It takes you this long to like a song

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

Music lovers know they like a song in less than five seconds, according to a new study.

Scientists found people’s opinions of a new tune didn’t change, depending on whether they listened to a snippet or the entire track.

And they discovered listeners liked the tune more if they listened to the complete song before the excerpt, compared to after it.

People strongly preferred listening to the whole song, rather than a snippet, such as the teasers found on Apple Music and Amazon.

The research team from New York University concluded reactions to clips could predict how people would feel about the entire song.

They said their findings, published in the journal Music Perception, indicate we respond more to the “general vibe” of a track, rather than its musical notes.

Senior author Professor Pascal Wallisch says that could widen our understanding of how songs evoke certain emotions in listeners.

Prof. Wallisch, of New York University, said: “Over the course of any given song, the acoustic properties change dramatically, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to the listeners.

“We can determine within five seconds or less whether or not we will like it.

“This finding might have wide-ranging implications for our understanding of what properties of songs evoke certain emotions in listeners.

“The fact that a small excerpt is enough to tell us if we like it or hate it, suggests that we respond more to the general vibe that a song brings to us rather than its musical notes per se.”

Joined by four NYU undergraduates, Professor Wallisch studied 650 undergraduate students and New York City residents.

Participants listened to 250 complete songs, and excerpts from these songs lasting five, 10, or 15 seconds.

Researchers varied the segment of the songs in the snippet, including the intro, outro, chorus and verses.

Songs included popular tracks on Billboard’s charts over the past 80 years, alongside classical, country, jazz, hip-hop, rock, electronic, soul, and R&B.

People rated how much they liked each song or clip, whether they: Hate it, strongly dislike it, slightly dislike it, are indifferent, slightly like it, strongly like it, or love it.

They ranked how familiar they were with the song, on a scale of never heard it, listened to it once, more than once, multiple times, or too many to count.