Emotional Feelings of music
Yeah, yeah, we all get emotional so why does this matter?
Like the physical feelings caused by music, there are no specific scientific reasons why music creates emotions. What we understand is taken from studies and people's own personal experiences with music. Like anything we see, hear, taste, and smell, music is taken in by the sensory receptors in the brain. These sensory receptors receive the music through the auditory system which helps you to perceive the music in a way that your brain makes sense of it. What this means is that since your brain is basically the cobra commander of your body, the music you hear is going to perceived in a way that will be affected by how you feel at the moment. This can be measured through valences which are basically fancy words used by psychologists meaning the measure of emotions. Different levels of pitch cause different valence levels in men and women. Since pitch is one of the building blocks of music, it's important to know what it is about pitch that triggers different responses in people. |
According to the study in the article Music and Felt Emotions: How Systematic Pitch Level Variations Affect the Experience of Pleasantness and Arousal, "Pitch level increasing from -1 octave to +1 octave made valence ratings become more positive with a linear and quadratic trend", basically meaning that increasing pitches create higher valence ratings and this can be measured by math we all probably learned at some point in our lives but will never remember. The fact that we can measure these feelings and correlate them with music means that something in our brain triggers certain emotions when listening to music. What's interesting is the different types of music we crave when in different moods. By wanting to listen to these different types of music, our brain is basically saying that it prefers a different level of pitch at that time. Our brain becomes aroused by these sound waves creating the valence that can be measured. Arousal is the amount of physical response our brain registers compared to the valence which is the emotional response of that arousal. This means that when our brain is first aroused, our mood and environment determines in what way this arousal happens and the emotions felt are shaped by the physical response we first feel which is the valence registered. |
Not only does our ability to be aroused by music affect the type of music we want to listen to and our feelings, but our personality is a key component in these as well. In a study recorded in the article Experimental Evidence of the Roles of Music Choice, Social Context, and Listener Personality in Emotional Reactions to Music, it states "With regard to discrete emotions , one notable tendency is that listeners scoring high on Neuroticism experienced more negative emotions (e.g., sadness-melancholy, anger-irritation, and anxiety-nervousness) and fewer positive emotions (e.g.,enjoyment-pleasure) than those scoring low". What this means is that according to certain surveys you can take, (like this), you can determine which of the Big 5 traits you have in your personality. This could explain why you had that awkward emo phase during your teen years or why you still listen to the Backstreet Boys every day on your way to school. (It's okay, we don't judge.. too much). Since our personality is controlled by our brain it only makes sense that it would effect our emotions and our responses to things such as music. Our brain is really so complex we might not ever know why music makes us feel some type of way.