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It's True: Some People Just Don't Like Music
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have found that between 1 and 3% of people don't like music of any kind. These people aren't tone deaf or incapable of grasping the emotional meaning of a song—their brains simply didn’t find listening to music rewarding. While some psychiatric disorders are associated with the loss of the ability to feel pleasure, called anhedonia, the music-haters represent the first evidence for not feeling pleasure from only one specific pleasing stimulant, a condition that has been dubbed music-specific anhedonia. Curious where you fall on the music reward spectrum? The researchers have an online quiz."
I know I actively prefer silence to most music, but what I like, I like intensely. Update: 03/06 21:48 GMT by T : Sorry for the garbled submission; now fixed.
The amount of statistical information in the OP and the bonus "online quiz" has made this the /. article of the day!
I didn't know there were so many fans of Bieber.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Another psychological pseudo experiment that draws incredibly stupid conclusions from a meaningless, waste of time, poorly thought out, mess. Read the description of what they did.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
XKCD
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
...has already written about this phenomenon. http://www.oliversacks.com/books/musicophilia/
ceci n'est pas un sig
I know a few people who can't stand music of any kind. They prefer jazz.
Most of my youth was listening to Rush, Metallica and other hard rock/Metal bands of the 80's.
As a result I have ringing in my ears that I only notice when it's silent.
Have you ever heard "The Silence is Deafening?" Well, for me silence can literally BE deafening.
Ha! Slashdotted.
those people don't prefer silence. they just like to listen to the same song over and over, without, one might note, ever giving a dime to the original artist.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
They must really hate this.
Ezekiel 23:20
what a horrendously designed experiment. Population bias? Sample size? Different musical tastes? I don't know about the rest of you, but i'd prefer silence over that what is "popular" these days.
"...the students were asked to listen to popular music and rate how pleasurable they considered each song." I have to wonder how many hipster-types just dont find popular music pleasurable. I for one cant find much Pop music, as that is what pop basicallly means; or for that matter much popular music all that pleasurable. The overwhelming majority of it hits that subliminal message trigger in my brain. That and ask most music majors or theorists. much of it is composed of the same limited set of chord progressions.
In other news, 1-3% of /. articles aren't complete shit.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
As soon as I start singing, they throw rotten fruit at me!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Let's discard the people who can't recognize tunes or recognize emotions in music -- although they are interesting in themselves. Can the people who don't like music be trained to like music? In other words do they lack associated life experiences with music?
Another question is whether a better understanding would lead to enjoyment. We tend *not* to like music we haven't been exposed to (e.g. foreign music or young people's music).
Personally, I like to listen to music when I'm building something; this also correlates to what works for me when listening to lectures. I seldom need to look at notes, but I have to take them otherwise my mind wanders. I can even doodle, it doesn't matter. Somehow having my hands occupied seems to help my mind track external stimuli better.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, to be fair, the words rap and music ARE mutually exclusive terms.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Please . . . continue . . .
Richard Feynman said music sounded like noise to him. Didn't make any difference what type of music it was. He did however, like rhythm which is why he played percussion instruments.
http://www.cell.com/current-bi...
Voice-Sensitive Regions in the Dog and Human Brain Are Revealed by Comparative fMRI
Highlights
This is the first comparative neuroimaging study of a nonprimate species and humans
Functional analogies were found between dog and human nonprimary auditory cortex
Voice areas preferring conspecific vocalizations were evidenced in the dog brain
Brain sensitivity to vocal cues of emotional valence was found in both species
Summary
During the approximately 18–32 thousand years of domestication [1], dogs and humans have shared a similar social environment [2]. Dog and human vocalizations are thus familiar and relevant to both species [3], although they belong to evolutionarily distant taxa, as their lineages split approximately 90–100 million years ago [4]. In this first comparative neuroimaging study of a nonprimate and a primate species, we made use of this special combination of shared environment and evolutionary distance. We presented dogs and humans with the same set of vocal and nonvocal stimuli to search for functionally analogous voice-sensitive cortical regions. We demonstrate that voice areas exist in dogs and that they show a similar pattern to anterior temporal voice areas in humans. Our findings also reveal that sensitivity to vocal emotional valence cues engages similarly located nonprimary auditory regions in dogs and humans. Although parallel evolution cannot be excluded, our findings suggest that voice areas may have a more ancient evolutionary origin than previously known.
