Musical Emotions Explained

Can music really arouse emotions? If so, what emotions, and how? Why do listeners respond with different emotions to the same piece of music? Are emotions to music different from other emotions? Why do we respond to fictional events in art as if they were real, even though we know they're not? What is it that makes a performance of music emotionally expressive? Based on ground-breaking research, Musical Emotions Explained explores how music expresses and arouses emotions, and how it becomes an object of aesthetic judgments. Within the book, Juslin demonstrates how psychological mechanisms from our ancient past engage with meanings in music at multiple levels of the brain to evoke a broad variety of affective states - from startle responses to profound aesthetic emotions, and explores why these mechanisms respond to music? Written by one of the leading researchers in the field, the book is richly illustrated with music examples from everyday life, and explains with clarity and rigour the manifold ways in which music may engage our emotions, in a style sufficiently engaging for lay readers, yet comprehensive and novel enough for specialists.

Can music really arouse emotions? If so, what emotions, and how? Why do listeners respond with different emotions to the same piece of music? Are emotions to music different from other emotions? Why do we respond to fictional events in art as if they were real, even though we know they're not? What is it that makes a performance of music emotionally expressive? Based on ground-breaking research, Musical Emotions Explained explores how music expresses and arouses emotions, and how it becomes an object of aesthetic judgments. Within the book, Juslin demonstrates how psychological mechanisms from our ancient past engage with meanings in music at multiple levels of the brain to evoke a broad variety of affective states - from startle responses to profound aesthetic emotions. He also explores why these mechanisms respond to music. Written by one of the leading researchers in the field, the book is richly illustrated with music examples from everyday life, and explains with clarity and rigour the manifold ways in which music may engage our emotions.

Can music really arouse emotions? If so, what emotions, and how? Based on ground-breaking research, Musical Emotions Explained explores how music expresses and arouses emotions, and how it becomes an object of aesthetic judgments. The book is accessibly written by one of the leading researchers in the field worldwide.

Music's ability to express and arouse emotions is a mystery that has fascinated both experts and laymen at least since ancient Greece. The predecessor to this book 'Music and Emotion' (OUP, 2001) was critically and commercially successful and stimulated much further work in this area. In the years since publication of that book, empirical research in this area has blossomed, and the successor to 'Music and Emotion' reflects the considerable activity in this area. The Handbook of Music and Emotion offers an 'up-to-date' account of this vibrant domain. It provides comprehensive coverage of the many approaches that may be said to define the field of music and emotion, in all its breadth and depth. The first section offers multi-disciplinary perspectives on musical emotions from philosophy, musicology, psychology, neurobiology, anthropology, and sociology. The second section features methodologically-oriented chapters on the measurement of emotions via different channels (e.g., self report, psychophysiology, neuroimaging). Sections three and four address how emotion enters into different aspects of musical behavior, both the making of music and its consumption. Section five covers developmental, personality, and social factors. Section six describes the most important applications involving the relationship between music and emotion. In a final commentary, the editors comment on the history of the field, summarize the current state of affairs, as well as propose future directions for the field. The only book of its kind, The Handbook of Music and Emotion will fascinate music psychologists, musicologists, music educators, philosophers, and others with an interest in music and emotion (e.g., in marketing, health, engineering, film, and the game industry). It will be a valuable resource for established researchers in the field, a developmental aid for early-career researchers and postgraduate research students, and a compendium to assist students at various levels. In addition, as with its predecessor, it will also attract interest from practising musicians and lay readers fascinated by music and emotion.

We talk not only of enjoying music, but of understanding it. Music is often taken to have expressive import--and in that sense to have meaning. But what does music mean, and how does it mean? Stephen Davies addresses these questions in this sophisticated and knowledgeable overview of current theories in the philosophy of music. Reviewing and criticizing the aesthetic positions of recent years, he offers a spirited explanation of his own position. Davies considers and rejects in turn the positions that music describes (like language), or depicts (like pictures), or symbolizes (in a distinctive fashion) emotions. Similarly, he resists the idea that music's expressiveness is to be explained solely as the composer's self-expression, or in terms of its power to evoke a response from the audience. Music's ability to describe emotions, he believes, is located within the music itself; it presents the aural appearance of what he calls emotion characteristics. The expressive power of music awakens emotions in the listener, and music is valued for this power although the responses are sometimes ones of sadness. Davies shows that appreciation and understanding may require more than recognition of and reaction to music's expressive character, but need not depend on formal musicological training.

How human musical experience emerges from the audition of organized tones is a riddle of long standing. In The Musical Representation, Charles Nussbaum offers a philosophical naturalist's solution. Nussbaum founds his naturalistic theory of musical representation on the collusion between the physics of sound and the organization of the human mind-brain. He argues that important varieties of experience afforded by Western tonal art music since 1650 arise through the feeling of tone, the sense of movement in musical space, cognition, emotional arousal, and the engagement, by way of specific emotional responses, of deeply rooted human ideals. Construing the art music of the modern West as representational, as a symbolic system that carries extramusical content, Nussbaum attempts to make normative principles of musical representation explicit and bring them into reflective equilibrium with the intuitions of competent listeners. Nussbaum identifies three modes of musical representation, describes the basis of extramusical meaning, and analyzes musical works as created historical entities (performances of which are tokens or replicas). In addition, he explains how music gives rise to emotions and evokes states of mind that are religious in character. Nussbaum's argument proceeds from biology, psychology, and philosophy to music--and occasionally from music back to biology, psychology, and philosophy. The human mind-brain, writes Nussbaum, is a living record of its evolutionary history; relatively recent cognitive acquisitions derive from older representational functions of which we are hardly aware. Consideration of musical art can help bring to light the more ancient cognitive functions that underlie modern human cognition. The biology, psychology, and philosophy of musical representation, he argues, have something to tell us about what we are, based on what we have been.

Music has been examined from multiple perspectives: as a product of human history, for example, or a product of human culture. But there is also a long tradition, intensified in recent decades, of thinking about music as a product of the human mind. Whether considering composition, performance, listening, or appreciation, the constraints and capabilities of the human mind play a formative role. The field that has emerged around this approach is known as the psychology of music. Written in a lively and accessible manner, this volume connects the science to larger questions about music that are of interest to practicing musicians, music therapists, musicologists, and the general public alike. For example: Why can one musical performance move an audience to tears, and another compel them to dance, clap, or snap along? How does a "hype" playlist motivate someone at the gym? And why is that top-40 song stuck in everyone's head? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

"Altogether it is a book that should be required reading for any student of music, be he composer, performer, or theorist. It clears the air of many confused notions . . . and lays the groundwork for exhaustive study of the basic problem of music theory and aesthetics, the relationship between pattern and meaning."—David Kraehenbuehl, Journal of Music Theory "This is the best study of its kind to have come to the attention of this reviewer."—Jules Wolffers, The Christian Science Monitor "It is not too much to say that his approach provides a basis for the meaningful discussion of emotion and meaning in all art."—David P. McAllester, American Anthropologist "A book which should be read by all who want deeper insights into music listening, performing, and composing."—Marcus G. Raskin, Chicago Review