{"id":261,"date":"2019-08-15T02:22:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T02:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lvh.msu.domains\/?p=261"},"modified":"2019-08-15T02:22:53","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T02:22:53","slug":"261","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/2019\/08\/15\/261\/","title":{"rendered":"Stairway to Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello, 
I found your profile on a expert finder website and I was wondering if you can help me understand something. I am a high school senior in [state] and Stairway to Heaven is my favorite song of all time and I can\u2019t quite describe why. It is something about the way the notes and music is composed that sound so amazing to me. I was hoping you could help me understand the technical musical theory explanation of why this song is so pleasing to the brain. 
Thank you very much,<\/p>-Grace<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hi Grace;
There\u2019s a lot going on in your question, and there\u2019s a lot going on in Stairway to Heaven \u2014 too much for me to explain all of the \u201ctechnical music theory\u201d elements of what\u2019s going on in the song. But I can try to explain one thing about it, and that is the concept of tension and release, which works on multiple levels throughout the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a small scale, think about the vocal melody for the opening line: \u201cThere\u2019s a lady who\u2019s sure, all that glitters is gold.\u201d There are two notes that set the word \u201cgold,\u201d and the first one doesn\u2019t belong to the chord that the rest of the instruments are playing. It is what\u2019s called a dissonant note \u2014 it doesn\u2019t fit, so it creates tension, and it wants to resolve to something that does fit. The resolution to the following note on the word \u201cgold” provides that resolution, which provides a sense of release. So just on one word in the melody, we have a sense of tension and release on a very small scale. That happens over and over again throughout the song; there will be small tension moments leading to release moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, if you think about how the song builds and builds and builds over the course of the song, adding instruments and getting louder, that\u2019s also building up tension on a bigger scale. And we eventually get the release at the end of the song. 
So the simple concept of tension and release have a lot to do with it, and that\u2019s happening at both the small scale and large scale throughout the music. There\u2019s obviously a lot more going on, but that\u2019s a start to think about!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re interested in this type of thing, you might enjoy a book by a friend of mine named Dan Levitin called \u201cThis is Your Brain on Music.\u201d It has a lot of information about how we listen to music, why we like the music we do, and what\u2019s going on in our brains when we listen to music. The book is available relatively cheap (like $8 or so) in paperback, and it\u2019s a really fun and entertaining read. It\u2019s a great introduction to a field called \u201cmusic cognition,\u201d which is what I do, which focuses on how we understand and process sound and music. It\u2019s a big field, and there\u2019s a lot of research going on, so you\u2019re asking great questions that others are really curious about as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this helps a little bit!
Dr. Van<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stairway to Heaven is my favorite song of all time and I can\u2019t quite describe why. It is something about the way the notes and music is composed that sound so amazing to me. I was hoping you could help me understand the technical musical theory explanation of why this song is so pleasing to the brain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77815,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,9,10],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-dr-van","tag-dan-levitin","tag-music-cognition","tag-music-theory","et-no-image","et-bg-layout-dark","et-white-bg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}