If you key in "music research" or "music and the human response" on your search engine, you will see there are a great many articles and studies performed on how music affects us. Studies which detail the physiological response we have to songs, rhythms and patterns. There are indications that when listening to certain songs, we experience the same physiological responses one would expect when feeling joy, anger or sadness, for example, from real life stimulus.

So why is something so pervasive still so elusive in our understanding of how, on the deepest levels, it affects us?

Pythagoras and Isaac Newton noted a relationship between colour and sound: C (red), D (orange), E (yellow), F (green), G (blue), A (indigo) and B (violet)1, and studies point out that colours are frequencies vibrating at different levels. Colour can create a mood and so can music. Think of those hard days at work when you come home and play your favorite CD and your mood is uplifted.

The Sufi's see music as a manifestation of the spiritual essence of reality and say that it (2) 'excels religion; for music raises the soul of man even higher than the so-called external forms of religion.'2a It is well known that the shamans of many cultures have used tones and beat to both stimulate and calm bio-energies. The Australian Aboriginals and American Indian shamans still 'use vocal toning and repetitive sound vibration with instruments created from nature in sacred ceremony to adjust any imbalance of the spirit, emotions or physical being.2b The vibrations of sound frequencies certainly affect our energetic centres.2

Now let's wander back to popular music for a moment. Some of us may listen to music "religiously" but not for spiritual reasons. It is a billion dollar industry and there are people "trend" watching for commercial reasons as well as curiosity. I remember reading an article by Ralph Murphy (ASCAP) which he had written for Taxi.com. He had focused an analytical eye on 21 #1 songs from 2002. He broke them down to gauge topics, tempos, intro length and so forth to outline possible patterns of hit songs. It was a great read on many levels, yet I wondered, as I read it, why no one has done an analysis of song keys. Are more hits written in A for instance than B or F? I began searching for that info and I have contacted a great number of "music research" institutes with no confirmed reply. I asked the folks at SOCAN and Ralph Murphy (ASCAP) if he knew the answer. Their reply was, and I'm paraphrasing, "if there was, I'm not aware of it". Now I also had an extension to this theory, regarding topics and tones, chakras and keys, but the more I read the more complex the equation became and at this point I don't think I can take on such a large undertaking.

So, over the next few weeks I am going to look at 100 hits to see if there is a larger proportion of one particular key. I might find absolutely nothing but at least I will get an answer to an as of yet, unanswerable question.
Stay "Tuned"

~ Jana Reid