Why do you like your favorite songs? | Scarlet Keys | TEDxPortsmouth

the

songs

are the Our Lives soundtrack of birthday parties, the lullaby, our first love, our first heartbreak, our wedding song, our next wedding song, and ultimately the song that plays at our funeral. Songs enhance the moment or the season, they help us dance, they make us cry. We run a step further and may even make us hate sitting in traffic a little less. Songs help us remember our lives. They are a time capsule and a time machine. Imagine that you are writing in

your

car with

your

partner in your perfect form. happy marriage when suddenly that song comes on, you know that song from that summer love and while your partner sweetly gives you a traffic update, you're off, evaporated, evaporated from your heated seat, back to that Greek island with the sunset Sun. lips of Pericles Constantine Doos approaching to kiss you you have been transported by a song that was encoded in your brain that summer it is not your fault the

songs

are powerful have you ever thought about what is in a song what is in those three and a half minutes of arranged sound that has such an impact that we all listen and turn to songs.

I have the privilege of being someone who writes songs and as a professor at Berkeley College of Music I help other artists write theirs and there are tools that we use as songwriters that affect emotion one of the tools we use is tone that's something we all understand. Tone Imagine you're sitting in a cold hospital room waiting to see your doctor wearing nothing but your underwear under your dignity gown and your doctor walks in, no one wants to hear it. My name is Dr. Dr. Watson and I am his neurosurgeon. We want to hear it. Hello, my name is Dr.

Watson and I am your neurosurgeon because when your voice pitch goes up, your heart rate also goes up and when your voice pitch goes down. You feel calm and like you're in good hands, so tone of voice matters. The next time you go on a first date, you can say I haven't been on a date in a long time or you can say I haven't been on a date. a quote within a time matters matters so think of Melody as the tone of voice of the song how we say what we say is often more important than what we say as western listeners we have a relationship with Melody and we have an expectation about that relationship so I'm going to play something and when I stop playing I want you to tell me what you expect me to play next, it's exactly so that some notes feel stable and some notes feel more unstable asking for resolution and that's very powerful information.

For a composer, knowing the words we put in those notes makes the listener feel certain things. I'd like to take a moment to ruin an Adele song. I'm sure everyone has heard her song "Someone Like You" in the verse and in the pre-chorus she meets her ex unexpectedly and clearly she's still in love and in the chorus she says it doesn't matter, I'll find someone like you, okay , you already know the song, what if I had sung it like that, doesn't it matter? I will find someone like you. What happened. I apologize by the way. um in my version.

We believe you. We think she will find someone like you. No problem. There are many of you out there because I have paired stable notes in the key and stable strings that provide a feeling. of stability but that's not the melody she's saying those weren't the tones she sang this is her version it doesn't matter I'll find someone like you you feel the difference so when she Sayang it doesn't matter she sang it more stable note in the key major when she sang, find someone, she sang it on that note that everyone wanted her to resolve, go back to the starting note, find someone and then she sings to you in the bittersweet sixth degree of the major scale, breaking your heart. version of her, we know that she will never find anyone like you, we know this because she has combined unstable tones to match the way she feels, generating empathy with the audience.

Wow Adell, another way songwriters emotionalize our lyrics is the use of chords. There are only three chords. up to four notes played at the same time, three, four and chords have a lot to say about how our lyrics feel, so let's say I want to write a song about eating a Snickers bar and let's say I feel amazing eating that bar of Snickers. Snickers because because They just launched a fat-free vegan version. I'd like to make sure I choose chords that would make me feel as happy about this news as I am today. I ate a Snickers bar, but what if?

What if that wasn't the case? And if? I was either bummed or very upset about the fact that I met the Snickers bar because it was my ex's

favorite

Snickers bar, it was his

favorite

chocolate bar, and it was the last thing we ate together today. I ate a Snickers bar, so okay. help us define the tone of the song another tool we use is repetition because repetition helps our listener remember our song and sing with us so again I'm going to play something and I want you to be honest I want you to raise your hand when you start to get bored you are the biggest audience in the world you are the biggest audience in the world you are the best audience in the world a I'm hurt not exactly how did we all know that because when writing songs there is the rule of three that you can't repeat the same melody exactly the same way three times in a row something has to change the third time maybe I could have changed a chord you are the biggest audience in the world or maybe the melody you are the biggest audience in the world so our brains love patterns, but our brains love it too surprise, so I established a pattern and then I surprised you and you got involved again, but too much repetition makes the brain habituate and distracted.

