What’s your favorite song? That’s always one of those questions you ask or get asked when meeting new people or during an icebreaker on the first day of school. It takes some people longer to answer than others and some people can’t pick at all, but for the most part, there’s always a genre that they stick to. But why? 

I asked 20 students and teachers from Oakmont to pick from five music genres: country, rock, pop, jazz, or classical. The results are displayed in the graph below.

Why does your brain hate a certain sound played a certain way but someone else loves it? What is it about the sequences of noise that gives humans a preference? After some research, I think I can get a good answer. 

Psychology today gives a list of reasons from your overall identity to contexts of situations. Our taste in music reflects who we are. Music taste usually develops with your childhood, so songs you liked to listen to as a kid usually help shape the music taste you have today. 

It’s not only what happened before, music taste also is affected by what’s happening to you at that moment. Listening to a certain song could depend on when you’re sad or happy. People also listen to music when they need some background for a specific moment. Most people have a cleaning playlist or running playlist because that music goes with what you’re trying to accomplish. 

People’s music tastes are shaped from the moment they hear the first note in the first song they ever hear. From then, as you change from day to day or year to year, your music tastes evolve with you. It’s a part of what makes you you; without your taste in music, there’d be a part of you missing. Music meets some of our physiological needs to express ourselves to others and find a connection within it.