Answering, “Why do we have favorite tunes?” with Hunter Farris

This week’s guest is Hunter Farris, host of the Song Appeal podcast. On his show, Hunter uses music theory, linguistics, rhetoric, and psychology to explore the reasons why we love the music we do.

By day, Farris is a music teacher but on his off-time, he likes to explore music psychology on his podcast. But what exactly is music psychology and is this anything like music theory? As Harris explains, “music theory is the theory behind what music should do and what should happen if you do certain things with music. Music psychology is the study of what actually happens when you do certain things with music, and it’s the study of what music actually does to us psychologically.” He says his show covers psychology, music theory, neuroscience, rhetoric, psycho-linguistics, and sociology and tries to pick up anything that could possibly help answer the question, “Why do we like this one song?”

… music theory is the theory behind what music should do and what should happen if you do certain things with music. Music psychology is the study of what actually happens when you do certain things with music, and it’s the study of what music actually does to us psychologically.

Hunter Farris

In this episode, Farris and I discuss the science behind music psychology and how he educates his listeners about their favorite songs. One song we discuss is Closer by the Chainsmokers; a very popular song that stayed at number one for eight straight months.

Follow Hunter Farris and listen to Song Appeal:

Podcast Host
About the Author
David Latchman is a freelance science writer and host of this podcast. He runs the Science vs. Hollywood blog where he explores the portrayal of science in television shows and movies.

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