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“Could it be magic” the way that lyrics affects us? 

   How can songs make us bawl our eyes out or jump for joy just by what they say?

                From as long as we remember, music has always been there to help us no matter what mood we are in. Whether it’s a sad love song when we are feeling down with a tub of ice cream, or an upbeat song to get us in the party mood, music affects us all. But what is it about music that can control our emotions like a remote? It’s the lyrics that are written.

                Yes I hear what you’re saying, that it’s the people who sing that make them great. To be honest in part that is true. Take That’s songs for example wouldn’t be the same if Gary Barlow didn’t sing them… but think. Would Gary be the same if he sang lyrics that were insensitive or plain boring such as watching paint dry? Well maybe yes there is that chance, but it’s the lyrics that pull on our heart strings and release our emotions (and tears) not just who sings it.

                Bands such as Boyzone or Westlife all use techniques that have us women on an emotional rollercoaster where our makeup can’t help but run. They specifically use words and themes that would make us women blabber like a baby but not affect the builder doing the conservatory. They purposely do this to us. By choosing emotive phrases that are known to be close to women the writers can make us feel things just in the form of a song.  Sneaky isn’t it? Though think about it, changing what we say depending on who we are talking to is natural. We wouldn’t speak to our boss the same way as we would to our friends; imagine the trouble we would be in, even though we may feel better about it!

                You might have noticed these already in songs, especially in boy bands as it’s these groups that are targeting us women with their emotional ways.  We all know the songs I mean, the ones that speak about love and take you through a story throughout. These are the ones that make us laugh and cry, so tears either way, and call the audience ‘angels’. So by using these emotional phrases they can make the audience and band feel like they are close as if almost sharing an experience.

                 This is why typically men don't tend to like these types of songs, or just don’t admit to it, as the writers just use words that affect women, such as saying ‘you’ in the songs make us feel special and like they are singing it to you and no one else. That’s a dream most of us have. 

                As Take That have said ‘Could it be magic?’ No it’s not magic it’s a clever way of writing in a way that makes women swoon and directed at them, instead of everyone. 

Phonological development notes

While learning to speak they use many ways of making language more accessible to them so they can learn it.

The main points in each age gap are:-

0-3 months

• When first born they have a birth cry that is undifferentiated which progresses to coos and gurgling.
• From this they then use sounds to try and communicate what they mean.
• Parents use blowing raspberries as a way of getting babies to use their tongue and lips.

1-2 years

• Children can start to use intonation which is using pitch and tone in different ways such as children raising their pitch to ask a question.
• They can repeat sounds or words but don’t necessarily understand what they mean.
• They omit consonant clusters as some combinations can be too hard to pronounce.
• Towards 2 years old they understand about 65% of what they are saying.

3-4

• At this age children miss out the last consonant such as ‘walkin’ and miss the ‘g’ sound off.
• Also their speech becomes ‘intelligible’ which means that through speech they can be understood by people.

There are also many techniques that are used by children to help develop their speech. These are a few of them.

Velar Fronting (fronting)

This means that children will use sounds that are made at the front of the mouth instead of those that would normally be made at the back of their mouth. For example ‘cup’ would then be pronounced ‘tub’ as the‘t’ sound is easier to make instead of the ‘c’ sound.

Unstressed Syllable Deletion

This means that when they say a particular word they would remove the syllable in the word that is stressed the least when pronounced. Therefore ‘telephone’ would become ‘tefon’ as the ‘le’ sound is the least stressed so considered not as important.

Reduplication

When a child has a word they would like to say they would then use one syllable repeated twice to represent what they mean. One example would be ‘baba’ which could mean ‘bottle’

Dimunization (dim)

This occurs when a child adds the sound ‘-ee’ to the end of a word like a suffix. So a normal word such as ‘book’ would then become ‘book-ee’