A conclusion

My research has been quite succesful. I've found out about many things that I didn't know before yet was yearning to. I now have a good, basic understanding of music psychology and how our brain processes music and I found some new song-writing techniques and musical characteristics that I can use for different purposes

I'm a little bit disappointed that I didn't find more in detailed musical devices that I can use in songs, but I'm also quite content that I have enough information to go off and write a song thats going to make someone sad, for example, or for someone to workout to.

Writing for certain personalities

I don't believe that any science is entirely factual. But, rather it gives us somewhere to start; somewhere to base our knowledge and our own research on. Everything is a matter of perception and we all perceive things differently. Not everyone likes heavy metal music just like not everyone likes classical music. A heavy metal song that arouses one person can put another person on the edge.

Our music taste and preferences differ as we do. Sometimes we like a band or a song that we wouldn't like to admit, but listen to them anyway because it makes us feel happy because it makes us recall good memories. In contrast we might not like a band or a song because it brings bad memories. A basic example of this would be a song that used to be your's and your ex lover's song and now every time you hear it, it reminds you of him/her and how much of an asshole they were to you. 

Because our music taste differs so much we'll never be able to write a song or find a song that will have the same effect on every single person, but we will be able to write or find one that has musical characteristics that provoke similar responses between a select group of people. 

On a similar note, research conducted by Jason Rentfrow and Sam Gosling has suggested that the music that we listen to links to our personality. They found that they could make accurate predictions of other people's personalities just by finding out what their 10 favourite songs were. Furthermore, a University research study, where participants were asked to provide some information on their personality and to also rate 104 different musical styles, showed some interesting personality traits that are linked to these musical styles. Here is a quick overview of what they found people who listen to certain musical genres are typically like:

This finding provides a basis for songs that I could write for certain types of people, and could in fact help me guess by knowing and speaking to people what kind of music they listen to, so that I could then write a song for them or aimed at people like them. For example, if I wanted to write a song for someone who was creative, introverted and was quite laid back I might write a classical song for them, taking characteristics from my other points of research on how to write songs in order to influence said person in a particular way. 

Writing music for workouts

When writing music for a sport or type of exercise I should first consider what amount of concerntration, grace and skill are required, what amount of self-awareness and self-esteem are needed and whether or not I need to avoid high-intensity stress or be motivated by its presence. Taking such considerations has indicated to professor Kate Gfeller that music does make a difference in performances in sport classes. 97% of the sport classes commented that music improved their mental attitude toward activites, whilst 79% commented that it aided their pace, strength and endurance. 

To aid pace and coordination, a song should have the appropriate rhythm for the activity. For any workout the music should be preferred by the listener as to facilitate focus on the workout or sport. 

If I were to be choosing music to listen to myself for a workout or sport activity I should choose music that sets the desired energetic pace that I find enjoyable and that makes me feel stimulated. Doing this would improve the chances that through the process of something called 'Entrainment and Rhythmic Synchronisity' will give me the perception that time is going faster than it actually is. This would be a particularly beneficial technique for those brutal workouts.

Listen to playlists from 8tracks.com!

Click over to 8tracks.com and find playlists to suit your needs. Whether you need some background music to help you study, some sad music to make you feel connected, upbeat music to dance to or some workout music to do, well, your workout too, 8tracks.com users have made playlists to fit anyones needs!

Music and Concentration

I think everyone finds it hard to concentrate on their studies at some point in time if not every time they sit down and attempt to study. Seen as I am trying to find out songwriting techniques and their psychological impacts I thought looking at how music effects concentration and what kind of music we should listen to to enhance our concentration and studying results would be fitting. Hopefully, I will find some things out that will benefit me not only in my song-writing but also when I'm trying to do assignments.

I've often heard people express that playing classical music in the background helps one concentrate and study. I always trusted in this to be true due to the fact that most of these people were usually either teachers or characters from films or TV shows, yet never actually bothered to find out whether or not it was fact. On a similar note, people argue that music either distracts them or helps them concentrate. So what is best; listening to music whilst studying or studying in silence? Does it differ between people or is our concentration effected in the same way by the same type of music?

First off, I should remind you that listening to music activates a part of our brain called the "Nucleus Accumbens," which in turn triggers the release of dopamine. Dopamine is chemical that is released when we feel pleasured. If you feel pleasure when listening to music then this chemical will be released. Knowing this psychologists performed a study, published in the journal of Neuroscience of Behaviour and Physiology, on people, concerning whether or not music can help us complete tasks such as assignments faster. The study showed that a "person's ability to recognize images, letters, and numbers was faster when rock or classical music was playing compared to no music." To further studies on this area another part of the study showed that workers made fewer errors when listening to music and were happier. These two results indicate that when you are revising or wanting to learn something visual in as little time as possible you should listen to either classical or rock music and, if you are dreading such a task or you want to refrain from getting bored listening to some type of music will help you. 

