For those familiar with the Signal Patterns team, you’ll know we have a very diverse team of scientists, researchers and developers here. Most are recognized leaders in their respective disciplines but some are well known outside of science and academia and are famous with the general public.

I got the chance to see one of them last night discussing his new book…and then some. Best selling author (and Signal Patterns Science Team member) Dan Levitin was at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble discussing his latest book, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. In it, Dan explores the evolution of music and the human brain over tens of thousands of years. And as the title suggests, Dan identifies six types of music that have developed over time and become a key part of our culture.

However, this wasn’t just your typical book store reading that you might catch on C-SPAN. Because in addition to leading the McGill University Laboratory for the Study of Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise, Dan is an accomplished musician, having played professionally with artists like Mel Tormé, Nancy Wilson, and members of the Steve Miller Band and Santana (as well as producing or consulting on albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan and Chris Isaak).

After discussing his book, Dan then played a well-received set with Nashville recording artist Rodney Crowell, highlighting how each of Rodney’s songs fell into one of his categories (like songs of knowledge or songs of comfort).

While pondering Dan’s “six songs” thesis, I kept thinking of our Music Patterns survey, Dan’s research on its underlying FUSES Model and how it all ties together. We’ve been doing a lot of work on this application based on all the feedback we’ve received and look forward to delivering some significant news on this front in the near term.

Just six songs? Guess I need a smaller iPod!

What’s your favorite style of music? Classical or Jazz? Rap or Dance? Salsa or Tango?

The music research we’ve been doing here at Signal Patterns indicates that people’s preferences for music genres tend to group together. In other words, people who really like a particular style of music, say classical, tend to also like certain other genres, like jazz and world music.

So far, it looks like preferences for a large assortment of music genres can be grouped into five music dimensions. Those dimensions spell the acronym FUSES:

• Forceful (described as loud, distorted, and energetic, and includes heavy metal, rock, alternative and punk),
• Urban (described as rhythmic, percussive, and funky, and includes rap, dance, techno and electronica),
• Sophisticated (described as intelligent and inventive, and includes classical, jazz, and world),
• Earthy (described as melancholic and real, and includes country, folk and bluegrass) and
• Smooth (described as relaxing and gentle, and includes R&B and soul).

One of the reasons we’re interested in people’s music preferences is because we believe (as we suspect do most of you) that the types of music people like reveals information about their personalities. To be sure, we’ve compared your responses to our Music Patterns preferences survey with your responses to our Personality Patterns survey. And the results are in…

Forceful music fans tend to be thrill-seeking, rebellious, haphazard, at ease, and self-indulgent.

Urban music fans tend to be outgoing, friendly, confident, warm, and generally happy.

Sophisticated music fans tend to be imaginative, reflective, creative, quick-witted, intellectual, and private.

Earthy music fans tend to be nice, understanding, honest, sympathetic, and nurturing.

Smooth music fans tend to be cooperative, friendly, conventional, rule following, hard working, and empathic.

So there you have it; there are connections between the styles of music people like and their personalities, many of which seem fairly intuitive and may be in line with any stereotypes you have about types of music fans. And that raises another interesting question: Do we listen to music that fits our personalities, or do we acquire personality traits that fit the music?

Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective [dating] partners that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases…. It amused us at the time… But there was an important and essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter and it’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently…

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

For Rob, Dick, and Barry music was everything. From the moment they woke up to the second they fell asleep they listened to music, thought about it, and talked about it. Thus, it is no surprise why they supposed that a questionnaire asking about such things as music preferences would highlight valuable information about the character of a person. As it turns out, music aficionados are not the only ones who hold this belief. In fact, a rapidly growing body of research on folk theories of music reveals that many people believe music reflects important aspects of their personalities and the personalities of others.

The idea that the type of music people listen to can reveal important information about their personalities appears justified. Several empirical studies in music psychology have identified connections between the styles of music people like listening to and a range of personality traits. For example, die-hard rock and metal fans tend to have high scores on measures of sensation seeking. This means that people who enjoy “living on the edge”—who engage in risky and sometimes life threatening recreational activities—also enjoy listening to intense and somewhat rebellious styles of music. People who love listening to jazz and classical music tend to have high scores on measures of open mindedness, tolerance for ambiguity, and need for cognition. This means that people who enjoy engaging in abstract thought and who take pleasure in “wild flights of fancy” tend to listen to music that may, in some respects, be regarded as vague, complex, and intellectual. Fans of rap and dance music tend to have high scores on measures of Extraversion and social dominance. This means that people who enjoy being around others and who place a lot of importance on social status enjoy listening to energetic music, music they we might say encourages extraverted behavior.

Given that there are connections between the styles of music people listen to and their personalities, it is reasonable to suppose that people with similar music preferences may be more likely to get along and enjoy happy relationships than people with radically different preferences for music.

In a recent study concerned with music preferences among adolescents, a team of researchers from the Netherlands found that close friends were more likely to share similar preferences for music than were less intimate friends. Moreover, friends with the most similar music preferences were more likely to remain friends three years later than were friends with less similar music preferences.

Another study concerned with the links between music preferences and relationship satisfaction focused on music-preference similarity among university roommates living in the US. The roommates who participated in the study completed several surveys, including a personality questionnaire, a music preference measure, and a few questions about how much they enjoyed living with their roommate and whether they would choose to live with them the following year. The results showed that roommates with similar personalities were no more likely to enjoy their living arrangement than were roommates with different personalities. However, roommates with similar music preferences enjoyed more pleasant and satisfying relationships and reported a stronger desire to continue living together than did roommates with different music preferences. Closer inspection of the results indicated that roommates with similar preferences for rap and dance music, and similar preferences for classical and jazz music were the most likely to enjoy their living situations. Furthermore, students tended to segregate themselves into dorms with other students that tended to match their music preferences than any of the other characteristics measured in the study.

Why do people with similar music preferences enjoy such happy and satisfying relationships? Based on research documenting connections between music preferences and personality, we know that the styles of music people listen to are related to their values, political views, and leisure preferences. That is, people who like the same music are more likely to have similar attitudes about religion and politics and they’re more likely to spend their time pursuing similar interests: J.D. Salinger or Danielle Steel? MTV or HGTV? Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh? People who like listening to the same music will agree more often about a range of things than will people whose record collections disagree violently. With less tension, there is more harmony.