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

[Applause] songs are the soundtrack of Our Lives from birthday parties lullab our first love our first heartbreak our wedding song our next wedding song and ultimately the song that's played at our funeral songs enhance the moment or the season they help us dance they make us cry they make us run the extra mile and they can even make us hate sitting in traffic just a little bit less songs help us remember our lives they are a time capsule and a time machine imagine you're writing in your car next to your partner in your perfectly happy marriage when all of a sudden that song comes on that song you know that song from that one summer love and as your partner is sweetly giving you a traffic update you are gone evaporated evaporated from your heated seat back to that Greek island with the sunset lips of Pericles Constantine Doos coming in for a kiss you have been transported by a song that was encoded in your brain that summer it's not your fault songs are powerful have you ever thought about what's in a song what's in those three and a half minutes of arranged sound that have such impact we all listen to and turn to songs I've have the privilege of being someone who writes songs and as a professor at the Berkeley College of Music I help other artists write theirs and there's tools 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 meet your doctor wearing nothing but your underwear beneath your dignity gown and your doctor comes in nobody wants to hear hello my name is Dr Dr Watson and I'm your brain surgeon we want to hear hello my name is Dr Watson and I am your brain surgeon because when his tone of voice goes up so does your heart rate and when his tone of voice goes down you feel calm and like I'm in good hands so tone of voice matters the next time you go on a first date you can either say I haven't been on a date in a while or you can say I haven't been on a date in a while it matters it matters so think of Melody as the song's tone of voice what how we say what we say is oftentimes more important than what we say as Western listeners we have a relationship to Melody and we have an expectation to 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 [Music] next there it is exactly so some notes feel stable and some notes feel more unstable begging for resolution and that's very powerful information for a songwriter to know the words we place on those notes make the listener feel certain things I'd like to take a moment to ruin an Adele song I'm sure you've all heard her song Someone Like You in the verse and in the pre chorus she runs into her ex unexpectedly and she's clearly still in love and in the chorus she says never mind I'll find someone like you okay you know the song what if it what if she had sung it like this never mind I'll find someone like you what happened I apologize by the way um in my version We believe her we believe she will find someone like you no problem there's plenty of you out there because I have paired stable notes in the key and stable cords bringing a feeling of stability but that's not the melody she's saying those weren't the the tones that she sang this is her version never mind I'll find someone like you do you feel the difference so when she Sayang never mind she sang it on that the most stable note in the major key when she's sang find someone she sang it on that note that you all wanted me to resolve back to the home note find someone and then she sings you on the Bittersweet 6th degree of the major scale breaking your heart you in her version we we know she will never find anyone like you we know that because she has paired unstable pitches to match the way she's feeling building empathy with the audience go Adell another way that songwriters emotionalize our lyrics is the use of Chords chords are just three 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 that I feel amazing about eating that Snickers bar because because they just came out with a fat-free vegan [Laughter] version I would want to make sure that I picked chords that felt as happy about this news as I do today I ate a Snickers bar but what if what if that wasn't the case what if I was despondent or or very upset about the fact that um I meeting the Snickers bar because it was my ex's favorite Snickers bar it was his favorite candy bar and um it was the last thing we ate together today I ate a Snickers [Music] bar so chords cords help us Define the mood of the song another tool that 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 world's greatest audience you are the world's greatest audience you are the world's greatest a I'm hurt no exactly how did we all know that right because in songwriting there's the rule of three you can't repeat the same Melody exactly the same way three times in a row something's got to change that third time maybe I could have change a chord you are the world's greatest audience or maybe the melody you are the world's greatest audience so our brains love patterns but our brains also love surprise so I set up a pattern and then I surprised you and you were re-engaged but too much repetition causes the brain to habituate and zone out too much repetition is a Sonic cliche 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 up your towels like after thousands of repetitions their brain has habituated to your wife voice and they don't hear you they really don't they really don't so try changing your melody in some way next time go honey pick up your [Laughter] towels song help us process emotion 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 we don't like or hate or hold music Bad hold music our body releases the stress hormone cortisol so try a little bit of this brain science for yourself at home pick a song in the morning to start your day with instead of the usual negative thought train that blazes through your brain taking you with it put on a song song you love that has uplifting lyrics that primes your nervous system for a great day or the next time you have questionable in-laws coming over instead of awkward silences and small talk put on a song you 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 they use the language that's a mixture of concrete language metaphor and emotion and then I use all of the musical elements in support of that idea as music helps us process negative emotions as I've gotten older I've had to adopt new nouns to my vocabulary words I never thought would belong to me like jowls and turkey neck and most horrifyingly crepe skin so in order to process my rage I wrote a song about it all right so here's a little bit grape skin oh I've got crep skin I'm just getting started haven't figured out the journey yet better than I've ever been but now I've got a turkey neck I'm wearing scarves like Dy and Katon turtleneck sweaters in the summer when it's heating crep [Music] skin I know you don't relate but yes I was able to laugh uh at I was able to laugh at the aging process and better accept it and the delivery of my first AARP magazine over a year ago many of you might know this over 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 double masectomy chemotherapy and going bald lizo lyrics I've been so Down and Under Pressure I may not be the girl I was or used to be I might be better and and the chorus lyric I've got a feeling I'm going to be all right okay it's about damn time became my fight song of optimism and a shot of dopamine as there were days um that I couldn't face the next round of chemo and I would get a text message 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 filling f with love from those simple kindnesses and that support and that love made me face the next treatment it really made me start to understand why I loved that old song you are the wind beneath my wings because I literally felt lifted by the love and the friendship that was surrounding me because I shared what I was going through which I felt was really important to do and their love held me when I couldn't hold myself one day a one of my favorite song writers texted me and he said how are you and I said it's going to take everything I've got to get through this and he texted back well it's a good thing you've got everything but I'm a songwriter so that idea which he will get no credit for I I I held on to that idea because I thought that's where I those were ideas come to those were has come to me from and one day my dear friend an artist Susan katano came to visit and I said I'm ready to start processing some of this I'd like to write a song and I told her about that idea and we sat down and of course the first instinct could have been the minor key because that's where we sort of feel that sadness or Darkness belongs but I was feeling a lot more complicated and complex than that I was feeling sadness but I was feeling fear but it was all lined with sunlight and hope because of all my amazing friends and the community around me and so we decided to write it in a major key altering one note so it was a blend of Darkness and Light from the major key we got the major and then altering one note we sort of got a little bit of the darkness there in Psychology there's a term name it to tame it and when we listen to songs that give name to how we feel or we write them um we can transmute and metabolize difficult emotions and I felt better on the other side of this song and I'd like to dedicate it to anyone here that's facing the hardest thing the room went out of focus when I heard that diagnosis words I never thought i' hear I told my family then my friends as 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've got it's going to take everything I've got everything to get me through it's going to take everything I've got everything I've got everything to see me through so it's a good thing that I've got everything my head was spinning with a thousand split decisions with my fragile Fai than a rose qus in my hand but then family friends and 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've got everything I've got everything to get me through it's going to take everything I've got everything I've got everything to see me through so it's a good thing I've got everything cuz love love is a real thing and love love is a real thing and it's the only thing and it's everything we've got it's everything we've got everything to get us through it's going to take everything we've got everything we've got everything to get us through so it's a good thing that we've got [Music] everything thank you w

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 479,193

Keywords: Art, English, Music (topic), Storytelling, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:52264], spotify, spotify wrapped 2023, spotify wrapped, streaming

Id: lVlJxdAzWGs

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 03 2023