Musical Nuances and the Aesthetic Experience of Popular Music Hooks: Theoretical Considerations and Analytical Approaches

Abstract

This article discusses the concept of musical nuances from a process-oriented perspective, with a particular emphasis on the aesthetic experience of hooks in Western popular music. First, the text elaborates on the particularities of nuances from the perspective of cognitive psychology. Second, it highlights their importance for musical interpretation, characterization, memorization, and valuation. Third, it critically reflects on analytical approaches to rhythmic and melodic nuances and gets into alternative methods to analyze such microscopic subtleties in the context of musical hooks. Fourth, analytical examples examine nuance-related intricacies in song phrases as processes regarding the aesthetic experience of increasing and decreasing intensity, tension, and motion. Finally, the findings and theoretical considerations are discussed in the broader context of mainstream popular music analysis.

Aprender a escuchar, enseñar a entender: la democratización del análisis musical

“…En la actualidad, además de su amplia implantación en el ámbito académico y de la música clásica, el análisis musical está extendiendo su alcance hacia el estudio de la música popular. En este nuevo ámbito de acción son muchos los sistemas analíticos que están optando por métodos atípicos, como el estudio del fenómeno sonoro, que combinan con el análisis tradicional de la armonía, la melodía, el ritmo o la forma (Steinbrecher, 2021). Dentro de los métodos analíticos tradicionales, existen múltiples enfoques para abordar la cuestión.…”

Mainstream popular music research: a musical update

“…2). In one of my own articles (Steinbrecher 2021), I provide a very nuanced view, literally, on hit songs of the 2010s. I discuss and conceptualise how microrhythmic and microtonal nuances potentially affect – for example, through tiny offset-anticipations, subtly nested asymmetrical rhythms or articulatory vocal variations – the aesthetic experience of tensity and motion within the hooks of broadly commercialised songs such as Lukas Graham's ‘7 Years’ (2015), Calvin Harris feat.…”

“…BSt. ) Given that 'hooking' the listener is obviously a fundamental aspect of hit tunes (see also Steinbrecher 2021), a potentially fruitful resource of listener-based research is one that focusses on notions of catchiness and song memorability. Surprisingly, however, the cognitive psychology research field concerned with involuntary music imagery has very little to say about the musical properties of actual earworms, such as Lady Gaga's 2009 hit 'Bad Romance' (Jakubowski et al 2017).…”

“… 1 I have presented this definitional ‘superlative’ notion already elsewhere briefly, as well as my thoughts about uses of the term commercial music , in connection with musical nuances in popular music (Steinbrecher 2021, pp. 113–14).…”