Jasmine Mote Music Analysis

Music affects many people in different ways. Hearing a certain song usually triggers a certain emotion linked to that song. Some of the emotions are derived from experiences, others from daydreams.

Because musical pieces portray emotions, different music make people feel different things and thus get associated with different things. Jay Dowling and Dane Harwood explain that "patterns within the music itself ... of tensions and relaxations ... mirror the form of emotional tensions and relaxations" (Dowling 205) that humans relate to their own. This is shown by a study where every subject who associated a song with their current relationship explained that the song gave them the pleasant emotions that their relationship provided (Baumgartner 616).

If music reveals emotions, it is not a normal emotion like any other (Stecker 273). The expression in music can be considered a traditionalized phenomenon (Stecker 273). There are common questions about

Music has been the backbone of our society since the dawn of human intelligence. It has always been with us from celebrating a merry occasion to commemorating a sad event, and from venting off a day’s stress to healing emotional wounds. Victor Hugo, the famous author of the book Les Misérables, says that “music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”. I feel that this quote perfectly describes the feeling that I had when I was little. Of course, I was only seven at the time so I could not express such thought as poetically like Mr. Hugo did right here, but I felt inexplicably drawn to the abstractly emotional aspect of music. I was sensitive to the subtle modulations of a music changing from major

This effect inhibited us from finding significant differences and correlations between the two different songs and the reaction rate. Since our sample size was comprised of only nine people, and consisted mostly of White students from a Midwestern university, it would be wrong of us to generalize our findings to the rest of the population. Although our data showed some trends of minor differences in reaction rates to different songs, further research must be done with a larger and more representative sample to facilitate generalizing to the rest of the population and to make our results applicable. Also, future research should include a control variable that excludes listening to music while performing a visual motor response test. It would be interesting to see the difference between subject preferred music versus not preferred or no music at

Some people listen to music to shift their mood, while others do so to help alleviate feelings of unhappiness, or emotional discomfort. In the article “Music Evokes Vicarious Emotions in Listeners” published in 2014 by Ai Kawakami, Kiyoshi Furukawa, and Kazuo Okanoya, proposes that “we listen to sad music because it is possible to distinguish perceived emotions from those that are experienced”. (Kawakami, Kiyoshi, Okanoya) Therefore, even though sad music is usually perceived as something negative, listeners actually feel pleasant emotions while listening to sad music.

Music has the unique power to influence the attitudes and actions of a person. Whether it is used as a source of hope and soulful reflection on past struggles, like in Whitney Houston’s When You Believe, or to draw strength and determination to Olympians in Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire, music can provide spiritual, inspirational or hope-filled meaning. In order to inspire and motivate year 12 students, the electrifying Chariots of Fire is clearly a superior choice compared to the spiritual and soulful When You Believe. This is evident through the analysis of timbre, dynamics and expression and pitch.

Music can be a powerful emotional tool. The sweet, sober sounds of Adele’s “Someone Like You” can bring chills or even tears to listeners. In the 18th century, the emotional allure of music was no different: The quiet, reverberating notes in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 can still evoke loneliness and despair. There are few things more satisfying than yell-singing along to Nirvana when you’re angry, or skipping around the house to a Taylor Swift song after a particularly good day.

It is intriguing how something simple as sound waves affect our emotions deeply. Igor Stravinsky’s famous ballet score “Rite of Spring” had a massacre theme with very disturbing images and surprisingly, the audience responded with a bloody riot with people even hitting Stravinsky. The second time the audience heard the music, they applauded him and to a greater surprise, the same music became Disney’s music. This transition of people’s dislike of a music to greatly appreciating piece is done by the brain. As the music repeats, the brain has the capacity to tune into to it and even adjust to that sound. When we hear unfamiliar noises that are dissonant or unpleasant, auditory cortex’s role is to differentiate the plethora of sounds and find

Several studies have been performed to discover what kind of music can create different emotions. An article written in 2008 outlines how closely related emotions are to memories and how music can bring on strong emotions in a person (Jäncke, 2008). The article expands on this, discussing how music has a huge influence on our mood, emotions, and cognitive functions. Music had a tendency to awaken or arouse a person and make them feel certain emotions. The cycle continues, as these certain emotions help control cognitive functions. This article was not written about those with Alzheimer's disease, but the idea that music and memories are connected is a strongly proven

Van Dyck, Vansteenkiste, Lenoire, Lesaffre, and Leman’s (2014) experiment identifies whether induced emotions of happiness and sadness can be recognized from dance movements. Their study revealed subjects were able to recognize the emotions expressed by the dancers accurately. Zentner and Eerola (2010) examined whether infants between the ages of 5-24 months were able to take part in rhythmic engagement and identification. The study found infants were in fact able to engage more with rhythmic sounds than they were to speech and that they were also able to distinguish between fast and slow tempo. Jensenius (2007) provides the different definitions for gestures and an outline various music related movements and the taxonomies used to describes these actions.

Music is a stimulant that can induce changes in arousal levels, which can be measured through indicators such as tense arousal (i.e. tension). The genre and how frequently individuals are exposed to a music stimulus can determine how significant the change in arousal will be. Generally, energetic music increases phasic arousal, which is the respondent state of arousal due to a stimulus (Olst, Orlebeke & Fokkema, 1967), because of the exciting mood they create, their fast tempo, tone, and beat accenting. Contrastively, relaxing music decreases phasic arousal because of their slow-pace and quieter sound (Huron, 2002). However, it is hypothesised that, when listening to their preferred type of music, participants will experience a smaller change

There are two main positions on how music effects emotions on us. The first one is the cognitivist approach which describes the emotional response to music as a result from the listener’s cognitive recognition of cues within the composition itself. The other is the emotivists view which supports the idea of emotions being induced by music, where the emotional response to music comes as a feeling. (Krumhansl, 1997; Peretz, 2001)

A person’s emotional link to music is often used as an interpretation to make conclusions about the piece.

Music elicits an emotional and cognitive response in all who listen to it. It is powerful at the individual level because “it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral” (Francis, 2008,