Hi Jim,

Thank you for speedily sorting out my failed attempts to join the Forum. Now in, at last!

Can you tell me why is is that a certain melody, or do I mean a tune makes one's insides surge, as your Lord Douglas did for me when I first heard it [Cecil Sharp in Bristol] and O Come Emmanuel?

Is there an answer to this? I understand the science behind emotional responses but why to a certain combination of sounds?

Your voice is heartbreaking but even without that, what is it about those melodies?

With very many thanks,

Jeannie

I emailed this to you, but for everyone else to see, here it is again :

I think there are lots of scientific reasons why music might be affecting, but there are also a lot of cultural attachments as well.

There are various mathematical ratios that make up intervals in music that were first defined by Pythagoras, but the cultural differences across different world musics are in the associations that those intervals have. Cultures with micro-tonal scales (i.e. not conforming to a western eight-notes-to-an-octave system) still usually have an octave note that is double the frequency of the starting note, but the notes inbetween can change. The most basic example would be that a perfect fifth (a ratio of 1:1.5) and a major third (1:1.25) for a major chord and have a cultural association of 'happy' for western music, while swapping the third for a minor third (1.2) is perceived as 'sad'. But those sounds might mean something different to someone from another music system.

There are things you can do as a composer to play on these associations - Lord Douglas is in the key of D but doesn't resolve to the root position tonic chord of D for a full eight bars of each sequence (until the ends of verses). And for a lot of the verses in the middle it hangs on a subdominant or relative minor chord instead of resolving to the tonic. This plays on the fact that our ears are trained to expect music to resolve in a 'perfect cadence' - chord V to I - at the end of sections. Not doing this leaves the listener hanging, giving a "...and, furthermore..." point in the story.

There are also things the performer can do like hitting notes sharp or flat to ring better (form a purer or more complex ratio in relation to the tonic note) - this is known in jazz as 'blue notes' and in string quartet music as 'the ring'. The voicings you use of the chords, and the phrasing of the song can all help as well. Because Lord Douglas is played in an altered guitar tuning - CGCGCD - I can tune all the strings to a purer 5th than would be allowed in standard tuning so the tonic chord can be more powerful.

Does that help?

What a fascinating question and response. Interestingly within visual arts there are also certain ratios that affect the viewers response to the composition. These I understand well so it is fascinating for me that music is also redolent with similar mathematical ratios(apologies - this probably seems like a really ignorant statement to make). My mind is whirring with possibilities, I can see that I'm going to have to locate a music theory for dummies reader so that I understand it all a bit better.

Wow - Jim, that's some explanation - and takes me right back to when I was in my teens an doing music theory to accompany my piano playing (got to Grade 5, but to my regret never kept it up when I left home at 17.... )

They were talking about this very subject on The One Show on BBC1 last night (will be available on the iPlayer if anyone interested) - basically explaining the link between maths and music and why major chords sound "better" to the human ear than minor chords, eg the "devils chord"...

Link here if anyone is interested - its about half way through the programme!

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Cheers! Ali x