One of the reasons music is so powerful is how it makes us feel. In spite of myself, I have an emotional reaction to some of the most inane and psychologically manipulative movies or even commercials because of the background music that’s used in conjunction with the images. My husband John Smith, who has composed and produced the music for 1000’s of commercials, talks about the psychology of chords and how easy it is to manipulate an audience to feel what you want them to feel. For instance, let’s imagine that we’re being shown a scene in a film where little Johnny is about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. His loving family is around him, but the camera moves to a figure smiling in the background – Johnny’s uncle perhaps. If the chords being played underneath the Happy Birthday song are in a major key (the ones we usually hear) we experience a sense of happiness and that all is well. If the film composer instead uses some disturbing sounding minor chords – or a violin section playing a rhythmic figure that we associate with the soundtrack to horror movies we’re familiar with – we feel discomfort. “Oh no! Something horrible is about to happen to little Johnny! Maybe his uncle is about to go mad and smash his little head to bits!”
You get the idea. Continue reading ‘The SOUND of Brain Chemistry For Lovers’
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