Why do we feel emotions when we hear instrumental music? What is there about certain progressions of sound waves that cause us to feel some of the most powerful emotions in life? And why is it that when different people hear the same music, they don’t necessarily feel the same thing?
I won’t address all of your question, since I don’t know the answer, but here is one small part of it.
The saddest chords tend to be minor chords - it is the minor third which sounds unstable and slightly dissonant. The thing is, a pure minor third should not sound dissonant at all - it should have a frequency ratio of 4/3 (most pure intervals have ratios of small whole numbers). It is only the even-tempered minor third which sounds so dissonant, since it is altered from the pure by more than a most even-tempered intervals. (I can’t remember the even-tempered minor third pitch ratio; it involves a little higher math which I can never remember for more than a few hours.)
In just intonation schemes, which don’t use even-tempered scales, the minor third doesn’t always have a sad connotation. An example, if I remember correctly, is Hindustani music, which uses the pure (or nearly pure) minor third all the time without the audience weeping instantly (as the do when Spinal Tap plays the D minor).
The pure minor third has a ratio of 6/5
http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/Interval.html
Virtually nothing. I do not believe that there are any intrinsic properties of music that cause individuals to emote. Music is an entirely cultural phenomenon, thus are certain musical concepts, namely resolution, rhythm, and even intervals. I am not an expert in music cognition, but I am aware of several experiments that have been performed in which western individuals listened to certain kinds of ethnic music that were considered to be highly emotional and felt absolutely nothing. The reverse was also discovered.
This is also not necessarily true. In proper context, the most solid major chord can be extremely bittersweet and sad. Pachelbel’s canon is a perfect example of this. Context affects emotion, not any intrinsic property of the chord.
MR
Mostly I think it is learned. When I hear traditional music from China, India, or Japan they elicit no emotional response.
Marc
Anyway, I would go so far as to say we are conditioned to have an associated emotion with a given piece of music for the most part. When I was taking music theraply classes some famous music therapist (don’t remember her name now, I think it was Hacker) had the most wonderful quote, “music is the language emotions speak.” (or something very similar to that.) I agree with that line of thought. It is difficult to say how one feels even for the most erudite but showing one how one feels is much easier. I believe that music is a language having studied it my entire adult life from both technical and philosophical standpoints. I also believe that it was Heiddegger (sp? I hate Germanesque names because they are hard to spell), but can’t say for sure, who believed that music windows the soul. Again, that supports the emotional hypothetical link to music.
One feels excited at appropriate musical moments, one feels sad, one feels happy, etc. These are all instances of “feeling” the music. This also follows an asthetical line of thought. In any type of art form be it poetry, dance, painting, etc, if there is not an emotional connection regardless of how technically correct it is then there is no reason for a repeat viewing. I don’t care to see most studies (like fruit basket still lifes or buildings) as I don’t feel an emotional connection to them. I know they may be brilliant but studies are empty when viewing them or even practicing them. They were designed to give the artist a specific skill or set of skills not to be the aesthetical wonder that the artist has the potential of becoming.
That is a little off topic. It is still my deepset belief that music is in itself a language of emotions. It is definately an abstract language that is used by all cultures on our planet. The vocabulary may vary a little (all pitched music in our world is based on an interval of a fourth and has rhythm but the division into the fourth or the rhythm varies)but the outcome is the same. It makes you feel. A worksong makes one “feel” compelled to do something or make something “feel” less burdonesome. A lament, Requiem, or dirge gives one a feeling of something lost and sometimes hope. Again, all cultures have these types of music. Through personal experience I have found music in its abstract form as being significantly more able of delivering the message of my mood than any words are able to express as it creates an atmosphere of empathy for others to share and it has the ability to do so wordlessly.
The question is why does it portray emotions? To me that is like asking why speaking portrays objects and actions. It is simply the nature of its being. I suppose in a very early time when words were simple objects and actions that there was a need to portray how one feels in the community. Music could have taken its place. No one really knows for sure except that music in some form or another grew along with any of the given cultures.
I do think that a lot of the given response to a musical piece is cultural. I know I don’t understand how Peking Opera works (I think it sounds like a cat fight with an uneven beat) but my point is that it is a type of language that all cultures use to portray an emotional response. I believe that it probably evolved around the time as spoken language with rhythm and chants and later evolving into a pitched and rhythm based system of language. Everything else about why a piece is “sad” or “happy” is from a cultural standpoint as the ideas about what music is vary greatly between cultures.
Marc, music in Japan, China, etc do indeed ellicit an emotional response. Asian emotional responses tend to be more restrained though. Geisha music played on that shamisen, shakuhachi, or the koto or designed to arouse the patrons. Some old samurai songs that I listened to in my World Music class were very melancholy and lamenting. You just aren’t used to how an Asian person will respond emotionally. Traditionally, in Japan anyway (I lived there for a while), an outward display of any type of emotion was very disrespectful. It was also shameful to smile showing your teeth.
HUGS!
Sqrl
As the tools for analysing brain function improve (i.e., PET scans), I’m sure there will be dramatic corelations found between the highly synchronized waves of neural activity that characterize conscious perception and the waves of emotion that people experience while listening to music.
As a person who composes and plays almost a dozen different musical instruments, I will readily testify how music is an emotional language. An old saying sums it up best:
“Mathematics is music for the mind.
Music is mathematics for the soul.”
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It doesn’t bring out any emotional feelings in me. I’m going to assume it brings out responses in them. To be honest most Asian music sounds like noise to me. Which is why I contend that the emotional response one feels from music is most likely a cultural thing.
Marc
Marc
Marc, if you look up a little farther, you will see that I agree with you. I do think that music is programmed into us like language though. If you change your words around using languages a synonomous relationship should be evident. 
“I don’t understand Russian, so when I hear Russian it doesn’t speak to me.” See? I think that music’s emotional response is cultural too. There is some overlay but overall it is a cultural idea. Also, I think that the emotionality (like my new word?) of music is universal whereas the technicalities of music are cultural. Granted, the technicalities between cultures can make the given music misunderstood by people of different cultures.
HUGS!
Sqrl