This Music Literally Drove People Insane! The Rite of Spring Riot Explained

I want you to take the time and imagine something. It’s the spring of 1913, You’re attending an orchestral ballet, composed by Igor Stravinsky. You sit in the crowded, sold out theater waiting. The lights dim as the music starts to play and it begins. Happy upbeat tones echo throughout the theater. Exactly as you expected from something with spring in the tile.

Reminding you of warm 00:21 - air and sunshine, flowers and bumblebees, peace and prosperity, new beginnings. Then the music begins to change. It’s subtle at first, but quickly dissolves into something alien leaving you with and un easy feeling. Sounds that you nor anyone in that theater had ever heard. A new combination cords and tones that tears at every fiber of your being. Then a commotion starts up from the back, quiet at first, but slowly spreads until the entire theater bursts into riot. What just happened? That’s what we’re about to find out. The scenario that I just described actually happened back in 1913. There was even an account of someone punching themselves repeatedly to the beat of the music. However, that’s only half the story. Later that year in march, it was put on again. This time, it was just the music. A sold out concert playing music that literally made people go mad! The result? It was the opposite of the first time. People stood up and cheered at the end. A standing ovation for music that drove people to violence earlier? What made this time different? Also, why didn’t the musicians and the performers go mad on the first night? Before we can answer all of these questions, we must first understand how music and sounds affects us.

Some have the power to make us feel immense joy and pleasure while others make us feel sad, 01:56 - or even scared. But how does this happen? Sound enters our ears and causes our ear drums to vibrate. These vibrations are then translated into electrical signals that are sent to a part of the brain called auditory cortex. This parts purpose is decoding these signals, analyzing them and turning them into useful information that we perceive as sound. Now let’s focus on a specific portion of the brain called the cortical fugal network.

02:19 - This portion is tasked with interpreting new signals from the senses and will change itself when presented with new information. Sometimes when this new information is presented to them, information that is too alien, they fail. This is what is known as a prediction error signal and they will stop firing completely. But this is what’s cool about these cells, after a few attempts, they will be able to translate that information and change their connections so they are ready for the next time they run into it thanks to the plasticity of our brains. But what happens if they repeatedly fail to understand the new information? These cells like all brain cells use dopamine to communicate and once they’ve correctly identified a pattern and learned it, they release a little bit of dopamine.

When they fail however, 03:00 - they produce a lot of dopamine which creates an uneasy feeling. And when they fail repeatedly, they continuously produce a lot dopamine. If you know anything about dopamine, it’s the chemical that makes us feel good when we do things we like. However too much dopamine has the opposite effect. Fear, anxiety, aggression, delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia are just a few of the many effects high dopamine levels have on the mind and body.

People with schizophrenia 03:25 - have something similar occur, but to a much higher degree. Perhaps this is what happened on that spring night in 1913. New and strange sounds, the audience brains unable to crack the code, and a few assholes in the crowded theater start fighting sparking a domino effect. But that dosen’t quite explain why the musicians and performers weren’t affected by the music to such an extreme degree. The rite of spring has no clear discernable pattern, it’s very dissonant.

And dissonant 03:49 - tones can cause this spike in dopamine from the neurons. But what is dissonance? Good question, the opposite of dissonance is consonance, and that’s when there is harmony between notes. Which means that dissonance is when there isn’t. dissonance is hard to pin down, but you know it when you hear it. It’s frequently used in horror due to the uneasy feeling we get when we hear it. The theme music from jaws is a perfect example of this. Despite these examples being dissonant, they are very catchy and sound oddly similar. If you listen closely you can hear the pattern. Dissonant music isn’t just for horror however; It’s been a staple in jazz music since its inception. If done right, dissonance can be very pleasant to listen too.

Buried in the music is a beauty that you need to search for. One that isn’t hand fed to you. There’s a lot of music that utilizes dissonance to create a sense of motion. The rite of spring was practiced, and preformed multiple times before it was first performed. Those involved in bringing it to show had hear it over and over, giving them a chance to learn those patterns brilliantly hidden in the music by Stravinsky. Those who came to the opening night were struck with new stimuli that literally blew their minds.

A year later when it was preformed 05:17 - again, the only thing the audience had to focus on was the music giving them the opportunity to find the patterns and the beauty for themselves. Although some of the details of what happened that night are lost to history, what we do know gives us a better understanding of human nature. we can all agree that music has an incredible ability to move us in ways that we never thought possible. It inspires us, it can bring us to tears, it can put a smile on our faces, it can make us run in fear, or jump for joy. Music is powerful and that’s pretty cool. .