Music and your emotions

Have you ever listened to the music behind the movies that you watch? Next time try it? Music is written intentionally to support the story line because music effects our emotions.

The ability to perceive emotion in music is said to develop early in childhood, and improve significantly throughout development. The capacity to perceive emotion in music is also subject to cultural influences, and both similarities and differences in emotion perception have been observed in cross-cultural studies. Empirical research has looked at which emotions can be conveyed as well as what structural factors in music help contribute to the perceived emotional expression. There are two schools of thought on how we interpret emotion in music. The cognitivists' approach argues that music simply displays an emotion, but does not allow for the personal experience of emotion in the listener. Emotivists argue that music elicits real emotional responses in the listener.

It has been argued that the emotion experienced from a piece of music is a multiplicative function of structural features, performance features, listener features and contextual features of the piece, shown as:

Experienced Emotion = Structural features x Performance features x Listener features x Contextual features

where:

Structural features = Segmental features x Suprasegmental features

Performance features = Performer skill x Performer state

Listener features = Musical expertise x Stable disposition x Current motivation

Contextual features = Location x Event

Structural features

Structural features are divided into two parts, segmental features and suprasegmental features. Segmental features are the individual sounds or tones that make up the music; this includes acoustic structures such as duration, amplitude, and pitch. Suprasegmental features are the foundational structures of a piece, such as melody, tempo and rhythm.

There are a number of specific musical features that are highly associated with particular emotions.[10] Within the factors affecting emotional expression in music, tempo is typically regarded as the most important, but a number of other factors, such as mode, loudness, and melody, also influence the emotional valence of the piece.

Structural FeatureDefinitionAssociated Emotions

Tempo

The speed or pace of a musical piece

Fast tempo:happiness, excitement, anger.

Slow tempo: sadness, serenity.

Mode

The type of scale

Major tonality: happiness, joy,

Minor tonality: sadness.

Loudness

The physical strength and amplitude of a sound

Intensity, power, or anger

Melody

The linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity

Complementing harmonies: happiness, relaxation, serenity.

Clashing harmonies: excitement, anger, unpleasantness.

Rhythm

The regularly recurring pattern or beat of a song

Smooth/consistent rhythm: happiness, peace.

Rough/irregular rhythm: amusement, uneasiness.

Varied rhythm: joy.

Performance features

Performance features refers to the manner in which a piece of music is executed by the performer(s). These are broken into two categories, performer skills and performer state. Performer skills are the compound ability and appearance of the performer; including physical appearance, reputation and technical skills. The performer state is the interpretation, motivation, and stage presence of the performer.

Listener features

Listener features refers to the individual and social identity of the listener(s). This includes their personality, age, knowledge of music, and motivation to listen to the music.