Harmonies of the Heart
Exploring Love and Music
1. The High Fidelity of Personality in Playlists.
Recently, I took a deep dive into the music on my playlists. It all started after I began to wonder if my music preferences were code for something else, like my underlying personality.
I’ve long understood that music provides me with an alternative interior language for thinking and feeling, often without words. It helps me find clarity, process chaos and celebrate triumph. But how? Why is my brain programmed to prefer certain kinds of music over others?
It has saddened me when partners haven’t been able to share my excitement over a newly found acoustic riff, perfectly balanced by soulful sweet harmonies. It has perplexed me when I’ve had partners whose music hurts my ears. It has been a source of friction on long car journeys when we haven’t been able to agree on what music to play. But maybe it’s also because our music has represented underlying personality incompatibilities?
I went looking for further answers and found a thirty-five question test at the Musical Universe. This test has been devised from the extensive research of psychologists working in the field of music and personality, who have discovered that yes, there are associations between the music we like and our personality.
The Musical Universe classifies music preferences into the following five groups (which form the acronym MUSIC) as follows:
mellow, eg. sad, slow, quiet, not distorted, intelligent.
unpretentious, eg. uncomplicated, folk, singer/songwriter, soundtrack,
sophisticated, eg. intelligent, inspiring, complex, operatic, jazz, worldbeat
intense, eg. distorted, loud, electric, punk, heavy metal.
contemporary, eg. funk, Europop, electronic, percussive.
and personality traits as classified by the Big Five personality trait profile.
Personality is classified according to the Big Five personality trait profile:
openness - drawn to complex music, eg classical, jazz, indie, thought provoking lyrics;
conscientiousness - drawn to structure and predictability, eg pop music;
extraversion - drawn to lively music eg dance, electronic;
agreeableness - drawn to emotional music eg country, folk, singer songwriter;
emotional stability - drawn to alternative, emotional music.
It’s fun to take the test. My results rated me as an extremely high lover of mellow music and a high appreciator of sophisticated music. This correlated with a high openness score, which I was rather chuffed about, since people who score highly on this scale are said to have active inner lives, wild imaginations, be philosophically liberal and appreciate aesthetics and the arts. Yep. That’s me. Or I’d like to think so.
However, after the test, I wanted a more personal, in depth analysis. I wanted less of the psychological jargon. I wanted to find a simple way to demonstrate how my music reveals me.
Where else could I go but Nick Hornby and High Fidelity?
(At the risk of offending High Fidelity die hard fans, I preferred 2020 TV series which had Zoë Kravitz playing Rob to the 2000 movie version with John Cusack playing Rob. It was all because of the gender switch, which, to me, made it fresh and more relatable).
In the spirit of High Fidelity, (either version), I collated five of my own Top Five lists. It was a cathartic process. I’m still not sure if all the selections I made on my lists were the right ones, but, I have kept telling myself, each choice represented the larger playlist from which it was drawn.
I now think my five Top Five lists are a window to who I am. I recommend undertaking a five Top Five process, especially if you want to probe your music history and what you like and reveal yourself in tunes. But warning: if you have a large music library, the exercise takes hours, especially if you listen nostalgically to every song you’ve ever liked.
Stay ‘tuned’ for my lists. I might share them at some stage.
2. The Open Ears Project
In a similar vein to making Top Five lists, “The Open Ears” podcast asks guests to to share a classical piece of music of personal importance and explain the significance it has to them.
Each episode is short, around 10-12 min, and offers ‘a brief and soulful glimpse into human lives, helping us to hear this music — and each other — differently.’
In the episode shared below, Deborah Frances-White, host of “The Guilty Feminist” podcast recalls the first time she saw Mozart’s “Così fan tutte.” She talks about how the music “Soave si il vento” has continued to have special meaning for her because of what happened to her on the train home after the performance.
3. Music That Stirs the Soul
This year’s Grammys Awards had amazing performances from Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell.
Although I’ve always been a fan of both Chapman and Mitchell, I was overwhelmed when I heard how time has deepened and emotionally strengthened their voices. Their grace and pure genius has only increased with time.
Luke Combs had been nominated for a Grammy for his recent remake of the “Fast Car,” which is presumably why Chapman made an exception to perform the song with him, as she has been out of the spotlight for many years. She last performed “Fast Car” at the Grammys in 1989, when she won the Best Female Pop Vocalist Award.
Here’s Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now” in 2000, with full orchestral backing. The original version of “Both Sides Now” was never one of my favourite Joni Mitchell songs, but after hearing this version, it now leads as one of my penultimate favourite songs. She has made the song so much more poignant, with her rich deep voice and gravitas giving the lyrics that she wrote many years earlier, a stirring emotional depth.
Here’s Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now” at the 2024 Grammys. It is a spectacular performance. Now, as I watch Mitchell sing in this video, on the mysteries of life and love, I can’t believe there was ever a time this song wasn’t one of my favourites.
3. August Blue
Continuing the theme of music and love, August Blue by Deborah Levy, tells the story of Elsa M Anderson, a concert pianist who deserted a concert at the height of fame, in the middle of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 in Vienna. Being a child prodigy, she’s not had a typical childhood. Her gaps of self knowledge have caught up with her. With a European backdrop, tension mounts as Elsa is unsettled by a doppelgänger who accompanies her journey of self discovery. Written in Levy’s characteristic taut prose, the work is intricate and rewarding.
4. Daisy Jones & the Six
My streaming service kept recommending songs from the soundtrack of Daisy Jones & the Six to me before I realised this was a TV series (in fact, an adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel). This meant I had liked and was listening regularly to most of the songs from the series before I watched it. Which is to say, I think the music is great. Watch it for the music alone. But if you’ve ever been a fan of Fleetwood Mac, on whom “Daisy Jones & the Six” is loosely based, watch it for the story about the rise and fall of a rock band and their ill fated love affairs as well. It’s not groundbreaking TV — it’s no A Star Is Born — but it’s highly watchable and entertaining. I loved it.
More next time,
Jen.