Uhh...
From the article:
"...the students were asked to listen to popular music and rate how pleasurable they considered each song."
I have never bought a record, tape, CD, MP3 or anything else in my life.
Music is one of those things that just has no part in my life. I can appreciate it. I've been to concerts and ochestras. I quite enjoy it. But not enough to listen to it on loop 24 hours a day.
I spent many years spending hours travelling in the car with the radio on. It was for nothing else but to cure the "drone" of the car. I've not missed having it since I quit that job and don't travel far enough to even turn the radio on any more.
You know how the average person consider paintings? That's me with music. Yeah, I might have a few that I like, but I don't consume them all day long. I have enough to adorn my stereo to cover the occasional awkward silence and that's about it, and most of those someone has bought for me or I've been given for free.
I disable all music in games. It's the first thing I do before I even try the game - install, load up, turn off music. I just find it a distraction and don't get any value from it at all. (And yet, I have written games and put music into them because I understand some people like that).
If I do listen to anything, it's gentle, smooth music with predictable backings. Think "Sitting on the dock of the bay". I don't even have a single music file on my phone.
It's not something important to me, nor is it something I hate (there's a lot of music I hate, but it's not enough to be generalised hate of music). I can go to parties where music is playing and not go out of my mind, but my preference is no music.
Think of that next time you write a game and INSIST that the volume slider affects both sound effects and background music. You're just annoying me for no good reason.
Then I found dance and I fell in love with tango.
If I had not found it I might still dislike music.
It does not surprise me that 1-3% of the population has not found music they like - yet.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
RIAA's Response: These people *claim* not to like music? Why that's unamerican! If this catches on, the entire music industry will collapse!!!!! We must pass immediate legislation declaring "not liking music" to be illegal. To prove consumers like music, they will be required to purchase at least three albums from RIAA-approved labels every year. Failure to do so will be considered proof that the consumer is actually an Internet pirate stealing our works and will be sued into oblivion.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I've seen estimates from the US government at 2%. Sounds like 1-3% wouldn't be able to hear music anyway. Didn't RTFA, perhaps they accounted for that.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Someone has taken the trouble to study Simply Red fans.
Have gnu, will travel.
I always wondered if my relative dislike of music was a symptom of my anti-social personality. Does anyone know anything about this idea, does the original article go into other similarities these people share/the reason they are like this?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Agreed. The slashdot summary is badly worded; the phrase don't like is ambiguous, it can either mean want it to stop or it does not speak to them (how the original article words it).
You use the different meaning than the article when you talk about is 'popular music'. In that I agree with you as, to my ears, most modern 'music' is not worth listening to and often grates my ears. I like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, etc, in the main but also trad jazz, some rock is OK. I get wound up by what I consider noise being blasted at me in some shops, swimming pools & other public places. I do realise that some people must like modern/pop stuff, but I do wonder how much of it will still be played in 20 years let alone 200.
It gets in the way of business.
I think this has generally been disproven. Granted, there will be problems when selecting materiel to be played over a P.A. system that is acceptable to all. But headphones have ameliorated this issue.
I was reading a book about the design and production of the VT fuze during WWII recently. Plants involved in tedious production steps found that piping in music sped up production notably .... with one exception. A hit song for a time was 'Deep in the Heart of Texas'. When this was piped in, the workers would hum along with the tune, as they did with others. But there is a repeating part in the tune that consists of four accented beats. When that part came around, the workers stopped for a moment to tap their tools on their workbenches in time with the beats. The drop in productivity was measurable. But management decided not to ban the song, as it eventually dropped from the top of the charts.
The issue of upper management's perception of music, or outside intellectual pursuits as being anathema to productivity may have something to do with the selection criteria for MBA candidates. People who pursue such degrees might just be less capable of multitasking and not posses the mental faculties necessary.
