I created a survey on survey monkey in order to find out what emotional connections people have with certain songs or specific music. These we the answers from my respondents.
As you can see from peoples answers from the survey they all have varied preferences in music which is expected as people prefer different music for different reasons such as the meaning behind the songs, emotional ties to the song or just enjoying how the song sounds. similarly to this people also disliked certain music for similar reasons wether it was a style they dont like for example some people didn't like heavy metal because of the screaming style of vocals. Another person who answered my questionnaire said they didnt like Green Day as they thought that the lyrics in their songs where "Dumb"
1st Song Analysis - Tell me Baby - Red Hot Chili Peppers
To me this song makes me feel happy and it connects to me on an emotional level due to when I've heard it. The song itself musically has a very happy feel to it alone. The song starts with note picking on a fairly clean guitar with a couple of piano notes in the background. The song then has a short rest and the kicks in with a very fast typical bass line/ riff which is played in the slap method by flea its a very clean sounding bass giving the song a nice punch. I personally find that this bass line is very happy sounding and easy to dance or mosh to. Over the top the guitar is playing a very simple riff on a high octave which sounds very happy due to the fact is predominantly major chords such as F, G , C and an A minor chord giving it happy feel. The Drums are a steady 4:4 beat but are quite heavy but the bass and guitar is the main emphasis. This remains the same through the verse until the rap part of the song where the guitar starts to play funk style reggae off beat chords causing a little beat for the singer to rap over giving the song a funky part. the chorus the kicks in with soft picked guitar and harmonys on the vocals. the song stays the same until towards the end where there is a typicaly chilli pepper solo which has a lot of wah pedal use hammer ons a pull offs causing again a happy feel due to the funk of the guitar allowing people to dance to it.
2nd Song Analysis - Handlebars - Flobots
Unlike the other song I analysed this song is very different in many ways. for starters the song mainly follows a simple picked riff and other instruments slowly come in as a build up for the end of the song. The song itself is about life and how we can either be creative or academic. The song sings about how destructive people are with lyrics like "I can guide a missile with a satellite" and "I can end the world in a holocaust". layers of instruments such as drums guitar and trumpet kick in causing a big build up at the end where the singer starts shouting as opposed to the slow spoken rap that is happening through majority of the song. The song itself has a sad timbre due to the slow picking part and the vocals sound rather depressed and sad due to the fact he is singing about life and he how feels about it. From the song it is very apparent the artist is unhappy with the way the life works and goes.
The structure of the song starts very basic with just singing and guitar however the singer starts to rap and more layers come in. however the song is very repetitive just more layers add to the simple riff with things such as a trumpet solo. A Hip Hop drum beat lays the backing for the song. This song really has n emotional feel to the song and an angry/ sad timbre this is due to the honesty of the song talking honestly about the way of life of how you are split into classes and how only some talents and skills are credited. The singer mentions about how people can split an atom with a molecule and compares how people are amazed and respect this. The Singer then compares this to keeping a rhythm without a metronome but this is viewed as a lesser talent however this is ironic as obviously the artist of this song is a musician but is ware that music isn't as highly viewed as academic skills. Because of this the song has a lot of meaning to me as it is almost like a speech about life and how unbalanced life can be. As a musician I relate well to this song as I also know how hard being a musician can be and how lowly credited it is.
History of my music taste
I feel that from a young age my parents heavily influenced my music taste. They would always have their cd's or radios on which means it would be their music playing. Due to my parents being divorced each house had very different music playing my mums house had her preferred music playing and vice versa. My dads music taste consisted of old punk albums such as the clash, ramones and sex pistols but also some rock such as the likes of bon jovi, U2 and oasis.
Where as my mums music taste consisted of mainly songs and artists in the charts such as james blunt, stereophonics, coldplay and just mainly individual songs like "wake me up when September ends" by Green Day. My mum always liked songs based on how they made her feel and what emotions she was feeling where as my dad liked music that he could relate to hence the punk and ska music taste.
I feel that at this young age I didn't know about music as I do now and therefore liked these artists because my parents did and because I heard them a lot. One song in particular that stands out from my child hood is "Angels" by Robbie willams. I feel this is because its one song that although my parents both had different music tastes this song was played by both of them and was on the radio a lot because of this I ended up singing it with my parents as it was a song that we all enjoyed and made us all happy. In a way its a song that connected us as a family.
Another part of my childhood musical memory was the Album "Back to Bedlam" by James Blunt. I feel this album sticks out because it was big at the time of my childhood and most songs off this album had a place in the charts
My Music Taste Now
My music taste now is a lot more varied and I tend to listen to music across all genres such as Hip-Hop, Reggae, Rock, Country, Electro, Rock, punk and pop. Artists that show this are: The black keys, Bob Marley, Calvin harris, Jason Derulo, Greenday, Jimi Hendrix, The beatles and Jhonny cash. However linking this back to my music taste when I was young I still like the same artists but for different reasons for example James Blunt is still one of my favourite artists however I now like him due to his musical talent for example I feel his song meanings are quite powerful and relatable. Aswell as this each of his songs has a different sound. For example his song "High" is a slow song with a powerful chorus sung in falsetto. However his new album released this year is very different and has a lot more production on it having a more club music feel to it. I feel that now my music taste is all due to how well written and talented the song is and if the song is relatable.
A way to sum up my musical taste now is that I like songs that I can either relate to due to the lyrics or meaning of the song. This tends to be something like a relationship or a song about partying with friends or even just emotions that I am feeling at the time. A common occurrence is finding songs that I enjoy listening to whilst I drive an example of this is the song "down the road" by C2C. this song for me is a good driving song as it contains elements of lots of genres of music such as a guitar playing blues style solos and riffs mixed with modern electronic DJ music which consists of scratch beats and lot of use of synthesiser to give a overlapping techno feel. Due to the mix of genres and lapping of different techniques it gives a very happy timbre which therefore means after listening to it whilst driving I arrive at my destination a a positive mood. I feel when songs can affect your mood or emotion then they are lot more likeable and respected as opposed to those that don't have this affect.
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