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The French Word For When Music Gives You Goosebumps

Greetings from The Music Bowl! I'm The Wonderfish.

Do certain songs give you goosebumps? Or might they give you the sensation of having goosebumps without the goosebumps actually forming on your skin? Or perhaps a song causes a chill to run up your spine?

Did you know there is a French word for this sensation?

Could I start a post with more questions?

The term is frisson, which means "aesthetic chills". We pronounce it as "free-sawn" and when a song gives you goosebumps, this is what you are experiencing.

Why shouldn't music be powerful enough to give us goosebumps, or something of the like? Music is a universal force! We connect to it, study it, and consume it generation after generation. There was a drum circle session at an education conference I recently attended and I jumped at the chance to learn more about drumming. One of my fellow participants discussed how drumbeats hold significance for us because they remind us of hearing our mother's heartbeat while in the womb. I took note of that statement and need to research it. However, I think we can all see a connection between drums and our heartbeats; the rhythm of life, so to speak. And, as it turns out, goosebumps are a leftover response from the early centuries of humanity. Just as humans have been drawn to drumming for thousands of years, so too have we experienced getting goosebumps.

Most humans report experiencing frisson, but some claim they have never felt it. We'll go more in depth with this topic as we continue posting, so let's just discuss a couple of points for a moment. What is your experience with songs that truly move you, particularly in a physiological way? I realize we're getting very personal here. I myself rarely get actual goosebumps, but I often experience the sensation of getting them - a chill - and I also feel like I could lift off while listening to specific parts of specific songs. As Stephen Jenkins so aptly sang in Semi-Charmed Life, "the four right chords can make me cry," and if I'm brutally honest, music can downright wreck me.

For me, there is no rhyme or reason to which songs connect to me like this. I've found these moments in pop songs, rock songs, jazz tunes, classical compositions, soundtracks, and musical numbers. It's one of my favorite things about music, because I never know when the lightning will strike. That we can create art with the potential to cause such an emotional experience is a fact that both overwhelms me and motivates me. Music is magic! Now, before we can go forward with this discussion, it's your turn. Which songs cause frisson for you? If you've never paid attention to this, try it. Start experimenting! Listen to a few songs from different genres and see which ones tug on your sleeve. I think you're going to love the chance for discovery! Shark's in the water! See you next week.

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