See The Dilbert Principle and this.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not read the article (sorry, it's just tradition not to), but sounds like me - The only music I really tend to like is music that reminds me of my youth - nothing else much inspires me or attracts me.
People never want to believe that, but I've never much cared for music. I think music can enhance the mood of another form of media like movies or video games, and I can enjoy the lyrics to a funny song, in same way I enjoy hearing a good joke but don't want it told to me over and over again. That's as far as it goes. I don't listen to any music for the sake of listening to music. The only music I own at home are sound tracks that came with video games I've purchased, none of which I've ever used.
I find music annoying when it's playing while I'm doing something else. It really does bother me when it's playing at random places like bowling alleys or stores, serving no purpose but to make it harder to talk with other people. The louder it is the more it drives me crazy for that reason. I've never even downloaded a song, legally or otherwise, and would never turn the radio to music station when driving.
Still, it's not that I don't like music. It's just that the enjoyment I get from it is so low that I get much more entertainment just getting lost in my own imagination, an activity for which I find music to be an unwanted distraction. So even with nothing else to do, I'd rather sit there in silence than listen to music.
There are lots of 60-70 year old rockers out their still playing concerts.
How very true, but I had two similar experiences recently.
Several years ago(2-3?), ZZ Top was in town for a show.
Myself, the wife, and stepdaughter all went.
The two gals had a great time, and enjoyed the show.
Me? Well, I spent approximately 3/4 the show trying to figure out what I was hearing, occasional clear bits would shine through the muddy noise, and I could ID the song.
I just chalked it up to some weird mixing and/or accoustic envoirment.(outdoors)
Then later that same year, Ozzie Osbourne was playing close by.
I treated my stepdaughter to the concert for her birthday.
This show was indoors, and again the very same thing happened.
I guess my dodgey hearing had detereriated more than I had realized, and I came to the regretful conclusion that live shows are not worth it anymore fore me. ;-(
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Not a problem, since it can be attributed as a psychiatric disorder in some; you give them some LSD
http://science.slashdot.org/st... (since the flood gates have opened).
Dark Side of the Moon on the home theater, Wizard of OZ showing but no sound , it'll will show em what it's all about.
If I were pressed, I could possibly name 30 songs I legitimately like, and none that I would care to listen to at the moment. Stuff on the radio is downright terrible to the point that I would feel relief when switching through stations and I came across a commercial. I know there is likely music out there that I would enjoy, but you know what? I don't care. It's not worth the effort. I haven't intentionally listened to any music in a year, and I'm actually happier for it. Whenever I drive anywhere, I just listen to audiobooks. They're immensely more entertaining and satisfying, and a great way to reduce my book backlog and discover new things.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
since they have no soul.
If you find what they consider music they would like it. Problem is most of what is considered music is complete trash, and barely more than coordinated noise.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Both perhaps.
HArd to believe the big boys would be that bad. Went to Kiss concert and I wanted to knock the guy off the soundboard for the warmup band...sooner or later I'd have found the volume control for lead vocals myself..he sure couldn't seem to find it. Kiss themselves sounded ok tho...no comment on the tech that effed up the video displays tho.
Can we assume these un-music people never get a song stuck in their head ?!?
I don't 'dislike' music, but I'm pretty indifferent to it. My phone is loaded up with audiobooks and podcasts - I listen to those while commuting (on transit), walking the dog or puttering in the garage. There's no music on it at all.
In the car I'll naturally gravitate to the CBC (or NPR if I'm near the border).
If the band on SNL is interesting, I'll listen as opposed to skipping ahead, but I haven't actually bought any music in years.
My creds, I saw the original broadcast of that first Beatles' performance on Ed Sullivan; I was 17 at the time (and really envious of all the attention they got from those girls.)
Now to try to make an objective comment, or at least to try to figure out the phenonemon from an objective rather than a 'get off my lawn'/'children no longer respect their parents' perspective.
The technologies of recording and broadcasting must have profoundly affected our relationship to music. I say 'must have' because I've never lived in an environment that wasn't saturated with opportunities to hear music. In fact, music is thrust upon me, and I have to tune it out. I do think the money people cheapen music, just like they will cheapen food, or clothing, or whatever. I'm nostalgic for the old fashioned disc jockey experience, and college radio stations where the student DJs would find stuff they personally liked with various idiosyncracies.
