TED Talks Daily - Why do you love your favorite songs? | Scarlet Keys

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Songs are the soundtrack of our lives. But why exactly do they make us feel the way they do? Songwriter Scarlet Keys sits down at a piano to deconstruct the tools musicians use to make a melody unforgettable — from tone and repetition to lyrics and chords — and sheds light on music's ability to transform moments into memories.

TED Audio Collective You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Why are sad songs so sad? And conversely, when music moves us to joy, what's going on there? In her 2023 talk, musician and professor Scarlett Keys sits down at a piano to break down for us the exact musical tools that songwriters can use to make us feel one way or another

when we listen to certain songs and melodies. It's fascinating, and it's coming up after the break. Support for the show comes from Airbnb. I've got a trip to Asia planned for this December. I booked an Airbnb. They are always the most cozy and inviting after such a long journey. My own home will be empty while I'm gone, so I was looking into hosting on Airbnb myself. I'm having fun thinking of some small touches I might add for potential guests, like the

ones I've received at Airbnbs in the past. And with the extra income from hosting, I can make my next trip abroad even longer. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. AI keeping you up at night, wondering what it means for your business? Don't miss the latest season of Disruptors, the podcast that takes a closer look at the innovations reshaping our economy.

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Stay tuned after this talk to hear a sneak peek of this week's episode. And now our TED Talk of the day. Songs are the soundtrack of our lives. From birthday parties, lullabies, our first love, our first heartbreak, our first love, our first heartbreak, our wedding song, our next wedding song, and ultimately the song that's played at our funeral.

Songs enhance the moment or the season. They help us dance, they make us cry, they make us run the extra mile, and they can even make us hate sitting in traffic just a little bit less. Songs help us remember our lives. They are a time capsule and a time machine. Imagine you're riding in your car next to your partner in your perfectly happy marriage when all of a sudden that song comes on. That song, you know, that song

from that one summer love and as your partner is sweetly giving you a traffic update you are gone, evaporated, evaporated from your heated seat back to that Greek island, with the sunset lips of Pericles Constantine Danos coming in for a kiss, you have been transported by a song that was encoded in your brain that summer. It's not your fault. Songs are powerful. transported by a song that was encoded in your brain that summer. It's not your fault. Song are powerful. Have you ever thought about what's in a song,

what's in those three and a half minutes of arranged sound that have such impact? We all listen to and turn to songs. I've had the privilege of being someone who writes songs and as a professor at the Berklee College of Music I help other artists write theirs and there's tools we use as songwriters that affect emotion. One of the tools we use is tone. That's something we all understand, tone. Imagine you're sitting in a cold hospital room waiting to meet your doctor wearing nothing but your

underwear beneath your dignity gown and your doctor comes in. Nobody wants to hear, hello my name is Dr. Watson and I'm your brain surgeon. We want to hear, hello my name is Dr. Watson and I am your brain surgeon. Because when his tone of voice goes up so does your heart rate and when his tone of voice goes up, so does your heart rate. And when his tone of voice goes down, you feel calm and like, I'm in good hands. So tone of voice matters. The next time you go on a first date, you can either say, I haven't been on a date in a while. Or you can say, I haven't been on a date in a while.

It matters. It matters. It matters. So, think of melody as the song's tone of voice. How we say what we say is oftentimes more important than what we say. As Western listeners, we have a relationship to melody, and we have an expectation to that relationship. So I'm gonna play something, and when I stop playing, I want you to tell me what you expect me to play next. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]

There it is, exactly. So some notes feel stable and some notes feel more unstable begging for resolution and that's very powerful information for a songwriter to know. The words we place on those notes make the listener feel certain things. I'd like to take a moment to ruin an Adele song. I'm sure you've all heard her song, Someone Like You. In the verse and in the pre-chorus, she runs into her ex unexpectedly, and she's clearly still in love. And in the chorus she says never

mind I'll find someone like you. Okay you know the song what if it what if she had sung it like this never mind I'll find someone like you. What happened? I apologize by the way. In my in my version, we believe her. We believe she will find someone like you. No problem. There's plenty of you out there. Because I have paired stable notes in the key and stable chords, bringing a feeling of stability. But that's not the melody she's saying.

