The Brain's Sample Library

I have always wondered how sound affects our brains.

Imagine that you are still an infant and you got yourself a beautiful snake next to you but you’d only be cautious if you know what It means to have a snake next to you. When you hear a sound that is way louder than the things like a fan or a closet door, you react as if you are in danger for the very first time. This is an example of sound having a potential to affect more than visuals.

We have so many different parts to our brains. They work in complex ways that might take me years to fully understand, but I can understand the way the brain works with sound. And I don’t want to explain this using heavy biological terms, but in a way that makes sense to everyone.

We have a specific part of our brain that is responsible for processing emotions, detecting danger, and triggering the fight or flight response. Every human on earth has the same basic brain structure, but we all have vastly different experiences. Sometimes, this is hard for us to accept. We often get hurt by other people's actions, and they don't even realize their behavior is affecting us. They are just reacting based on their own internal wiring.

So, how does music work if everyone has the same brain, but processes things differently?

In music technology, there is something called a sample library. It means you don’t have to record a live instrument to make music. Instead, you can play virtual instruments on a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboard, as long as you have the sample library for that specific sound.

Here is how it works: when you press a key on a MIDI keyboard that is assigned to a specific track, it triggers a prerecorded sample. It plays that exact note, at the exact pitch, with the exact loudness and tone (timbre) of the way you hit the key. There is a lot more to it, but that is the basic idea.

When I tried to relate this to human psychology, it clicked.

I realized that our past experiences are the "samples," and our present life is the MIDI keyboard. Our brain doesn't just passively record the present, it actively tries to predict it. When something happens in the moment, our brain scans our past to find a matching "sample" to decide if this new situation is safe, dangerous, exciting, or boring. (Fortunately, this isn't a life sentence. Humans have realized this happens, and we've found ways to rewire our reactions through practices like mindfulness.)

I see this play out in everyday life. For example, I recently went to the local shop to get milk and curd. I asked for the milk first, but I also picked up the curd to hold in my hand while I got ready to pay. The shop owner froze for a second and asked me what I was doing. He thought I was only going to pay for the milk and steal the curd. Even after I clarified that I wanted both, he stood there tensely until he got the confirmation that I had paid.

Why did he do this? Because in his past experiences, he learned that people can be distrustful, or maybe someone had actually stolen from him this way before. That past "sample" was triggered the moment he saw me holding the curd.

This is exactly what happens when you hear a piece of music that makes you emotional.

Music triggers a sample from your past and forces you to feel the weight of that moment all over again. Yes, everyone has a different brain, and the music will make them feel something entirely different than what you feel. But the underlying mechanism the pressing of the key and the triggering of the past is the same.