I read somewhere about an Irish fiddler who may have been the first to record Irish fiddle music. His record was a big success, so after that, all the other Irish fiddlers started copying his style, abandoning their own unique styles, which are pretty much lost now. (Sorry, I don't remember details like the name of the fiddler, or when the record was made, though I think it was the early 1920s, but there's a lesson in there somewhere.)
Fresh new music has I think usually come from places that were a bit isolated, but which could then be introduced to the rest of us through the new 20th century technologies. Jazz exploded on the scene with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, not because they 'invented' jazz or were the best of their day, but because they were the first to be recorded.
Early rock and roll or thythm and blues was not encouraged by the industry, but the young picked up on it. And I think nowadays, the industry is always catering to the young, because they are the ones who will spend money on this stuff. Each new generation of musicians grows old with their own fan base, except that yes, nowadays, there don't seem to be any new generations of musicians that capture a loyal base the way Elvis Presley, the Beatles, or Led Zep did. (BTW, I'm 'too old' to appreciate Led Zep myself.)
I'm not sure why that is (That no Elvises or Led Zeps show up anymore), except maybe there is no place for a new sound to grow and mature away from heavy marketing influence. I have a CD of 'ska' music from Jamaica. It's old, primitive stuff, but the musicians there had a chance to hone their sound until it became polished, solid reggae. I think that's because Jamaica at the time was isolated enough, without being too isolated, that they could do that. But where is a place like that now? Instead the music industry marketeers are ready to grab and squeeze everything as soon as it shows as a blip on the radar.
When I search out new music to my liking it's usually older music in genres I didn't pay much attention to before, older Country, old Jazz and blues, partly that's because the lower quality stuff has been filtered out for me already. If I try to listen to new stuff, I have to wade through a lot of mediocre and downright awful along with everyone else.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Actually to be fair, I probably don't quite fit the criteria. I don't entirely dislike music but I genuinely don't particularly care much about it. I would never, ever listen to music alone. Example relaxing to a book and music (or ghasp, just music alone) simply not an option.
I've never been to a concert.
I listen to about 10 to 20 hours a year, generally I use it to assist cleaning the house (although podcasts are replacing it there) I also sometimes have music running when I'm grocery shopping or on public transport, simply to block out other humans.
I can't stand getting into someones car and they insist on driving somewhere with music running when we could be having a decent conversation instead. I've taken a week off work before to chill out at home on the internet and effectively been in silence for 7 days. Silence is golden.
I also have EXTREME difficulty picking up lyrics, I just can't hear lyrics properly. I don't know how people know what people are singing without lyric websites. (Yes, my hearing is fine, infact it's very good, still hear high frequencies at 36)
The last ten years or so,, I've found that I just don't care that much any more about music. I actually listen to a lot of music these days, but that's an environmental issue, not because I like it. I listen to music pretty much all day every day while at work because I work in an open plan office and the headphones, and the music they play, are the way I eliminate distractions so I can focus. I don't really listen to the music, though... I have no idea at any given time what song played last, for example. I do, however, find that I get tired of repetitive music. Subscription Internet radio is perfect... I can start it playing from a vast collection of music, almost guaranteed I'll get few if any repeats, and completely guaranteed the music won't be interrupted by people talking (which would distract me).
When I'm driving or something and want some audio to actually pay attention to, I listen to audiobooks, not music.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Huh, if I were pressed I could name at least 30 Beatles songs I like and would listen to now. I agree with you that there is not a lot of good music on commercial radio but we have some local listener supported stations, one that plays an eclectic mix from rock & roll to blues to hip-hop to folk to country to bluegrass (KBOO) and another that is 24/7 classical music (KQAC), both of which I listen to regularly. I go to 1 or 2 concerts a month. We've got a lot of good local artists to see with the occasional national/world artist. I couldn't imagine my life without music.