Those weren't the tones that she's saying. This is her version. Never mind, I'll find someone like you. Do you feel the difference? So when she sang Never Mind, she sang it on that, the most stable note in the major key. When she sang Find Someone, she sang it on that note that you all wanted me to resolve back to the home note. Find someone and then she

sings you on the bittersweet sixth degree of the major scale breaking your heart. You. In her version we we know she will never find anyone like you. We know that because she has paired unstable pitches to match the way she's feeling, building empathy with the audience. Go Adele. Another way that songwriters emotionalize our lyrics is the use of chords. Chords are just three to four notes played at the same time.

Three, four, and chords have a lot to say about how our lyrics feel. So let's say I want to write a song about eating a Snickers bar. And let's say that I feel amazing about eating that Snickers bar because they just came out with a fat-free vegan version. I would want to make sure that I picked chords that felt as happy about this news as I do. Today I ate a Snickers bar. But what if what if that wasn't the case? What if I was despondent or very upset about the fact that I'm eating the Snickers bar because it was my ex's favorite Snickers bar. It was his favorite candy bar because it was my ex's favorite Snickers bar.

It was his favorite candy bar and it was the last thing we ate together. Today I ate a Snickers bar. So chords, chords help us define the mood of the song. Another tool that we use is repetition, because repetition helps our listener remember our song and sing with us. So again, I'm gonna play something and I want you to be honest.

I want you to raise your hand when you start to get bored. to raise your hand when you start to get bored. You are the world's greatest audience. You are the world's greatest audience. You are the world's greatest audience. I'm hurt. Exactly, how did we all know that, right? Because in songwriting, there's the rule of three. You can't repeat the same melody exactly the same way

three times in a row. Something's gotta change that third time. Maybe I could've changed a chord. You are the world's greatest audience. Or maybe the melody. You are the world's greatest audience. Or maybe the melody, you are the world's greatest audience. So our brains love patterns, but our brains also love surprise.

So I set up a pattern and then I surprised you and you were re-engaged. But too much repetition causes the brain to habituate and zone out. Too much repetition causes the brain to habituate and zone out. Too much repetition is a sonic cliché, and our listener stops listening. How many times have you said to your partner in the same melodic stratosphere, Honey, pick up your towels! Honey, pick up your towels!

Like, after thousands of repetitions, their brain has habituated to your wife voice, and they don't hear you. They really don't. They really don't. So, try changing your melody in some way. Next time time go, honey pick up your towels. Songs help us process emotion and understand how we feel. When we listen to songs we love,

our brain releases the feel-good hormone dopamine. When we listen to songs we don't like or hate or hold music, bad hold music, our body releases the stress hormone cortisol. So try a little bit of this brain science for yourself at home. Pick a song in the morning to start your day with instead of the usual negative thought train that blazes through your brain taking you with it. Put on a song you love that has uplifting lyrics that primes your nervous system for a great day. Or the next time you have questionable in-laws coming over, instead of awkward silences and small talk, put on a song you know they love and let the dopamine flow. And now back to the episode.

I like to start a song with a great title or a concept or a clear emotion. And then they use the language that's a mixture of concrete language, metaphor, and emotion. And then I use all of the musical elements in support of that idea. As music helps us process negative emotions, as I've gotten older, I've had to adopt new nouns to my vocabulary. Words I never thought would belong to me, like jowls and turkey neck and most horrifyingly, crepe skin. So in order to process my rage, I wrote a song about it. I wrote a song about it.

Alright, so here's a little bit. Crepe skin, oh I've got crepe skin. I'm just getting started, haven't figured out the journey yet, better than I've ever been but now I've got a turkey neck. I'm wearing scarves like Diane Keaton, turtleneck sweaters in the summer when it's heating, crepe skin. I know you don't relate, but yes, I was able to laugh at the aging process and better accept it and the delivery of my first AARP magazine. Over a year ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I turned to music for my therapy.

