{"id":1382,"date":"2007-03-22T14:06:45","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T20:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conradaskland.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/are-lyrics-and-melody-equal-partners\/"},"modified":"2007-03-22T14:08:57","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T20:08:57","slug":"are-lyrics-and-melody-equal-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/are-lyrics-and-melody-equal-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Lyrics and Melody Equal Partners?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/nobr><\/strong> DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/nobr>Abstract by S. Omar Ali and Zehra F. Peynircio\"g\"lu<\/nobr> <\/strong><\/p>\n

We explored the role of lyrics and melodies in conveying emotions <\/sup>in songs. Participants rated the intensity of <\/sup>four types of emotions in instrumental music or <\/sup> the same music paired with lyrics. Melodies and lyrics conveyed <\/sup>the same intended emotion in Experiments 1 and <\/sup>3 but were mismatched in Experiments 2 and 4. The major <\/sup> findings in Experiments 1 and 2 were that lyrics <\/sup>detracted from the emotion in happy and calm <\/sup>music (positive emotions), but enhanced the emotion in sad and <\/sup>angry music (negative emotions). In all cases, <\/sup>melodies of songs were more dominant than the <\/sup> lyrics in eliciting emotions. In addition, in Experiments <\/sup>3 and 4, the emotion in the songs appeared to <\/sup>transfer, simply by association, to pictures of common objects <\/sup> arbitrarily paired with the songs.<\/em><\/p>\n

“In all cases, <\/sup>melodies of songs were more dominant than the <\/sup> lyrics in eliciting emotions.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Would you rather hear weak lyrics with a strong melody or strong lyrics with a weak melody? Or is it all about context and dependent on the presentation?<\/p>\n

This test was probably too small to extract any solid information, but the line about melodies being more dominant than lyrics jumped out at me. Surely in styles like Country music it’s true that lyrics are king. It’s a storytelling genre. And there are many contemporary styles where it’s very fashionable to have the same I-V-vi-IV progression droning over new lyrics. It works, and it’s used in most styles of music including contemporary worship.<\/p>\n

But can you remember when you first heard your favorite melody? The power it had, it held you in it’s grasp and charmed you. I know a very fine orchestra conductor, Roupen Shakarian, who has said the draw of the melodies in Bach’s Fugue in G minor was what drew him into a music profession. I had the same experience with the same song, ironically (though I had never thought about it until I heard that from Roupen, so maybe I’m making it up.) Point is, the power of a melody can change a life.<\/p>\n

Can we say the same about lyrics? My experience is there are those that listen primarily to lyrics and those that focus on melodies and music. I am one that listens to music. Most of my favorite songs I could not tell you more than a couple of the lyrics. Often, I’m amazed to find out later that the lyrics of a song I like are actually very good. Maybe I miss out on the experience as a whole by focusing just on the music. But it’s not something I control, it’s just the way I’m wired.<\/p>\n

Do you listen to lyrics or music, or both in tandem? And what was the song that changed you or spoke to the depths of your soul?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC Abstract by S. Omar Ali and Zehra F. Peynirciolu We explored the role of lyrics and melodies in conveying emotions in songs. Participants rated the intensity of four types of emotions in instrumental music or the same music paired with lyrics. Melodies and lyrics conveyed the same intended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-mi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}