The relationship between music and emotions is a very discuss subject and many scientist from musicology, psychology and even philosophy tried to deal with it. In this essay, I will focus specifically on theories launched by psychology but I will not omit some other theories launched by the musicologists and philosophers. I will focus on three main theories elaborated from specialist people in the field and explain how the connection between music and emotions develops during different process.
Along the time, many theories regarding the connection between music and emotion were elaborated but there is no one theory which everybody agrees. Aristotle, Charles Darwin, Leonard Meyer, Suzanne Langer and many others had address theories and had influential discussions about it but nevertheless the discussion still remained open.
The first theory elaborated was based in the emotional appearance. The theory consider that music is formed from a number of “cues” which they are possible to by identified by specific emotional connotations, that music consist in various melodic patterns and figures that could be recognized thru significance emotions. The theory referred to music as a language of emotion, where the melodies can features signifying different emotions.
This theory was sustained also by to influential philosophers in the aesthetics of music by their names Stephen Davies and Jerrold Levinson that talks about the appearance emotionalism in music. For example, if a piece of music express sadness this doesn’t mean that the piece is sad, it means it is sad in appearance and this thing can be explained by identifying this structure whit certain characteristics that are familiar to an expression of sadness. Even if a person doesn’t express verbal that is sad you can see it from the posture, gesture, attitude and comportment and this is the same in music by recalling an appearance of sadness thru underlying patterns or unresolved tension or other musical aspects.
The second theory is based on the idea that the music has the role on creating expectations. It is an interesting ad powerful theory because it doesn’t rely on a referential system for generating a meaning, and is associated only with something beyond itself. “One musical event . . . has a meaning because it points to and makes us expect another musical event.” (Thompson, W.F. & Quinto, L. (2011), p. 363) Furthermore the power of this music express thru this theory lies in the expectation that it created in the listener. The deviations that music takes way from our expectations makes the music generate nuance emotions.
The ability to anticipate events is an important capacity for the human survival and a lot of our behaviors are based by anticipatory responses. Failure in predicting an event could be fatal for our life and that goes to heightened arousal and increased attention resources. But the arousal alone doesn’t control the emotional experience. The body reaction like blood pressure, breathing, or heart rate complete the process “the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact,” and “our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion” (Thompson, W.F. & Quinto, L. (2011), p. 364)
Another manner in which music generates nuanced and complex emotions it was discovered by Meyer and Mandler. They came with the idea that pre-outcome responses include imagination and tension responses while post-outcome responses include reaction, prediction and appraisal responses. This experiment led to a compared and alternation on the next terms: imagination, tension, prediction, reaction and appraisal. They stopped at reaction and appraisal and link them together, both are emotional states that arise from assessment of the event itself but they had different way of working. Reaction was link to a rapid process that actives bodily actions but appraisal is more compatible with reaction response.
The third theory elaborated to find the connection between music and emotion is link to multiple mechanisms. Juslin and Vastfjall sustained their idea that music is capable of inducing emotions through expectations by only stimulating directly the brain stem or by associating this with other emotional stimuli. This process could be broken down by associating with emotion themselves and also associated with other stimuli or events that have themselves emotional connotation; for example could be visual imagery, past events, episodic memories, human voice and so on. When you see a portrait from 18 century a character with a big, white wig the mind takes you directly to the Symphonies of Mozart and at his music and dance with a cheerful character.
In conclusion, I would like to use this quote that seems to express very clear what I wanted to say “Music can be construed as a technology that builds on the capacity of humans to
synchronize with external sources. Its structure is optimally tailored to recruit and
sustain mechanisms of synchronization.” (Thompson, W.F. & Quinto, L. (2011), p. 366). This mean that indifferent which music we chose to listen, harmless from it style, could by classical, romantic, film music, pop or even rock music that will always link with our emotions. Only the way of how those emotions are reached is different and the main important thing on dealing with it is how you can play with expectation.
References:
Music and emotion. Encyclopedia article-Citizendium. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Music_and_emotionRetrieved from http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Music_and_emotion
Thompson, W.F. & Quinto, L. (2011). Music and Emotion: Psychological Considerations. In Peter Goldie and Elizabeth Schellekens (Eds.), The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology New York:Oxford University Press.
