Adele, Appoggiatura, and Commonality of Heartbreak

Adele is all over the place now. She received six Grammy's. In addition, she's receiving a lot of play time on most radio stations worldwide. You can hear her at Starbucks, at the doctor's office, even at Costco. Adele's ubiquitous which is one of the better things to come out of pop culture.

She's even featured on the Wall Street Journal as an illustration of appoggiatura. The article entitled, "Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker" zeroes in on Adele's track "Someone Like You" and why it resonates with most people.



Personally, I don't care much for the track. I find the chord progression too simple and the lyrics vexingly clichéd. But, I like the video. No, correction, I am in deep like with the video. It reminds of my most favorite French film of all time, the spectacular Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais. Incidentally, if you do need to take a couple of hours to yourself and work something out in your mind, give this film a try. It will lead you to a kind of introspection few other things can. But that's another post. A trailer from the 1961 film is featured below:



The WSJ article stipulates that the reason why a track like "Someone Like You" has such wide appeal is because of appoggiatura which is an ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. "This generates tension in the listener," said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. "When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good.

A bit from the article says: "Measuring listeners' responses, Dr. Zatorre's team found that the number of goose bumps observed correlated with the amount of dopamine released, even when the music was extremely sad. The results suggest that the more emotions a song provokes—whether depressing or uplifting—the more we crave the song."

You can read the rest of the article here.

Adele, Exhibit, and Things that are 'OMG' good

You know how sometimes something you see/read/sense speaks to you so much that it almost overpowers all of your senses?
I was overpowered this weekend.
A few times, actually.
Intense, I know.
The first time started a few days ago while listening to Adele's track "Set Fire to the Rain" from her excellent album 21.
In my, at times, (I'm sorry to admit) über-arrogant fashion, I told a friend that I wasn't interested in listening to her. What miopia, I know. At least I came around, though.
I love this track so much that it almost makes me taste any and every existential thought/feeling I have had since I can remember. And that voice, that voice. I don't just love it the way I tend to love new music that speaks to me. New music that speaks to me gets a tad old after the 100th time of repeated play. This one is still capturing my interest. Who knew I'd become this kind of person?! Leave it to Adele, I suppose. There's a first for everything.

In short, this track is a perfect interval of 4 minutes and 3 seconds where all else stops and all that exists is the song, my very bad, raspy, and loud voice singing along at the top of my lungs with my windows rolled down as I drive along the freeway South-to-North and then again North-to-South.

I have been listening to this track since Thursday. I was listening to it down South as well on the way to an art exhibit. There I was, in a brown dress, beige pumps, and burgundy clutch, holding a really skinny glass and apparently moving my head as if I was seeing Adele perform the song live.

"What's with the head?"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"You know, it's Mozart, for crying out loud. You're like, you know, you're, rocking to it."
Cheekily I added, "well, you can totally rock to 'confutatis, maledictis, flammis acribus addictis, flammis acribus, addictis". We should play some Requiem. Yeah, a bit of Requiem will brighten up the atmosphere here.
"Seriously, what's with the rocking?"
"Don't know. I guess I have "Set Fire to the Rain" in my head. I LOVE that track. It's OMG good, you know?'
"OMG good? Seriously?"

And it was about then that my eye fell on the most beautiful color portait I have ever seen. Ever. I couldn't take a picture as, well, it was an exhibit opening. I ordered the print, however. It was a portrait of the saddest, most beautiful face I have ever laid eyes on. At that point, I could feel Adele fading away. It became all about the beautiful, sad face at that point. Art substituting art. I suppose it's how it goes. What is the saying again? There's nothing new under the sun, only someone new? And at the point in time, time stopped as I gazed upon a beautiful portrait and I felt a sense of visitation a-la-Henry-James from anything and anyone worth visiting.