Too much repetition is a sonic cliché and our list stops listening. How many times have you said? to your partner in the same melodic stratosphere honey, pick up your towels, honey, pick up your towels as after thousands of repetitions, their brain has become accustomed to your wife's voice and they don't listen to you, not really, not really. Try changing your tune somehow next time, honey, pick up your towels. The song helps us process emotions and understand how we feel when we listen to songs we love. Our brain releases the feel-good hormone, dopamine, when we listen to songs that don't.

You like, hate or put up with music Bad music, our body releases cortisol, the stress hormone, so try a little of this brain science at home, choose a song in the morning to start your day instead of the usual train of Negative thoughts that burn. your brain takes you with it, play a song you like that has inspiring lyrics to prepare your nervous system for a big day or the next time you have questionable in-laws coming to visit you instead of awkward silences and small talk, play a song you like. I know they love and let the dopamine flow.

I like to start a song with a great title or a concept or a clear emotion and then use language that is a mix of concrete language metaphor and emotion and then use all the musical elements to support that idea, as the music tells us. It helps process negative emotions as I grew up. I had to adopt new nouns into my vocabulary. Words I never thought would belong to me, like double chin, turkey neck, and the most horribly crepey skin, so in order to process my rage. I wrote a song about it. So here's a little grape skin.

Oh, I have wrinkled skin. I'm just getting started. I haven't yet discovered the journey better than ever, but now. I have a turkey neck. I wear scarves like Dy and Katon turtlenecks in the summer when my wrinkled skin gets hot. I know you don't relate, but yes. I was able to laugh. I was able to laugh at the aging process. Better face it and the delivery of my first AARP magazine over a year ago, many of you may know this. More than a year ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I turned to music for my therapy, in fact, my song was lizo about damn time, yes, after. a masectomy double chemotherapy and going bald lyrics by lizo I've been so depressed and under pressure I may not be the girl I was or used to be Maybe I'll be better and the chorus lyrics I have a feeling I'm going to be okay, it's okay, now it was time for it to become my fight song of optimism and a shot of dopamine, as there were days when I couldn't face the next round of chemo and I'd get a text from an old friend or a card in the mail or a knock on the door with a huge bouquet of flowers and I was filled with love from those simple kindnesses and that support and that love made me face the next treatment it really made me begin to understand why I loved that old song You are the low wind my wings because I literally felt lifted up by the love and friendship that surrounded me because I shared what I was going through and I felt like it was really important to do so and their love held me when I couldn't contain myself.

One day, one of my favorite songwriters texted me and said, how are you? and I told him I'm going to need everything I have to get through this and he said, well, it's a good thing you have everything, except me. I'm a songwriter, so that idea you won't get any credit for. I held on to that idea because I thought that's where those ideas came from and one day my dear friend, artist Susan Katano, came to visit me. and I told him I'm ready to start processing some of this. I'd like to write a song and I told him about that idea and we sat down and of course the first instinct might have been the minor key because that's where I kind of feel like sadness or darkness belongs, but it felt a lot more complicated. and complex than that.

I felt sad, but I felt afraid, but everything was filled with sunshine and hope thanks to all my amazing friends and the community around me, so We decided to write it in a major key by altering one note to be a mix of Dark and Light from the major key we obtained the major key and then by altering a note we obtained a little darkness there in Psychology there is a term name it is to tame it and when we listen to songs that give a name to how we feel or we write them um we can transmute and metabolize emotions difficult and I felt better on the other side of this song and I would like to dedicate it to anyone here, that is the hardest thing, the room went out of focus when I heard the words of the diagnosis that I never thought I would hear, I told my family and then to my friends, while we all tried to pretend that nothing bad ever happens here, but then there were cards and calls. and flowers at my door I don't feel so alone anymore it's going to take everything I have it's going to take everything I have everything to get ahead it's going to take everything I have everything I have everything to help me get ahead, so it's good that it has everything.

My head was spinning with a thousand decisions divided with my fragile Fay than a rose in my hand, but then the family, the friends and the neighbors, the kindness of strangers when I think that. I can't do this they make me think I can and it's going to take everything I have everything I have everything to get ahead it's going to take everything I have everything I have everything to see me through so it's a good thing I have it all because love love is something real and love love is something real and it's the only thing and it's all we have it's all we have everything to help us get ahead is happening to take everything we have everything we have everything to get ahead so it's good that we have it all thanks w