A couple a of weeks ago, this news came out:
And it immediately drew my attention. I was particularly intrigued by this statement in the article:
“High-arousing (i.e., more complex) music affects the perception of male facial attractiveness.”
In other words, complex music is like alcohol: it will make you seem prettier than you actually are.
The researchers came to this conclusion after an experiment involving photographs and surveys. In the name of science, I decided to test this in a real-life environment. And I’m happy to share my findings with you.
Testing conditions
For this test, I first invited three blind dates over for dinner (never you mind where I got them from). As background music, I chose the most complex classical music I could find: a piano piece by Brian Ferneyhough. Mister Ferneyhough’s music is categorized as New Complexity, because – I guess – the old complexity wasn’t nearly complex enough. It looks and sounds like this:
Scientifically speaking, if this doesn’t put the ladies in the mood, I don’t know what will.
Of course, no experiment is reliable without a control group. So the next evening I invited three other blind dates (never you mind where I got them from). And his time I played piano music which is significantly less complex, by Ludovico Einaudi. It looks and sounds like this:
Good to know: to rule out any fluctuations in attractiveness, I wore the same outfit on both evenings.
I think it says: ‘nerdy, yet confident’.
The results
Are you ready to be surprised? The women whom I treated to my tofu-tournedos Rossini with Ferneyhough playing in the background, did not seem impressed by my attractiveness. The reactions I recorded were:
- What the hell is that noise?
- Maybe we could listen to some music?
- Oh my God, you’re a serial killer, aren’t you?
The Einaudi control group, on the other hand, made encouraging comments such as:
- Maybe we could listen to some music?
- What the hell am I eating?
- I think you and I could be great friends.
Conclusion?
Best stick with alcohol.
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Personally I dislike Ferneyhough’s pretentious unfounded alien-styled inhumane chaotic pseudo-random material, which exists only for it’s own sake and creates sensory responses that are not of the composer’s intention, but just happen to occur.
Make no mistake: Ferneyhough is no real composer; and the fact that this has never been accordingly stated or criticized shows the times in which we live: Feed the people any rubbish, with just a hint of added intellectual superiority and they’ll believe it and worship his ‘message’.
… Ferneyhough… the charlatan king of pretentious wishful implication
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