Comments on: Why Music Moves Us: it’s more about emotion than meaning

By: David

David — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:51:49 +0000

The study uncovered that the musical emotion is inherent in the music itself. Since music is a type of language, it has the ability to communicate unethical emotion as well. To decode what music means, one has to consult the experts of the field. For the untrained musician, one can look at how certain kinds of music are used in movies, for example. When immorality is the subject, there is a definite trend in compositional techniques. In Hollywood films, these specific techniques of composers used to convey evil are not employed to convey good (unless they are intended for another purpose like the classical music used in the movie “Silence of the Lambs”). These movies are not simply popular in the U.S.(attesting to the universal understanding of the music). The fact that people can be trained or train themselves to enjoy Death Metal and respond with satisfaction would not prove that there is no unethical meaning in the music.

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:04:45 +0000

Very good article – thank you – the points you have bolder are parricularly pertinent for me as I’m building a folder of examples and proof for what I have been doing for years.

By: Marco van Hout

Marco van Hout — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:03:40 +0000

Good point Jason. However, I was just thinking… How do we explain music like Death Metal, knowing this? I remember I used to have a room mate at university, who used to love to study while listening to it. I thought the most dreadful sounds came out of his room that made the hairs on my back stand straight up… when I went and had a look in his room, he was there sitting quiet, satisfied and comfortably listening to it while hanging over his books. Did he train himself to like it, by excluding those immediate feelings we should all have with this loud and often atonal music? Or is there more to it?

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:24:21 +0000

It’s interesting. I also think this explains why experimental pomo/modernistic music failed – taste isn’t entirely rooted in the cultural and social world, and we cannot be conditioned to enjoy what anyone would universally describe as horrible music: someone banging randomly on a keyboard, scraping nails along a blackboard, etc. I think the human animal is predisposed to finding certain rhythms and harmonies and general sounds pleasurable.