Musical Emotions

[coldfuse]

Hello! Im doing a science fair project on how music provokes emotions. i set up a website with a simple survey. if you would like to help me with my project and take the survey than go to https://musicalemotions.co.cc/  thank you!!!

[ted]

I found I registered very little direct emotion of any sort for any of them, although vague images and associations occasionally sprung to mind. I answered but found it very difficult to do so within the three broad categories, especially as five of the seven examples sounded very similar to me in idiom and sentiment, although precisely what that sentiment is eludes simple description.

[ahinton]

I think that there are two fundamental issues involved if you are hoping to achieve something useful with this exercise.

The first is that you would need to have at least some working knowledge and understanding of neuroscience in order even to begin to form, let alone arrive at, any valuable conclusions.

The second is that you would also need to explore this from the opposite perspective, i.e. that of emotions provoking music.

It's a massive and massively complex area of study and one which, even in the relevant scientific circles, remains largely in its comparative infancy to date.

Best,

Alistair

[stevebob]

I agree with what others have written.  Your survey assumes that one's reaction to a clip of music will be limited to one of just three possible responses, and that those responses will be limited in descriptive complexity to (1) happy, (2) sad, or (3) scary/suspenseful.

Though I'd describe the fourth and seventh musical examples as turbulent or discordant, the other five were placid and neutral for me.  None of them conveyed, or elicited, any of your three predetermined choices.

It occurs to me that a study of program music, including film soundtracks, would have relevance to your project, as it's explicitly intended to reflect the sentiments of extramusical events (or to serve to stimulate a response to them).

You might also consider that musicians (even across various cultures and musical interests or styles) are not a statistically representative group upon which to base any conclusions.  While I doubt that anyone can entirely separate emotions from thoughts, people's background, education and experiences with music can be predicted to have a very significant impact on how they react (and, in turn, how they conceptualize their response).

[lostinidlewonder]

Interesting experiment but really stupid samples to listen to. Why is there not an ANGER option? I feel very angry listening to these boring pieces.

[richard black]

Lostinidlewonder's reply must be one of the best responses in a PS thread so far this year!
 

[pianowolfi]

I have only listened to the first one so I can't really judge (do I need really to listen more ? ) But I have a student who did a very similar project for his a-level at school last year, he composed some quite remarkable pieces and (considering the small circle of participants) it turned out quite well, since most of the listeners were actually in congruence with his originally intended "emotional messages"

Of course his project is in no way representative, let alone scientific. But to me it was quite interesting that emotions have been actually communicated quite well through his music, in the context of this small project, and that the agreement among the listeners was quite surprising.

[go12_3]

Well, I just click that site and it's closed, the data has already been collected