Twenty years ago, the British psychologist John Sloboda conducted a simple experiment. He asked music lovers to identify passages of songs that reliably set off a physical reaction, such as tears or goose bumps. Participants identified 20 tear-triggering passages, and when Dr. Sloboda analyzed their properties, a trend emerged: 18 contained a musical device called an “appoggiatura.” An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. “This generates tension in the listener,” said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. “When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good.” (via Why Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ Makes Everyone Cry - WSJ.com) Adele’s songs don’t make me cry (except in frustration that they keep playing her same two songs on the radio over and over and over), but identifying appoggiatura as a specific and consistent chill-inducer is pretty cool. This is something I’d noticed as a musician but never knew it’d actually been studied.

Twenty years ago, the British psychologist John Sloboda conducted a simple experiment. He asked music lovers to identify passages of songs that reliably set off a physical reaction, such as tears or goose bumps. Participants identified 20 tear-triggering passages, and when Dr. Sloboda analyzed their properties, a trend emerged: 18 contained a musical device called an “appoggiatura.”

An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. “This generates tension in the listener,” said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. “When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good.”

(via Why Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ Makes Everyone Cry - WSJ.com)

Adele’s songs don’t make me cry (except in frustration that they keep playing her same two songs on the radio over and over and over), but identifying appoggiatura as a specific and consistent chill-inducer is pretty cool. This is something I’d noticed as a musician but never knew it’d actually been studied.

Feb. 13 2012
Via The Wall Street Journal
#music #appoggiatura #science
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  1. ann-hall reblogged this from iknowyouwillbehappyhere
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  4. feed-well reblogged this from nussbaum and added:
    iknowyouwillbehappyhere: Twenty years ago, the British psychologist John Sloboda conducted a simple experiment. He asked...
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  9. nussbaum reblogged this from lumber and added:
    That’s actually pretty frickin’ awesome. :)
  10. wheretheloftwingdroppedme reblogged this from lumber and added:
    Erm, not to sound pretentious or anything, but has the little note got a line through it. I think it has but i’m not...
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  16. honeymanifesto reblogged this from byagi and added:
    ^ Tru dat. I literally swerve in traffic when Someone like you comes on the radio-for the 5th time in the course of an...
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