The Wall Street Journal (illustration) Associated Press (photo); Universal Music Publishing (score)

Ever wonder why listening to Adele can feel so downright melancholy?  Well, it looks like the music-heads have it all figured out.  You see… the trick comes down to a musical device called an “appoggiatura.”

 An appoggiatura is a type of ornamental note that clashes with the melody just enough to create a dissonant sound. “This generates tension in the listener,” said Martin Guhn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who co-wrote a 2007 study on the subject. “When the notes return to the anticipated melody, the tension resolves, and it feels good.” Chills often descend on listeners at these moments of resolution. When several appoggiaturas occur next to each other in a melody, it generates a cycle of tension and release. This provokes an even stronger reaction, and that is when the tears start to flow. – WSJ

So that answers that.  More mysteriously though, what keeps Adele’s sound-engineer from daily prozac binges?

Click for the full article. 

Ok..not really Austin, Minnesota, but this just looked better!

When you think you of startups, you likely think San Francisco.  If you’re savvy, you also think Austin, Boston and perhaps New York and sprinkle of Denver here and there.  But Minneapolis?  We’ve had lots of curious minds ask us why we’re launching Moodfish in Austin and Minneapolis.  So here’s why. The truth is, because we know these two cities very well and well…because why not?  There’s no doubt that we’ll be in SF when we can get there.  The early-stage problem? There are hundreds of startups that open and close doors in SF every year. It’s because of that we think there’s just too much “noise” in the city when it comes to user outreach and brand awareness.  If you’ve got a multi-million dollar budget, you can make things work.  If you’re a bootstrapped startup like Moodfish, efficiency is paramount.  When it comes to getting in the hearts of our potential users, it takes a whole lot of money to rise above the noise.

But cash availability is only part of the story.  Moodfish is an Austin, Tx based startup and we are doing everything we can to stay in this amazing and beautiful city.  In the nearly 6 years that I’ve lived in Austin, I’ve noticed some pretty incredible similarities to Minneapolis, where I also lived for nearly 6 years.  Austin and Minneapolis have rich live-entertainment scenes focused into specific entertainment districts. Both cities are active in performing arts, which is a strong indication of interest in live-entertainment as a whole.  And residents of both cities are fiercely loyal to their cities.  In fact, both Austin and Minneapolis have everything that SF could offer, but just on a smaller and more focused scale. The people in Austin and Minneapolis are young, well educated, super friendly (helps with word-of-mouth!) and tech-savvy.

In other words, we’d much rather be a big fish in a small (but big hearted) pond, then a small fish in a turbulent ocean of startup stew.  SF don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.  But until then, Austin and Minneapolis, here’s looking at you.

A really nice writeup on Moodfish and absolutely spot on about helping local businesses.  Favorite part? “Moodfish has the potential to redefine local businesses and how customers find them. And that will do wonders for our current downturned economy.” Click below for more!!

“Your mood can greatly determine how your day progresses and which activities you choose to participate in. Whether you’re feeling energetic or mellow, quirky or melancholy, you can find the right activity to match your current mood. But sometimes that’s hard to figure out on your own, even if you’re a native to your city. This was the inspiration behind the creation of Moodfish.”

http://agbeat.com/cities/austin/moodfish-decision-engine-for-dining-entertainment-and-more-all-based-on-your-mood/

You know it and we know it – moods have more to do with life than just color changing rings (admittedly though, those ARE pretty cool).  When it comes down to buying things that makes us or others around us ‘happy’, we’ve found that these decisions are driven by 3 types of thinking:

• forward / planning
• impulse, and
• reactionary

With Moodfish, our focus is on helping us solve the here and now problem.  I’m feeling down, and I want something to make me feel better. OR… I’m feeling really happy right now and I want to find something that keeps me in this mood.  Sure this sounds cheesy…because we don’t actually talk like that.  But, we do go through similar thought processes in a fraction of a second.  So instead of trying to back-track into “how is someone really feeling” we think it’s just better to make how you feel the starting point!

Click here for the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/science/30twitter.html?_r=2&src=tp

Moodfish’s Austin Restaurant Week

Austin’s very own Restaurant Week is upon us again
Here’s a fully searchable and sortable list of the participating restaurants.

Once you’ve chosen your restaurant, go to moodfish.com and search by mood for the perfect movie, bar, theatre, active or live-music option to match your perfect night out.

While you’re sorting through all your options, you might notice a few things:

1) There are a lot of Sunny restaurants

2) There are a lot of Sensual restaurants

3) There aren’t any Melancholy restaurants

You’re in Austin – part of what makes Austin so fun is it’s laid back casual attitude.  This is something that permeates much of the restaurant scene, which is why you’ll find a lot of “Sunny” feeling restaurants in Austin.  As much as we’d like to say that Austin is also an equally sensual town (oh la la mon petit chou), it turns out that most upper-end restaurants that take reservations also tend to be romantically-friendly.  So fret not, if you’re looking for things that aren’t so overtly Sunny or Sensual, jump over to moodfish.com and search for all things moody.

And of course… if you think that a restaurant in the list deserves a spot of melancholy, or any other mood for that matter, leave us a comment or send us a note!

When you’re in the mood for some upbeat jazzy dinnertime tunes, this is what you bring to your next dinner party.

It’s Moodfish’s Sunny & Sensual mix on Pandora Radio.

Here’s what we listen to when we think Sunny Day of Bliss.

Moods = Sunny + Mellow

Courtesy of Pandora Radio.

As with most of you out there, we too ‘whistle while we work’.   In fact, a day without music is a just a melancholic day.  So, if you’re curious about what’s in our rotation these days, then keep on reading!

Moodfish Music Recommendations

All the albums are organized into the 7 moods from moodfish.com.  Here are a few samples of some of the bands in each category:

Sunny:

• Blackbird Blackbird
• Cut Copy
• Devotchka
  

Sensual:

• Au Revoir Simone
• Hello Seahorse!
• Iron & Wine

Energetic:

• Black Joe Lewis & The Honebears
• Two Door Cinema Club
• Foster The People

Check out of the rest of the bands here!