Survey on the Auditory Feelings of Strangeness While Listening to Music

In this study, we investigated the "feeling of strangeness" while listening to music. The purpose of this study is to investigate which of the three elements of music ("pitch", "rhythm", and "volume") is more related to the feeling of strangeness when listening to music. We conducted a music listening experiment with 90 public participants and 190 non-music major university students. In the experiment, a sound source was used in which either the pitch, rhythm or volume was deliberately varied by a random programme. The results of the experiment showed that in music with a fast-tempo and well-known melody, the strongest factor influencing "feeling of strangeness" was rhythm. Rhythm, volume, and pitch, in that order, had a significant effect on the sense of strangeness, and a significant differences were identified between all factors. In addition, the order of pitch, volume and rhythm had a strong influence on "feeling of strangeness" in slow-tempo songs. The results of these experiments can be used as a threshold criterion for humans to judge whether music is good or bad, and can be applied to various applications and deep learning in the future.