Why music gives us the chills.

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Tommy James & the Shondells with the assist.



I. I'm a scientist, you guys. Ish.

I knew that I revolve around sciences just like Ghost, but I didn't know I was a professional science lady dork until a couple minutes ago when I read this article that explains the following:


Certain ways that music moves and blends and climbs, in your ears and brain and heart, gives you the chills. It literally shifts your breathing pattern and speeds up your heart rate.


See, I been sayin this already, blinding you with my science, since like '94. I know how composers play with melody and change things up to try to get you to feel a certain way they know you can feel. So in the article when they say that research tells us that the key shivery and wonderful moments in a piece of music are:


- when a symphony turns from loud to quiet,
- upon entry of a solo voice or instrument, and
- when two singers have contrasting voices,


it's clear that these researchers are not familiar with my hypothesis stating this same thing, based on my years and years of living the music-nerd life and figuring out what it is about a song that just murders you. And by murders, I mean makes you want to live forever. And then I remember that the researchers have never once been in the passenger seat whenever I've been out driving around and "Crimson and Clover" has come on the radio. The drop from loud to quiet, the entry of a solo voice/instrument, the contrast of voices - add in some sex in the form of a Midwestern white boy saying My mind's such a sweet thing, and you have "Crimson and Clover." It's the perfect pop song that makes you shiver and I didn't even need to do any research. I just listened to it. Over and oh-verr. And this, everyone, is how I know I was a scientist in my past life. With hips.


This part of their findings was pretty obvious too, but still...it sounds so fancy in technical terms:

“(Music-induced) shivers down the spine even show up in brain scans, according to research. As chills grow in intensity, bloodflow increases between areas of the brain associated with euphoria-inducing vices like food, sex, and drugs.”

- LiveScience

I mean, science is kind of amazing. Like music, it's part of our everyday life, it really is, and sometimes (or all the damn time, in my case) it feels so good to just pause and think about it. Some people think that delving into the reasons behind things that deliver pleasure in powerful doses takes away from the pleasure because it takes away the mystery.
I am dissimilar to these people. They don't understand me; they probably don't even have a "Nerd game proper" tag on their blogs. We don't hang out.




II. All that mess above, all that I just wrote, was foreplay. Scroll down and hit play for the event. Just get comfy, 'cause Now here she come walkin oh-verrr is basically the dress-remover of the last 40 years in musicdom (sorry, Kells - even Prince knows it and nobody knows more about the removal of dresses than Prince). Oh and real quick, and "Crimson"-related, is the fact that

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term describing various trembling effects.

And that, babycakes, was probably the most sexy sentence I have ever written on HeightFiveSeven.



Furthermore, I don't know how that over and over ever passed FCC regs. Normally they don't allow such blatant porn on commercial airwaves.
Why am I still talking? Sorry. Press play and enjoy the science.



Tommy James & the Shondells - "Crimson & Clover"

mp3.


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