In a similar study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, if you are an expert at what you do music will help you to work "more accurately" when music you like is playing in the background, conveyed by their study on surgeons who were tested on how accurately they worked when listening to music they liked, music that they didn't like and listening to no music whatsoever. On these occasions listen to no music at all was actually the least beneficial of the three scenarios. In other words, if you are an expert at something and you want to listen to music make a playlist of your favourite songs and do it!

 In contrast, when learning something new, such as a complicated maths equation or a historic timeline, listening to music will only decrease your performance as concluded by researchers at the University of Wales Institute. This is because learning something new is very demanding to your brain and I guess, though I'm not to sure about this, listening to music will demand brain power too which would mean that less power is left over for you to use for learning.

In comparison a study, performed by Sheela Doraiswamy, on students to see how their concerntration was effected in five different scenarios during a test showed that those that took a test in a quiet environment or with a audio track with three words repeated playing in the background scored better than those that took it with a audio track with a variety of numbers repeated playing and music vocals that students chose and didn't like playing. Doraiswamy also mentions research from the University of Dayton who found that students 'performed better at spatial and linguistic processing if Mozart was playing in the background.' This doesn't necessarily mean that classical music helps you concentrate, rather that instrumental music helps you concentrate. This writer (Doraiswamy) suggests students to listen to instrumental jazz, classical, or a movie score (namely the Social network soundtrack). What i've found from this research is that if you want to write music for someone to listen to whilst studying make it instrumental.

Furthermore, when making a playlist to work to pick songs that you know. Do not listen to new songs! Listening to something that you haven't heard before increases your dopamine levels and makes your task seem less interesting (though it probably is) than the music, resulting in the lose of interest and motivation to do complete the task.

"For logical subjects, like Math, music should calm the mind and help concentration, whereas for creative subjects, the music should reflect the emotion that the student is trying to express.”  - Dr. Emma Gray.

Dr. Emma Gray a clinical psychologist investigated exactly what I want to know. What effect does music have on studying? She found that choosing the right type of music for the subject you are working on "stimulates learning and enhances concentration," by comparing those that listened to music of certain genres compared to those who listened to no music whilst studying for specific topics. Here is a brief summary of what she found:

• To write music for math, music should be 60-70 beats per minute in tempo and should have a melody and tone range similar to that in classical music to allow the students to study for longer and retain more information. (These students actually scored an average of 12% higher on their maths exams due to this!)
• To write music for science, humanities and languages studies music should be 50-80 beats per minute in tempo to allow the brain to learn and remember new facts.
• To write music for English, Drama or art write in the genre of emotive rock or pop to enhance creative performance. 

In conclusion to this part of my research and listening to different playlists whilst studying myself I've found that different types of music help when applied to different scenarios, such as when I'm studying maths music with lyrics put me off but mellow instrumental music helped me keep concentration. I find that whatever I am listening to whilst studying needs to be in a playlist, if it isn’t I’m distracted from my work and I miss a bunch of time that I could have  been studying, trying to pick the next song. Furthermore I find that when writing essays I’m either better off not listening to music or listening to background music yet not pop, new or upbeat music. That’s just me though, I think it will differ between everyone.

Writing music for emotions

Music can move people to feel more happy, peaceful, joyful and gentle or it can move people to be more angry, irate or sad. Still, though, music and the way people view it is all a matter of perception. Knowing what causes such reactions through music and what kind of music provokes these responses will facilitate my learning of how to write to provoke emotions from listeners but not all.

#1 Happy Music

Happy music can inspire, cheer up and motivate people. Listening to songs that bring good memories is a prime example of 'happy music,' as well as those that are lyrically joyous or encouraging. 

Happy music is usually upbeat or of a fast tempo as our heart rate adjusts to the music that we hear and tries to match its tempo. The lyrics are positive either with joyous cheesy comments, motivational lines or something along those lines. Any instrument can be used to sound happy. But playing the instrument slow and mournfully will sound just that- mournful. A rhythm such as the heartbeat pulse can help make a song sound upbeat and lively. Often the key of a piece of music facilitates the mood of the music, but note that it doesn't always. In Western music, our traditional celebatory music are of major key opposed to our traditional mourning music written in minor key (for example, Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' or 'Happy Birthday' opposed to Chopin's 'Funeral March'). Whereas, the key of a song and the mood of the song can completely contrast one another even though usually a major key sounds more 'happy' opposed to a minor key. 

The basis of what makes people think that major keys sound 'happy' are the use of major thirds. Major thirds sound bright and happy and hearing those on their own we get this impression, yet adding them with some other chords could produce a sad sounding song due to the tension and release of the chord sequence. To sum up, it is the relation of the notes to each other that provoke a mood, not the key. For example, the depressing lyrics in The Smiths – I Know It's Over change a major key song into a depressing one whilst the rhythm and instrumentation along with the lyrics of Van Morrison's 'Moondance' lead a minor key song to being an upbeat happy song that makes you want to dance.

