[Jimbee (OP)]

People often say that hearing their national anthem gives them goosebumps. Or a chill down their spine. Some people say religious songs do. Or even just some stirring classical tunes.

What is that? I know true goosebumps are your bodies reaction to cold. It used to make our proto-humans forbearers fur stand up, to hold in the heat. We don't have fur anymore. Also there's no reason those songs should make you feel cold. So what is it?

[alancalverd]

"Zarathustra" and "Fanfare for the Common Man" seem to work by the tension of the rests - the next note isn't quite what or when you'd anticipate it. "Mars" (from The Planets) always sounds "military" despite not being a march - it's in 5/4 time, like "Mission Impossible", so again I think there's an element of surprise or dissociation from the expected. I've played some Balkan folk music that combines non-western time signatures like 13/8 with minor keys and odd numbers of bars, in a phrase and really wakes up an audience. 

"Zadok the Priest" seems to work by changing time signatures and suddenly flipping from comfortable baroque arpeggios to a big fanfare-like interval in the first line of the vocal. Freddie Mercury achieved a similar effect with "Barcelona".

[varsigma]

The subject of music and our responses to it would be a pretty big one.

Evidence suggests that music is important to humans, but not so much to other animals. That said, I spent a few school holidays on a dairy farm, where the common practice of playing music on a radio, in the milking shed, was meant to keep the cows happier. My uncle once told me there was a definite preference by his herd, only the one station would do it, anything else would lead to protests. He might have been pulling my leg.

[alancalverd]

Off the subject (and why not?), small-animal vets often have Radio 4 playing in the dog kennel area because dogs are comforted by the sound of the spoken human voice, but cats prefer silence. So I wouldn't be surprised if cows like Classic FM, which brings us neatly back to the subject.

[varsigma]

So I wouldn't be surprised if cows like Classic FM, which brings us neatly back to the subject.

Indeed. Anecdotal evidence at the rural level, says a dairy farmer better pick the right station or the yield will fall; unhappy cows give less milk, but that's what my uncle told me.  A survey of which music genre is deployed at milking sheds, perhaps at a national level, might be needed.