I was probably in my mid-20s when I began to realize popular music was not only boring, but stupid as well. Most songs have about 25 words that get repeated over and over and over, ad nauseam. At about the same time I ran across a Moody Blues tune (the name won't surface at the moment) that seemed to have some elements of classical music.
Intrigued, I started listening to classical and kicked the pop habit. Give me Beethoven's Ninth over anything else that's ever been recorded.
I wonder whether others who aren't fond of most "music" also don't need to be entertained passively on a 7x24 basis and can find or create their own entertainment.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
First question on the quiz: "When I share music with someone I feel a special connection with that person."
Are they thinking friendship, love, or co-defendant in a copyright infringement case?
What is the difference between "agree" and "completely agree"? You agree or you don't.
All my scores were in the range 32-48, which seems oddly low considering I can't work without music and can get agitated or distracted without it. Yet some people's choices of music (e.g. crap like Celine Dion) also have the same effect as silence.
I came out on the music reward scale at 32, well below their mean of 50. However, I spent fifteen years learning to play, I write for myself and have also published an album.
I don't use music as wallpaper, which is very much what the questions seemed geared around. Also questions like "Music calms me (agree 1-5)" - well, which music? Some of it very much does not calm me, and some quite definitely does.
Not sure that data collected by the questionairre wil be useful in drawing the right conclusions.
The ringing is your brains signalling your taste center has never grown in, as you grow older but not wiser the ringing will increase trying to signal you to develop some taste and individuality.
Really? Metallica?
Have you no shame whatsoever?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I was being narrow minded. I even self selected myself into making myself not like music. I would say it and make it true...
Yeah, narrow minded. It's unbelievable that someone could not like things that I like! Such a thing just isn't possible.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I would say I'm low on the scale. I am not judging this based on an online quiz, but anecdotal evidence(talking to people).
I rarely listen to music. If the situation is such that listening to music is practical, I usually prefer something else. In bars, I prefer conversation. Often I find the music irritating because it hinders conversation. I carry music on my phone, but usually prefer to listen to audiobooks. Occasionally, I listen to music because I'm in a certain kind of mood. I also find it good as white noise while I'm in a public place trying to read a paper book, and don't want to hear conversation. Much of my taste in music is too distracting for white noise, though.
General response to the article, though: REALLY? People like different things?!? I am shocked. In related news, I have no interest in sports.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.
I can't say that I have no interest in music. I do listen sometimes but it's pretty occasional and it requires a LOT of my attention to be enjoyable. I almost never listen to music in the car or other places and most of the time it just annoys and bores me. I cannot actively listen to music and concentrate. A lot of supposedly "great" music like the Beetles or the Stones draws nothing more than a "meh" from me. I generally think it is highly overrated. Even the bits I do like (not confined to a particular genre) I don't care to listen to very often. I wonder if I'm somewhere on the continuum close to the 1-3% who don't enjoy it at all.
I have a fairly large music collection but mostly because my wife has acquired the majority of it. I've only ever bought a handful of music albums in my life and even those I'm not sure I really got my money's worth from. Music doesn't offend or annoy me but it holds minimal fascination for me. I was forced to take music lessons as a kid (which I mostly hated) and I respect the talent it takes to be a good musician but it isn't something I want to spend any of my life doing.
Go for it.
I own a single physical Jive Bunny CD (or did, many years ago) that my parents bought for me with a stereo system (that got thrown away 10 years later and had never been used).
Aside from that, I have a handful of things people have given me or bought for me. That's it. The most music I ever deal with is in work, believe it or not (I work in schools, they sometimes play music in class / PE / assembly) and I'm shit-hot on my copyright licensing because my job depends on it (and it's not as single once performance is involved).
Oh, and I have a couple of free MP3's that I got from Amazon MP3. They were literally giving them away, that's how good they are.
I probably have more music that I've licensed myself for putting into games that I've made than I've ever had bought for me, though.
Huh, if I were pressed I could name at least 30 Beatles songs I like and would listen to now.