Sources:
http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/production-techniques/theory-composing-sound-design/musical-keys-what-emotions-they-equal-34154/
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad
https://www.udemy.com/blog/songs-that-make-you-happy/
Image source:
http://stitchessapphiresandsweets.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/music-makes-me-happy-by-plastickheart.jpg



#2 Sad Music

Can we actually write music to make people feel a sense of sadness? How do we write songs that sound sad and how do we write them to make people feel the way it sounds? Why do people actually listen to sad music when they're sad themselves? Does sad music cure the blues? Read on to find out…

Teenage girls in movies are often displayed as listening to sad music when they're sad with a bucket of ice cream. I myself am guilty of this sometimes and I wonder why. Why when we're already feeling down do we put on music that's sad? After a bit of research I didn't find out a lot about why or how. But what I did find was a little article and video by redorbit.com, where a women described how psychologists had found out that "beautiful but sad music can help cure a case of the blues[1]," by having participants of their study "recall a negative emotional event in their lives and what sad music they'd listened to following the event." In conclusion to their study they discovered that those that chose to listen to 'sad' music didn't make them feel better but rather the music that they listened to that they described as 'beautiful' music did. Therefore, to make yourself or someone else feel better we should write or find beautiful music rather than just sad. I also later found another case study which measured listener's responses to "extremely sad [2]" music that showed a correlation between the amount of dopamine released and the amount of goose bumps produced, which resulted in the writer concluding that "the more emotions a song provokes…the more we crave the song.[2]"
Sad music usually concerns songs that are lyrically relatable or, sometimes, thought-provoking. Some songs may be quite upbeat and happy but viewed as sad because of the memories that they bring forth. Others may be sad because they remind the listener of someone that has passed on or has treated them badly. There are also characteristics in sad music that makes them seem as such. The musical device appoggiatura is one.

A psychologist names John Slohoda conducted an experiment asking people to identify passages of songs that set off a physical reaction (e.g. tears/ goosebumps). 18 of the 20 passages that they identified contained an "appoggiatura." A musical device of which creates a dissonant sound, generating tension in listeners. Then, to create the goosebumps or chills, the note should return to the "anticipated melody[2]." 

To make someone cry several appoggiaturas should occur next to each other in the melody. This results in a cycle of tension and release being generated which then results in an even stronger reaction compared to just one appoggiatura to be provoked. 

A popular example of "ornamental notes similar to appoggiaturas" being used is in "Someone Like You" by Adele, where Adele "slightly modulates her pitch at the end of long notes right before the accompaniment goes to a new harmony, creating mini-roller coasters of tension and resolution."
Furthermore, to write a chill-provoking song or part of a song add one of the following: begin a part softly and then suddenly become loud; add an abrupt new instrument or harmony; add an expansion of frequencies in the song; add unexpected deviations in the melody and/or the harmony. Basically, just add surprises in the song.

Source:
[1] http://www.redorbit.com/news/video/science_2/1113077236/music-for-the-blues-should-be-sad-and-beautiful-022114/[2] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203646004577213010291701378
Image Source:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq7RUEtB7Ic1Yu_yIvleSO75TtMyIWjis5E0WFmhR4RvUiFeQTZdqY2BAHBlIoFKL_EKnLUq6Dkp2hu-db7I7MvtO8c_OPkvTszhcRzuUP4WGsYQ7VGgKtCCZ5aMFxYX4wNnXiw245lfRc/s1600/sad_music_equals_happy_7460.jpg



#3 Relaxing Music 

Many classical pieces by Baroque composers, all with largo movements, are considered soothing pieces. And music with white noise or ambient environmental noise is used often for sleep disorder treatments. Soft music is usually considered relaxing. Using effects such as delay and phase shifting is advised when writing electronic relaxation music as well as drones for any.

I find that many chill-out playlists and CDs as well as playlists entitled simply 'relaxation music' on YouTube are useful in helping me relax to such an extent that I do sometimes drift off to sleep. We can't forget about the usage of music for meditation. Music that is used predominately for just that to put our mind at ease. 

Many of these relaxation pieces I myself have experienced are quiet, sparse yet full, repetitive, minimalistic, soft, slow in tempo, contain softly flowing textures and usually, but not always, contain no melodic material. In addition to these characteristics the motifs of such music consist of drumbeats and/ or timbre. 

Sources:
Tao of Music: Sound Psychology book by John M. Ortizhttp://composersforum.ning.com/forum/topics/meditation-music
Image source:
http://www.enhancedhealing.com/imagesupload/cms_files/4.jpg


#4 Angry Music

The first thing I think of when I think of anger provoking music is political music. Music that creates feelings of anger through the lyrically content that displays injustice or wronging's. The other type of anger provoking music that comes to mind is that of which artists express their anger through their songs via their words or other musical devices like dynamics (a bunch of examples are listed on the page of [1]).

