show?

The largest study of musical tastes and character type so far has been made by Adrian North, a professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Being an expert on music psychology he has carried out a detailed research on social and applied psychology of music, music and consumer behavior and the role of music preference in daily life.

During the three year investigation in 60 countries North asked more than 36,000 people to rate a wide range of musical styles in the order of preference. By the questionnaire certain aspects of personality were also measured.

The research showed that classical and heavy metal music are preferred by listeners with similar personalities but dissimilar ages. It’s typical of young members to go for heavy metal however their older counterparts give preference to classical. However, they share the same motivation: listen to something dramatic and theatrical.

North noticed that in spite of the public firm belief that the fans of heavy metal are depressed and represent danger both to themselves and society they are quite “delicate things”. Basically they are the same type of person as classical music fans. And don’t be surprised if they tell you that they also like Wagner since it’s loud and brash.

Which Is YOUR Type?

Are you interested and want to discover a bit more about your personality or make an idea about what type of person your friend is judging by the music he or she listens to. Let’s look at the major music types and their corresponding character types below that will help you reveal yourself through music.

Country

Country songs are mainly focused on pain, remorse and heartbreak, and herein people who are attracted to this type of music tend to be emotionally stable. Country music fans are typically hardworking, conventional and outgoing. They are more conventional and rather conservative than the fans of other genres. Another psychologist Rentfrow states that country and pop music followers are more simpleminded which is not actually bad, since they just do not like to make things unnecessarily complex.

Classical

High sense of self-esteem, modesty, quietness: these are the features that speak about the nature of classical music fans. They are introverted and secretive persons who are at ease with themselves and the surrounding world. They are creative and inner-directed individuals with a little sense of egocentrism.

Rap and Hip/Hop

Though rap lovers are thought to be violent and aggressive researches have shown no such results. Rap fans are more likely to have high self esteem and are more sociable, outgoing and communicative individuals.

Rock / Heavy Metal

Though frequently rock music and heavy metal fans seem to have aggressive nature the reality mostly proves the contrary. Despite their seemingly rude image these listeners are usually quite gentle. Like the classical music listeners they are also introverted and creative, however they suffer from low self-esteem.

Jazz, Blues and Soul

People who adore jazz, blues or soul music are turned out to be very extroverted and friendly.

Conclusion

The musical identity of a person can be reflected by his way of clothing, going to certain pubs and using certain types of slang which once more stresses that music and personality are in firm and indissoluble connection.