If you’ve found yourself weeping while listening to Adele, don’t worry: It’s not your fault. It's not just emotion, but rather science, that’s behind the British pop star’s tear-jerking ballads.
On Sunday, Adele brought home six Grammy Awards for her heartfelt break-up anthems on the album 21, including her song "Someone Like You."
A day before the Grammys, University of British Columbia researcher and musician, Martin Guhn, analyzed the structure of Adele’s hit for the Wall Street Journal. Based on a report Guhn co-wrote in 2007, he dissected the relationship between sound and emotional response to decode the formula behind “Someone Like You.”
Speaking to CBC Music recently, Guhn says Adele’s voice takes advantage of our emotional core. Her volume, tone and pitch are able to illicit chills.
(for blog insert “Guhn clip 1”)[Martin Guhn on Adele's voice.]
“Our ears, our perceptual senses are directly connected to our emotional brain,” says Guhn. “So, if we hear something so rich and resonant it goes directly into our brain centres and it just arouses everything that is there in the ear. And the ear is directly connected to the all of these emotional centres and so we just get emotionally aroused.”
Guhn goes on to say the simple, repetitious nature of the piano in “Someone Like You” is also designed to manipulate feelings.
“The notes clash with the musical cords and then they resolve,” explains Guhn. “So there is a tension-release pattern.”
(for blog insert “Guhn clip 2”)[Martin Guhn on the song structure of "Someone Like You."]
Within that pattern, another trend emerges with the use of ornamental notes called appoggiatura. These are small musical flourishes that don't carry the overall tone of the melody. But when these small embellishments occur as Adele holds her ending phrase in the chorus, it signals a change in our bodies.
Guhn says when music suddenly breaks from its patterns, our sympathetic nervous system goes on high alert. We can feel our hearts race, we get goose bumps, we start to sweat and in some cases we cry.
(for blog insert “Guhn clip 3”) [Martin Guhn on the chorus of "Someone Like You."]
“We have brains that are basically designed to recognize emotions and to mirror them and to be empathic,” says Guhn. “I think we react to her strong emotions because we recognize it in her.”
Guhn says when you add in the emotional and universal nature of the subject matter in the song, then Adele has created the textbook tear-jerker.
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