Crying Makes Me a Better Musician

2005: the curtains draw back. The opening notes of ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera float from the speakers. “Don’t look at me…” she whispers bewitchingly. Singing along to the well-loved album that lives near-permanently in our family's Sharp CD player, I’m giving the performance of a lifetime in my bedroom upstairs. As the song comes to a close, I lower my mimed microphone, glassy-eyed. Transported to a place emotionally that can only be described as raw and unfettered. I’m 7, and Christina is the only person who truly understands me. This moment, and the hundreds of similar bedroom performances in earlier years, confirmed for me that music was my raison d'être.

As the world widened beyond that CD player, it became clear that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. I wasn’t “over-emotional” or “over-dramatic” as so many women are labelled. Actually, I was just emotionally perceptive. The lights in the cinema come up, the pit orchestra play their final flourish, the Olympic underdog places on the podium, and I’m blinking away tears. It’s always been this way. But if you want to hear more about the scenarios where I’m probably crying, I write about that a lot in my music, so you can seek it out there. Instead, I’m going to list only scenarios where I’ve cried because of musical frisson.

Frisson is an emotionally driven physical reaction to certain stimuli, in the form of shivers, goosebumps, tears, and tingling skin; oftentimes, a feeling that moves from the scalp and neck down the spine. It’s the physical embodiment of “that literally gave me chills” (complimentary). Scientifically speaking, it's a psycho-physiological response evoked by intense emotion. If this seems incredibly unrelatable, it’s because not everyone experiences this physical response, and it usually lasts only 10 seconds or less.

Musical frisson, and the idea that music isn’t a purely auditory experience, is certainly not new and original. Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, communities in North India and Pakistan have long considered there to be “an erotic experiential dimension to deep music listening.” Some West African languages don’t translate the word “music” as an exclusively auditory phenomenon; translations include reference to rhythm, community and values.1 Frisson exists across cultures, as Judith Becker says in her book Deep Listeners, “The interpenetration of music with trancing is ancient and universal.” At least, this is what I remind myself when a single tear spills down my cheek while on the 94 bus at 8:46 am as Prince’s guitar solo in Purple Rain begins.

I’ve taken the liberty to collate an… eclectic mix of some of the tracks that cause my frisson, including the specific musical moments that scratch my brain. They range from sending a chill down my spine to getting me really choked up. Each of these has been discovered at various key moments in my life, from song recommendations sent in a group chat to ill-timed misty tears at a soft play while nannying in a past life.

Livy's Musical Frisson

So Far Away - Carol King (specifically at 0:12 when she starts singing)

Purple Rain - Prince (I actually can’t listen to the guitar solo from 4:40 without tears. I usually have to make a split-second decision to either swiftly remove myself from the room or embrace what’s coming)

Monster - Nicki Minaj’s verse (it builds in my scalp from the start of Nicki’s verse, then really runs down the spine around 4:16)

September - Earth Wind and Fire (the second it begins, duh)

Fellowship - Serpentwithfeet (as a singer, the most direct line to frisson for me is a breathtaking vocal moment, and 2:12 is a perfect example)

Family Madrigal - Encanto (this one is as much a mystery to me as it may be to you, but something about the melody at 3:01 really sets me off. Inexplicably, everything goes a bit blurry?)

It’s Okay To Cry - SOPHIE (one of the greatest musical minds of all time, and an incredibly pertinent song title. In the chorus, at 1:10, there’s a repeated vocal chop that pans across the backing vocals that makes me feel like I’m floating)

Now, a few years into my career in music and sound, I notice how much impact frisson has on my creative decisions. Pleasant dissonance from suspended chords (see: opening chord of Purple Rain), stacks of lush vocal harmonies, buoyant sparkly arpeggiators, a chopped-up vocal sample, these are some of my “producer tags.” Tropes that you can find throughout my discography that make me feel frisson. The first track on my EP Adrenaline opens with an arp that sounds like watching my life back in a supercut. I wrote it that way to evoke the same feeling in others.

Music is an integrative, full-body phenomenon. It’s more than the sum of its parts; it’s melody, harmony, nostalgia, thanking your bus driver, rhythm, crashing out, showing up at the polling booth, movement, missing the people you love, fury, empathy.

Next time you feel a buzz tingling down your spine at a concert, or see a 20-something brunette on the 94 bus, headphones on, silently wipe away a tear, know that you’re privy to how music and emotion harmonise. And on the topic of crying, one of my singing teachers said it best: sometimes you just need to have that cry, experience that release. I recommend crying to your own private concert of Christina Aguilera. In the words of Livia O, “Why would I need any more in the world than this?”