Music that expresses anger and is accused to persuade its fans of being angry individuals is that of heavy metal and rap music which I believe to influence people that way because the fans relate to the expression of anger in the lyrics and take influence from them in return as do the majority from any type of music that any of us listen to. In comparison, a study showed that kids that listened to heavy-metal music regardless of the lyrical content (even though the music was 'unintelligible) developed the same negative attitudes toward women and were angrier than kids that listened to easy-listening music [2], implying that tone, rather than lyrical content provokes anger. But this does not necessarily mean that heavy metal or metal music creates angry, disobedient or rebellious individuals. Rather, it suggests that it influences such reactions. 

Music that causes irritation and fidgeting would probably provoke feelings of anger too. So placing lack of reasonances in music, musical jumps, jitteriness and changes of tempo into a song would perhaps provoke such a reaction. 

Sources:
[1] http://www.upvenue.com/article/1357-top-10-songs-to-listen-to-when-you-re-angry.html[2] http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-listening-to-negative-lyrics-or-angry-music-really-harmfu_71171.bc
Image source:
http://universereview.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/angry-music-note.jpeg 


#5 Scary Music

 Characteristics of famous haunting soundtracks and compositions such as those from Jaws and Psycho, include those of screeching violins, crashing chords or notes and harsh unexpected sounds used to represent screams. They also seemed to have had abrupt shifts up and down in pitch. Additionally, many piece contain syncopation and volume contrasts which throws off the listener by disorientating them. 

To summarize, to scare a listener add unexpected changes in the musical characteristics such as volume and tone, crashing notes or instrumentation, harsh sounds, abrupt shifts in pitch and screeching strings or low drones.




Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1281385/Ever-wondered-music-horror-films-scares-The-harsh-sounds-tap-instinctive-fears.html

Suggested further reads:
http://www.livescience.com/25611-why-music-moves-us.html


 

 




 

Writing music for films

"The absence of music can also be very powerful when a scene contains a particularly frightening or beautiful soundscape. A fantastic example of this can be found amongst James Horner's Oscar winning score for Titanic. As the film builds to its climax, the soundtrack brims with orchestral music and a complex sound design. Audiences follow the ship's captain inside the water-filled bridge, where he stands awaiting his death. For a few precious moments, the music disappears, leaving only the sparse sounds of the creaking ship, dripping water and the character's heavy breathing. By hearing the sounds exactly as the doomed captain would have heard them, the scene becomes much more personal and emotive. When the music returns a few seconds later, accompanying the crashing of the sea through the bridge windows, it is all the more powerful for its absence." Source: [1].

 Music that is used in films highlight onscreen action and emotions and gives scenes a sense of time and place. Sound effects can then be used to simulate reality or even add something that is not really there as to add a surreal affect to the visual. Both can be used to create expectations and moods, such moods can match the moving image or it can contrast it. 

Sound designers sometimes select pre-existing music to accompany the moving image or they will compose, or hire someone to compose, new music. If we wanted to compose music for film a few useful tips are listed below to take lead from:

• To help give the film identity construct memorable melodies, themes and motifs.
• To intensify emotion and heighten tension consider using music more subtly, as to not draw any attention to the music.
• Change the tempo to change the viewer's heart rate and feelings of anxiety; to create a spark of apprehension or fear create a sudden change of tempo; to make the audience feel a sense of security slow down the tempo.
• To heighten tension/ conflict during a scene use complex and unresolved harmonies, such as clashing or dissonant harmonies or unsettling chords.
• Rumbling timpani, double basses and high, screeching violins can be used to create that horror movie atmosphere.
• To keep your audience on edge after heightening their tension use a progression of chords that do not resolve or has an imperfect ending. Do not finish on the tonic! In contrast, if you want the music to resolve use the tonic.
• The absence of music in parts of the film can sometimes be as effective as having it present! Having a quiet passage in a scene can create tension that forces the audience to concentrate and wait in anticipation for a sound to emerge.
• The music should always have a purpose for being present.
• For happy moments consider upbeat music.
• For sad moments consider very dim and dark music.
• You can confuse or mislead the audience with music and sound. You can do this intentionally to surprise the audience.
• To make you music sound authentic, realistic and appealing use ambient sounds or music.
• The volume, pitch and timbre define the overall sonic texture of a film.
• A melody or musical effect and musical properties such as pitch, volume and timbre can all be used to associate music to a character, setting, situation or idea.

Note: you can use the same music to create contrasting effects for different films. For example, the terrifying screechy violin used in Psycho (1960) have a more comic effect when used as background music when Mel Brooks is stabbed in the shower in High Anxiety (1977).