Two Day Magazine

...How Music Makes the Magic Happen

We all know that certain songs conjure up old memories, that hearing certain types of music can put us into different moods, but I had no idea that creating a romantic ambience through music could up the odds of a love match!

According to one of my favorite website, LiveScience, researchers recently tested the reaction that 18-20 year old single women had after listening to romantic lyrics.

To start, the ladies took a questionnaire to pinpoint what would be considered romantic songs and what would be considered neutral songs. “"Je l'aime à mourir”, which is a very well known French love song written by Francis Cabrel, was chosen as romantic mood music, while "L'heure du thé" by Vincent Delerm was selected to represent a neutral song.

Twelve young men were then evaluated by a separate group of women who rated the men on their attractiveness. The researchers used the men that were rated closest to average for the experiment.

Then, the fun began! 87 women spent time in a waiting room area with music playing in the background. Then, each volunteer was taken one by one to a different room where she was introduced to a young man who discussed with her the difference between two organic cookies. The instructor left the room as to let the two chat for a few moments alone. This was a perfect opportunity for the man to use his rehearsed “pick up line” which went like this:

“My name is Antoine, as you know, I think you are very nice and I was wondering if you would give me your phone number. I’ll phone you later and we can have a drink together somewhere next week.”

Apparently, Antoine said this in French, which automatically ups the chance for getting a date! Who can resist a sexy frenchman?

If the woman had heard the love song before encountering Antoine, he had double the chance of getting her number: 52% to be exact, where only 28% gave Antoine their number after listening to the neutral song.

At the end of the experiment, while it showed that music did play a factor in how the women responded to Antonie’s advances, more research is needed to see how the reaction would change if different romantic or neutral songs were utilized.

You can read the full report in the June 18th edition of the Psychology of Music journal.

So, now when you think that it may be silly to set a mood, light candles, and play romantic music, the truth is that it can’t hurt! Music and song lyrics do influence our behavior, so why not use that to your advantage and set the mood for love? By associating yourself with a romantic, catchy love song, every time she hears the tune, she will think of you! Now, that’s amore!