[philmcc]

I have a question for musical anhedonics:

Do you find it harder to enjoy movies?

Typically the score does so much _work_ in the name of emotional manipulation, that I wonder if it would make movies less enjoyable.

More specifically I wonder if you would like certain movies (Spielberg) less and other movies (Er, Um. Who doesn't use scores that much?) more?

[qznc]

How would I know if it is harder for me to enjoy movies than for somebody else?

I don't like "music movies" such as High Fidelity, 8 Mile, School of Rock, Blues Brothers. They are just average comedy/drama flicks for me. Maybe normal people like them more?

For a while if someone asked me what music I like, I replied film music. I do enjoy film music but maybe just because the music makes me remember the movie?

I'm definitely affected by the music. Maybe music can still emphasize emotions for a musical anhedonic and it just that music in itself does not do much?

[garmaine]

Interesting. I also have mostly soundtracks in my playlists, for when I feel like listening to music at all (usually to drown out distractions). It's all soundtracks of things I've watched and enjoyed, and puts me in the mood of the memory of the movie or TV show its from. The music itself doesn't do very much at all for me directly.

[firdak]

This mirrors my own experience exactly. I too listen to a lot of soundtracks, from movies or from video games that I have enjoyed. Although music doesn't provoke an emotional response on its own, it has an incredible ability to being back emotional memories.

For a similar reason, when choosing music to listen to, I generally listen to the same songs again and again - those which have a connection to my past. It is very hard to feel anything about a new piece of music.

This means that I may regularly listen to one track by a particular artist, but have no interest in any of their other songs. I don't even like listening to remixed or live versions of songs that I enjoy - they are sufficiently different that they do not evoke any memories and hence are uninteresting to me.

[irrational]

How would I know? I don't have an emotional response to music and never have, so what would I compare it to?

You know, I also don't dream. I wonder if there is a name for never dreaming and if there is any link between not dreaming and not having an emotional response to music.

[firdak]

> Do you find it harder to enjoy movies?

Quite possibly. I do enjoy watching a movie on occasion, but there are many other things I would rather do with my time. It turns out that compared to most people, I don't watch many movies - I've seen well under 100 of the "IMDb Top 1000 Movies of All Time" [1].

I've never considered this to be related to music, but I guess it could be.

[1] https://www.listchallenges.com/top-1000-greatest-movies-of-a...

[rimunroe]

I dunno, I think soundtracks to movies are one of the only places where I ever get any sort of emotional response from music, and it's always because I associate some sequence of sounds in the piece with something that's happening in the film then. It doesn't feel like appreciating the music so much as just being reminded of the part of the movie that happened around that time. Sort of like an aural mile marker.