The Relationship between Music and Emotions in the Area of Music Psychology - Assignment Example

MUSIC AND EMOTIONS Part One: Music had been a sincere part of my life since my early ages. In the childhood, I faced with a great passion about music. I played on Chinese traditional musical instruments such as Erhu, Hulusi and Guzheng. My first visit to Australia was rather complicated for me as I needed some time to get used to my new life. Hulusi became my nice and gentle friend in that period and helped me to deal with occurred problems and depression. I had a rule to take my instrument to the park and play on it sitting on the grass in front of the lake. In this very moment, I had a feeling of calmness and comfort. It seemed to me that only Hulusi and I exist in the world. I would like to admit that I appreciate this affair a lot, and music remains to be more than just a hobby for me. While playing on my instrument I always experience emotions, mostly positive ones. Hence, I strongly believe what music has a straightforward connection with the emotions and people feel something in the process of producing music as much as listening to it. What do we feel? In what way does it happen? And why we are listening to music all the time? Part Two: The idea that music can cause deep emotions is considered to be a mysterious fact for scholars even in ancient Greece (Deutsch, 2013). The relations between music and emotion start to be a question under consideration in different spheres of science, such as philosophy, biology, musicology, anthropology, sociology and psychology. It is clear evidence that music do make an investigation through the emotive level in the dimension of a human being. Question about music and emotions remains to be the central in the area of music psychology as it is supposed to be the main reason for our listening, producing and perceiving these lovely sounds. The strong music connection with the emotions can cause some paradox. On one hand we have music that seems to be “an abstract form of art what seems distant from our concerns in everyday life and is commonly regarded as a harmless leisure activity” (Deutsch, 2013). On the other hand, emotions occur, which suppose to be “evolved mechanisms that have served important functions in human survival throughout evolution” (Deutsch, 2013). It is amazingly how these two phenomena can combine together. Moreover, the connection remains to be extremely strong and intensive. According to recent research, while the process of listening or producing music brain centres which respond for emotion sphere become operating and nervous system overcomes the implications because of activation that causes different kinds of feelings (Koelsch, 2013). The receptive organ, through which this process implements, is an ear which has proper “abilities of detecting and differentiating the sound” (Koelsch, 2013). Hence, with the help of our ears and brain computer we may arouse different emotions during the process of dealing with music. This may happen even unintentionally, just as a result of music interaction with a person. Cognitive approach suggests the idea that experienced emotions remain to be aesthetic, but not ‘real’ in response to music. Although, Juslin and Sloboda suggest “music can modulate activity in all limbic and paralimbic structures” (2010), consequently this presupposes the concept that music can cause real emotions. Moreover, it should be added that music perception depends from several factors that are individual for every person. Scherer (2009) composes a component process model which includes issues due to which music evoke various emotions in different people and even different situations. He argues that some factors exist according to which the emotions can be variable and contradictory. The first factor is considered to be cognitive appraisal (Scherer, 2009), as the range of cognitive abilities is variable in each person this deals with the understanding of any occurred situation in our life, as much as with the sound sensation. That is why this point remains to be essential in existing perspectives. The next point under consideration is a psychological response (Scherer, 2009). It is clear that individual psychology plays a significant role in people’s life and our psyche has an impact in our emotion range and perceptive abilities. Action tendencies (Scherer, 2009) respond being the next reasonable issue in this list. The matter is that the person’s actions presuppose his/her outlook and perception as this or that music may cause different emotions depending from the situation and doings of individuality. What we can add to this list is subjectivity (Scherer, 2009) which is inherent to every person and provides an influence to people’s relation with any possible affair which humans may face with, including music. The last point which is worse to mention is motor expression (Scherer, 2009). Person’s voice, gestures, face and other outlook components mention by this. That is more, Seashore (2012) notes that musical feeling straightforwardly refers to person’s sensitiveness. The matter is that music characterized by the tone, rhythm, pitch, voice, style and other physical and ideal or mental objectives. The level of sensitiveness can proportionally make a connection with the occurred emotions in the process of music perception. Emotions can be categorised according to three perspectives due to recent researches (Yang and Chen, 2011). These categories are the following: Expressed emotion Perceived emotion Felt (or evoked) emotion. The first type refers to the emotion through which the performer makes a try to interact with the listeners as the music itself always product emotions. Music creators make strong efforts to involve emotive moment to their pieces of art as it is highly important to make your music memorable. This effect occurs when your listeners experience emotions while encountering your music. Perceived emotions deal with the listener’s affective response to the