In fact, my song was Lizzo's About Damn Time. Yes. After a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and going bald, Lizzo's lyrics, I've been so down and under pressure, I may not be the girl I was or used to be, bitch, I might be better. And the chorus lyric, I've got a feeling I'm going to be all right, okay, it's about damn time, became my fight song of optimism and a shot of dopamine. As there were days that I couldn't face the next round of chemo. And I would get a text message from an old friend or a card in the mail or a knock on the door

with a huge bouquet of flowers. And I was filled with love from those simple kindnesses. And that support and that love made me face the next treatment. It really made me start to understand why I loved that old song, You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings, because I literally felt lifted by the love and the friendship that was surrounding me because I shared what I was going through, which I felt was really important to do. And their love held me when I couldn't hold myself. One day, one of my favorite songwriters texted me and he said, how are you? And I said, it's

gonna take everything I've got to get through this. And he texted back, well it's a good thing you've got everything. But I'm a songwriter. So that idea, which he will get no credit for, I held onto that idea because I thought that's where ideas come to me from. And one day my dear friend and artist, Susan Catanio, came to visit and I said, I'm ready to start processing some of this. I'd like to write a song. I told her about that idea and we sat down and of course the first instinct could have been the minor key because that's where we sort of feel that sadness or darkness belongs but I was feeling a lot more complicated and

complex than that I was feeling sadness but I was feeling a lot more complicated and complex than that. I was feeling sadness, but I was feeling fear, but it was all lined with sunlight and hope because of all my amazing friends and the community around me. And so we decided to write it in a major key, altering one note. So it was a blend of darkness and light from the major key, we got the major, and then altering one note we sort of got a little bit of the darkness. In psychology there's a term, name it to tame it, and when we listen to songs that give name to how we feel or we write them, we can transmute and metabolize difficult emotions.

And I felt better on the other side of this song. And I'd like to dedicate it to anyone here that's facing the hardest thing. ["The Room Without a Focus"] The room went out of focus when I heard that diagnosis, words I never thought I'd hear. I told my family then my friends as we all tried to pretend that nothing bad ever happens here. But then there were cards and calls and flowers at my door. I don't feel so alone anymore. anymore it's gonna take everything I've got it's gonna take everything I've got everything to get me through it's gonna take everything I've got, everything to see me through

So it's a good thing that I've got everything My head was spinning with a thousand split decisions With my fragile faith and a rose quartz in my hand But then family, friends and neighbors The kindness of strangers When I think that I can't do this They make me think I can And it's gonna take everything I've got Everything I've got

Everything to get me through It's gonna take everything I've got Everything I've got everything to see me through So it's a good thing I've got everything Cause love, love is a real thing And love, love is a real thing And it's the only thing

And it's everything we've And it's everything we've got It's everything we've got Everything to get us through It's gonna take everything we've got Everything we've got Everything to get us through So it's a good thing We've got everything Support for the show comes from Airbnb.

I've got a trip to Asia planned for this December. I booked an Airbnb. They are always the most cozy and inviting after such a long journey. My own home will be empty while I'm gone, so I was looking into hosting on Airbnb myself. I'm having fun thinking of some small touches I might add for potential guests, like the ones I've received at Airbnbs in the past. And with the extra income from hosting, I can make my next trip abroad even longer. Your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at airbnb.ca. That was Scarlett Keys at TEDxPortsmouth in 2023. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED audio collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezo.

I'm Elise Hue. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. National Geographic fellow Dan Butener studies places around the world where people live well into their 90s and beyond. But he doesn't think a long life should be that unusual. If you do everything right and you have an average set of genes, you can set your financial plan to age 95. you have an average set of genes, you can set your financial plan to age 95. Nurturing longevity. That's next time on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Subscribe or listen to the TED Radio Hour

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