Written by Justin S. (KIS'20)
Edited by Ava S. (TBS'19)
━━ April 8th, 2018 ━━
What makes music sound “good” to us?
Imagine yourself in an empty hall. Most likely, you would remain calm, as you hear no one. The silence doesn’t bother you. Now, imagine yourself in a hall with an esteemed symphony orchestra on stage. Suddenly, you hear the vibrant sounds of timpanis, marimbas, and even the bass drum. The trumpets explode in the back while the violins and violas rip through their strings in the front. The rhythm and the melody of the music start to make sense to you. You feel something inside... perhaps a sense of excitement. But why does this happen? Why do people feel something tugging at their heartstrings or exciting their body enough for it to move when a certain melody or rhythm is played? Why does music sound so “good” to us? Well, the answer lies in many factors: excellent tone and harmony, logical structure of music, and effective songwriting.
When music is played, the tone and harmony are vital for music to sound “good.” Whenever an instrument is played, whether it is a violin, clarinet, or a snare drum, it produces a distinctive sound wave. This is because of timbre, a complex tone, which contains more than one frequency of notes. According to Britannica, when two or more different sound waves (ex: 100, 300, and 500 hertz) are made together, they create a complex tone.
In that complex tone, the fundamental note would be the 100 hertz, as it has the slowest frequency, making it the lowest note. The other two tones (300 and 500 hertz) would be called the overtones. So when a trumpet is playing their ‘C’, or the concert tone B flat, three notes can be heard: the fundamental note and overtones. The note frequencies are different for all instruments, making them sound distinct. Now, when instruments play together they can create a harmonic sound or a chord. However, the notes that are played are important for how pleasantly the sound is presented. Brains tend to prefer to hear simple sounds because of the frequencies that are involved when a triad chord (three notes) is played. For example, when the A Major Chord is played, there are three notes: A, C#, and E. The frequency of A is 440 hertz; the frequency of C# is 550 hertz (which is 1.5 times the frequency of A); the frequency of E is 660 hertz (which is 1.5 times the frequency of C#). This combination of frequencies (440, 550, 660 hertz) sounds natural to people’s brains. The notes are in a 3:2 ratio, which is, in music theory, is called the “perfect fifth” interval ratio. Interval ratios that are or close to 1:1, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2, or 2:1 sound natural because their ratios are easy to interpret. However, other chords with interval ratios such as 16:15, 17:16, or 27:25 don’t sound as “good” as the simpler ratios because of their complexity. The brain notices this and regards the complex ratio of these frequencies as dissonance, or to be resonating ‘weirdly’. It is important to note that all these interval ratios are largely hypothetical as they are difficult to use effectively. Nowadays, most Western instruments use a twelve-tone equal temperament system, which uses roots instead of fractions as in the table.
In all pieces of music, there are various structures that make the music interesting through variation. If a song has no structure, there will be too much disorder for the audience connect to anything in the song. However, if there is a structure but with too many repeating melodies or rhythms, the song will become predictably boring. The sweet spot for many types of music is to have a structure with a clear pattern that also constantly varies. A song or piece of music can have a story-like structure to underscore a theme. Music from popular artists such as Daft Punk or Ed Sheeran have a basic structure with the introduction (where the atmosphere of the music is created), verse (takes atmosphere and increases the hype for the chorus), pre-chorus (optional but is to increase hype for chorus), chorus (most essential part of the song), bridge/solo (contrast to rest of song) and outro (indicate song ends), which can be comparable to the structure of narratives (Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution). The basic parts of the musical structure can be easily identified in Fireflies by Owl City. In contrast with pop songs, classical music is often in structures such as the “Sonata form.” According to Britannica, this musical structure is used frequently in the first movement from multi-movement pieces. Here, it has an exposition, development, and recapitulation.
The structure is a way to bring conflict and resolution, similar to how stories progress. The exposition brings a theme and conflict into the music; the development stretches that theme and brings resolutions to the conflict from the exposition; the recapitulation, all used differently by composers, takes the main theme or subject in the song and bring it to its conclusion by adding something new, like changing the key. Since people love to listen or read stories, the musical structures from classical music, pop music, or others work to make the music sound “good” by making each part of the music add up.
Music may not always have a clear narrative if there are no lyrics to support the theme. Lyrics help to clearly emphasize thematic elements. For many, a song with a moving melody, interesting rhythm, but no impactful lyrics can be regarded as disappointing as the audience may not be pulled into the music. The definition of “impactful” here depends on the style of the music as well as what it attempts to convey. A sad song needs sad lyrics, and a happy song needs happy lyrics, and these lyrics need to match with the melody and rhythm of the song. For the lyrics to be impactful, the use of these stressed and unstressed syllables to the rhythm has to work well. If one verse has too many equally stressed syllables to the rhythm, that part of the verse will sound and feel irrationally uncomfortable. Rhythm, lyrics, and melody need to sound natural together to make the music sound “good.”
Music, whether it’s fast or slow, happy or sad, complex or simple, is a big part of people’s
lives. It brings people together socially and culturally as it connects to fundamental emotions. The lives and feelings of the Earth’s seven billion people vary, along with their tastes in music. What some may justify as good music can perceived as awful by others. Ultimately, preference in music is subjective. However, there are fundamental elements of music that universally affect how we enjoy it.. To make all those music styles sound good, the song or piece of music needs wonderful tone, harmony, logical musical structure, and impactful songwriting.
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Bibliography:
- Dewberry, Colton. "What Makes Good Music Good?" Medium, 24 Jan. 2014, https://medium.com/@ColtonDewberry/what-makes-good-music-good-f27e9e4b6e9c. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Ledger Note Contributors. Ledger Note, Ledger Note, 14 Mar. 2015, https://ledgernote.com/columns/music-theory/basic-song-structure-essentials/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Jacobson, Bernard. "Sonata form." Encyclopædia Britannica. , 2016, https://www.britannica.com/art/sonata-form. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Music Numbers. Julian Cianciolo, Youtube, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXLltEn4O5E&index=84&list=LLvbp5eaqFZDd1F9xClwdsUg. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Questionable Music Theory: Chords. Julian Cianciolo, Youtube, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRuY3RfLhg&t=3s&index=48&list=LLvbp5eaqFZDd1F9xClwdsUg. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Wikipedia Contributors. "Equal Temperament." Wikipedia. , 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Wikipedia Contributors. "Sonata form." Wikipedia. , 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata_form. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- Wikipedia Contributors. "Sound." Wikipedia. , 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Chord." Encyclopædia Britannica. , 2013, https://www.britannica.com/art/chord-music. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Overtone." Encyclopædia Britannica. , 2018, https://www.britannica.com/science/overtone. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Timbre." Encyclopædia Britannica. , 2018, https://www.britannica.com/art/sonata-form. Accessed 10 Mar. 2018.
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