music and presupposes some reaction to received sound. This assumes simple listeners hearing and replying on the music that suggests to him/her. And the last point is felt or evoked emotions. This kind is considered to be the strongest one as it may implicate the deepest emotive level. This also calls “emotion induction” (Yang and Chen, 2011) and aims at provoking feelings in people’s hearts. There is evidence that last two categories of emotions “depend on an interplay between the musical, personal and situational factors” (Yang and Chen, 2011). Hence, music perception is strictly reliant with the sociological and individual factors. Lonsdale and North (2011) represent five principal reasons for our listening to music. To learn about other cultural dimensions and peculiarities of different music cultures stays on the fifth place. I should admit that it is reasonable and positive aim of music perception and recognition. The next reason presupposes the expressing of personal identity (Lonsdale and North 2011). This means that music can help person to depict his/her personal image of the world and involve his/her individuality to this proper dimension. Interpersonal relationship remains to be the next reason for listening to music (Lonsdale and North 2011). This point understands music as a connecting device between people, as common music tastes are highly important in people’s everyday communication. The pre last point refers to the negative mood management and involves several issues (Lonsdale and North 2011). These include diversion that means that because of the music person can distract and postpone from some relevant affairs which are supposed to do. In addition people always try to cope with depression through music and it may lead to avoidance of reality and relieving pain. In such cases, individuality becomes close to the society and miss in the own thoughts. And lately the most significant reason for listening to music is to be entertained and achieve the right mood (Lonsdale and North 2011). People always address music when they want to relax and abstract from occurred problems. It is naturally for human creatures as we can find appropriate music due to our tastes and mood for feeling of inside harmony and peace. Music takes an important place in our life as it is a huge part of our leisure time and entertainment activity. My case demonstrates the effectiveness of music due to the personal problems which may occur in different situations. My musical instrument becomes my real friend and helps me to undergo obstacles and hurdles connected with the new surrounding and new life. It is the thing that abstracts me from daily routine and gives a chance to feel harmony and enjoy the moment. Emotive plan is highly important for me while dealing with music and I strongly believe in the salubrious power of music sounds. My emotional connection with music and my instrument supports me in times of despair and perplexity. I really do devote a lot of my leisure time to my instrument and I regard Hulusi as my soul mate and my close friend. Part Three The question of emotional connection with music has been under consideration since the last century and investigations are in progress nowadays. Scientific researches complements and improves every day. Different explorations provide notions about human physiological relation with music, its perception and influence on people’s minds and actions. To my mind it is worse to pay attention to the question of emotions nature and its authenticity. Several researches suggest investigation in this field; still the ideas are rather contradictory and disputed. Hence, this question is considered to be open and relevant. As the existence of emotions while the process of dealing with music confirms. However, the nature of occurred emotions is not specified properly and clearly. May be the cognitivists are right and appeared emotions are just an allusion and response to aesthetic delight or disaffection to the music as an art material. Or may be due to the physical changes in the brain computer we acquire genuine emotions while the process of music perception (Juslin and Sloboda, 2010). Whose arguments are efficient? What theory is more valid? I suppose that a strong and accurate comparison between proper people’s emotions in any existing situation and emotions which occur in the relation with music on a physiological level should prepare and conduct properly. What will be the answer? Do these emotions have physiological and psychological differences? What are these divergences? Why do they occur? To what perspective does it happen? And what are the implications? There is a need to continue existing research and proclaim one appropriate opinion supported by reliable evidences and facts. How can these emotions appear? What do provoke them in our souls? Investigation into understanding the genuine nature of music emotions is on a high need. Is it just a cognitive deception? Do we deceive ourselves by the fact that music helps us? Finally, the notion of emotion’s nature within dealing with music as much as the authenticity of these emotions needs further research. It is clear that people do not desist from listening music as it is extremely widely spread in our digital, modern world. Still, the notion of experienced emotions needs to be understandable and explicit. Reference List: Deutsch, D 2013, The Psychology of Music, 3rd ed. Academic Press, USA. Koelsch, St. 2013, Brain and Music, John Wiley & Sons, UK. Juslin, P and Sloboda, J 2010, Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications, Oxford University Press, UK. Lonsdale, A & North, A 2011, ‘Why do we listen to music? A uses and gratifications analysis’, British Journal of Psychology, 102. Seashore, K 2012, Psychology of Music, Courier Dover Publications, USA. Scherer, K 2009, ‘The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model’, Cognition and Emotion, 23. Yang, Yi-Hsuan & Chen, H 2011, Music Emotion Recognition, CRC Press, USA. Read More