# Music and Emotions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2000, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968 "2000-11-13T06:07:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/1 "2000-11-13T06:07:40Z")
There have been several threads about why certain non-vocal music causes certain emotions in us. But why does music produce any emotions at all? What is it about organized sound waves in general, that causes us to feel **anything** , let alone some of life’s most intense emotions? ---
**Author:** ![toonerama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@toonerama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toonerama)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/2 "2000-11-13T15:40:40Z")
It’s a great question. I wish there were some magical answer, but I reckon it’s probably got a lot to do with conditioned responses and sensory memory. I’ve often pondered the idea of our defined scales of musical notes. They’re quite arbitrary; we could have ended up with entirely different frequencies of notes and different intervals in a scale. Which is why I say conditioning; we’ve had many generations of hearing these chosen values, and the inference of, say, a minor third. And surely sensory memory must cloud the picture; it’s pretty powerful. What would be interesting to know is if, e.g., the minor key, invokes the ‘melancholy’ repsonse in an inexperienced listener. I suppose children or babies would be the only possible test group. I think maybe we’d have to consider rhythm separately too. Anyone know of any such research? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/3 "2000-11-13T18:05:15Z")
I’ve certainly heard theories put forward about music in certain keys and emotional responses. From [this link](http://www.spinworks.demon.co.uk/pub/music3.htm): > [@](#): > > Examining the effects of music from an individualistic approach, much of the psychological research has concerned itself with responses to music. For example, Sloboda (1985) examined the features of musical structure which effect particular emotional responses such as crying, goose-bumps, etc., by carrying out both structural analyses of particularly emotive pieces, as well as recording participants’ response using self-report techniques. Hargreaves (1997) has investigated, (with an interest in consumer behaviour) the unconscious responses to musical context (e.g. the effects on buying behaviour elicited by particular genres of background music); whilst Storr (1992) argues that we use the structural features of music to interpret our “inner experience” and to understand and organise our emotional responses and feelings. Within musicology, the area of ‘Emotion and Meaning in Music’ was influentially explored by Meyer (1956), who was unusual in extending the classical boundaries of his discipline to “establish and explain the general causes and conditions for the affective aesthetic response to music,” (Meyer, 1956; p.197) by analysing both musical scores as well as musicians’ views regarding the meaning of music. ---
**Author:** ![jumblemind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@jumblemind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jumblemind)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/4 "2000-11-13T19:34:02Z")
Hmmm…I’ve read the threads on this subject before, and can’t believe that anyone buys the “random” theory. I also disagree with the idea of conditioned response. When my niece was a couple months old, I sang to her as a sort of test of music’s effect on a tabula rasa kind of subject. I didn’t change facial expressions or bounce her, simply sang different songs to her. I found that she had definitive responses to different kinds of music, as well as different keys and rhythms. My niece changed facial expressions and demeanors with the different songs, and moved and/or bounced differently according to varied rhythms. Which explains why “Rock-a-by-Baby” is such the standard lullaby. I believe wholly that music and emotion are connected, regardless of our existence (ie, conditioning). Most religions acknowledge that tones carry specific spiritual value. Some yogis believe that in reciting mantras, certain tones have specific effects on the spirit and elicit specific responses from the body. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/5 "2000-11-13T22:06:25Z")
toonerama wrote: > [@](#): > > I’ve often pondered the idea of our defined scales of musical notes. They’re quite arbitrary; Actually, they’re not. A major triad corresponds almost exactly to the 4th, 5th, and 6th overtones in the overtone series. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/6 "2000-11-13T22:09:08Z")
… and the “overtone series” comes from exact frequency ratios. I.e. the 1st overtone is exactly twice the frequency of the original (“fundamental”) frequency, the 2nd overtone is 3 times the fundamental frequency, the 3rd overtone is 4 times the fundamental frequency, etc… Overtone serieses are generated naturally in all sorts of situations, from blowing on a pipe to thwacking a metallic object. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/7 "2000-11-14T08:16:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*toonerama wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > I’ve often pondered the idea of our defined scales of musical notes. They’re quite arbitrary; > > Actually, they’re not. > \*\* Indeed. And I believe they’re Pathygorus’ fault. I mean that he was the one who noticed the mathmatical relationship between say, the tone you get from striking a bar and one you get from a bar half that size. And set up the first scales. Of course those are the Western scales. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/8 "2000-11-14T22:35:37Z")
And then there’s “just intonation”, and the “well-tempered” scale, and the modern “even-tempered” scale… ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/9 "2000-11-14T22:41:04Z")
However - - Back in the middle ages, Western music did not have the modern concept of a “triad” or a “chord”. These intervals (between the bass note and any not above the bass) are the only intervals considered “consonant” in Western music since the Renaissance:[ul][li]Perfect Unison[/li][li]Major and minor 3rd[/li][li]Perfect 5th[/li][li]Major and minor 6th[/li][li]Perfect Octave[/ul]…while these intervals were the only intervals considered “consonant” during the middle ages:[ul][_]Perfect Unison[/li][li]Perfect 4th[/li][li]Perfect 5th[/li][_]Perfect Octave[/ul]So despite the “natural” basis of the major triad in the overtone series, major triads were not considered “consonant” until the Renaissance (because they contained a major 3rd). ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/10 "2000-11-14T22:42:27Z")
The phrase “and any not above the bass” in the above post should read “and any **note** above the bass”. ---
**Author:** ![SqrlCub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-and-emotions/40968/11 "2000-11-15T14:49:17Z")
“Music sounds the way emotions feel.” We covered this recently but I can’t remember the thread. HUGS! Sqrl