I couldn't name one. I don't dislike the Beatles but I think their music is highly overrated. I realize a lot of people like them and that's fine, but to me their music is objectively no better than the current bubble gum pop stars. Certainly nothing I'd ever pay money to hear or seek out intentionally. I feel the same way about a number of other famous bands including the Rolling Stones. I've never been able to reconcile their popularity with what I think is the quality of their music.
I go to 1 or 2 concerts a month
I haven't been to what people would call a concert in over 20 years and don't really have any interest in them. They're loud (sometimes painfully so), I don't really enjoy much of what they tend to play, I dislike large crowds, and I'm generally bored after a half hour of listening to live music. The fact that it is a live performance doesn't add to my enjoyment meaningfully. I like some music but even the stuff I like I don't listen to often. Can't remember the last time I intentionally listened to music in the car.
I couldn't imagine my life without music.
It's easy. Go on a trip somewhere and don't take your MP3 player or radio. You'll find other things are out there to keep you entertained.
I do realise that some people must like modern/pop stuff, but I do wonder how much of it will still be played in 20 years let alone 200.
Not much. The stuff you hear from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s is basically a best of compilation. The stuff that sucked (most of it) never get gets played. Same thing was true 200 years ago and the same thing is true of the works being generated now. The vast majority of it will be relegated to a figurative garbage heap and never listened to by any meaningful audience ever again. People find the stuff that was good and they save that and then declare that the stuff being played now is crap, forgetting all the crap they had to listen to to find the stuff that is now "classic".
The issue of upper management's perception of music, or outside intellectual pursuits as being anathema to productivity may have something to do with the selection criteria for MBA candidates. People who pursue such degrees might just be less capable of multitasking and not posses the mental faculties necessary.
Why are you trying to demonize a group of people who went to school to learn how to run a business as somehow mentally deficient and inferior? You realize you are making the EXACT same arguments a white supremacist makes about black people?
First, I do not deny the claim made in the OP, that some people may not be able to process music and derive pleasure from that. I am quite the opposite and may be far more sensitive to music as opposed to any other art form, but like many visually impaired people, this may not come as any surprise.
An incident of about 15 years ago comes to mind. I had a collegue in a technical support group who seemed to have some difficulty rapidly processing speech. Others in the group wrongly thought he was stupid, which was clearly not the case as he was able to keep up with his case load and resolve customer problems in a technical area.
I discovered a big clue to this one day. I happened to have a MIDI file of Contrapunctus I from Bach's Art of Fugue which he heard. The experience was for him obviously painful and disconcerting. Now, I had no other evidence that he disliked music, but his tastes obviously didn't run to Bach. The issue was that he didn't seem to have the ability to deal with the multiple voices all at once. Of course he is not alone, one had to bring some native abilities to that as well as some experience and even for me listening to a complex piece for the first time can be disorienting, but in a period of lime, several hearings, the logic of pieces emerges for me, and there are people who are more adept that this than I. What I do know is that music lights up those parts of the brain that are also used in processing speech, the structure of language, its semantics and syntax, and musical form seems to share structure with language. This person seemed to be slower at picking up content from speech than is normal, which is not the same as lacking the ability to think about what was said as effectively at everyone else, eventually. This speed of processing might be a clue to why people may not respond to music or how it shapes their tastes.
This may help to explain why many people seem to be more aware of lyrics than the music. For them vocal music is more like peotry set to music and many of them seem to prefer music with words than instramentals alone. I am just the opposite. I have to work to get the lyrics, my awareness taken up with the music, the details of counterpoint and harmony. It doesn't matter the genre for me either, the effect is the same, I remember the textural details of a composition or an arrangement of it even going back to early childhood, and long before I bother with the lyrics, so it is easy to recognize a cover of a pop standard.
Almost never listen at home, never listen to it while driving, and at work I listen to white noise with over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones all day because of misophonia.
But I love playing the piano.
You sound more sensitive to music than most. Do you have music in your head all the time? Do you want to concentrate on only those pieces that you are playing at the piano and no have any other music on your mind? Can you sight-sing from sheet music? Maybe that will help you control what music is in your mind at any one time. I don't play piano well enough to manage all the music in my awareness, so either I play those pieces on a personal player or I read from the sheet music, a score, or a reduction.