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Kaitlyn Henches-Moore

Professor Vaughan

ENC 1102

5 December 2020

Evoking Emotion Through Music

Throughout the history of humanity, sound has been critical in evolution. Sound has been

used to deter a predator, warn others of danger, and even attracting mates. In current times,

sound and music specifically has been intertwined into our everyday lives. Joel Douek also

expresses this in his article “Music and emotion- a composer’s perspective”, stating “Almost

every moment in a person's life is continually underscored by music—from our birth, to our

wedding to our death, our celebrations, our wars and our victories. From casual listening at

home, in a film or on TV, from an iPod as we move around or the sound of an ambulance racing

by, a call to prayer, or just somebody at the door, music is there” (Douek Music and emotion – a

composer’s perspective). Music is powerful enough to even evoke emotional responses in

individuals through biological/neurological reasoning and through specific compositional

structure.

When discussing music, no matter the genre there are different elements used to convey

specific feelings. Composers use tricks and techniques to achieve this, even at the most

fundamental level. For example, rhythm, tempo, and dynamics can be used to display urgency or

importance. In other words, speed, and volume. Joel Douek, film composer further dwells on this

in his article “Music and emotion – a composer’s perspective”. He goes on to elaborate how

these elements are “primal responses. They exist on an iconic level, almost completely
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independent of culture” (Douek Music and emotion – a composer’s perspective). The iconic

Jaws theme composed by John Williams in 1975 is evident of this technique. Although the initial

theme and melody are repeated, its gradual increase of tempo and dynamics creates the “uneasy”

feeling of anticipation, almost as if the shark were arriving at any second. Music has the

incredible ability to create imagery in this way.

Another compositional element is tension and release, described by composer Stephen

Rennicks as “a tension in the notes that make the holding chords, which makes us feel it needs to

go somewhere to resolve” (Utton How do we evoke emotion with music?). Listeners enjoy the

satisfaction they feel when a grand buildup finally reaches its climax. Adjusting a song’s

tonality, another compositional element, can affect whether a negative or positive emotion is

induced. It should also be noted that “the stability of a tonal structure in tonal music also

contributes to tension. Moving away from the tonal center creates tension and returning to it

evokes relaxation” (Schaefer Music-Evoked Emotions-Current Studies)

Tonality is described as organizing musical compositions around a singular central note.

Composers will use this to their advantage quite often, as they make “assumptions that certain

tonalities have a similar effect on everyone and so will play with versions of minor chords being

sad and major chords being happy” (Utton How do we evoke emotion with music?). This is an

explanation on why songs deemed sad, melancholy, or somber are in minor keys and those more

uplifting is in major keys. Composers in film like to use especially this in movie scenes depicting

for example, character death. This automatically triggers an emotional response in the listener.

Tony Stark’s death in the Avengers: Endgame film is a prime example, as Alan Silvestri’s “You

Did Good” plays in the background. The song’s soft dynamic (volume), slow tempo (speed) and

minor key specifically set the scene up for its emotionality. Composers and producers will use
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these tricks along with many others in order to achieve the emotion they are trying to have

perceived by the listener.

Although different compositional elements are key to evoking emotion, music can

also reach individuals at a cognitive level. It’s able to affect us on a psychological and

physiological level. Psychoacoustics, or the psychology of sound perception and its

physiological effects, provoke the “primal” response discussed previously. In an article written

by Hussain-Abdulah Arjmand, Jesper Hohagen, Bryan Paton and Nikki Rickard, its mentioned

how this “reflex” is activated by changes in basic acoustic events – such as sudden loudness or

fast rhythms – by tapping into an evolutionarily ancient survival system. This is due to these

“acoustic events [that] are associated with events that do in fact signal relevance for survival for

real events (such as a nearby loud noise, or a rapidly approaching predator). Any

unexpected change in acoustic feature, whether it be in pitch, timbre, loudness, or tempo, in

music could therefore fundamentally be worthy of special attention, and therefore trigger an

arousal response” (Arjmand et al Emotional Responses to Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain

Asymmetry Mark Periods of Musical Change). These elements automatically create a

physiological response within individuals; it is simply built into us. A study conducted by J.

Sloboda (1991) had participants to identify music passages which evoked strong, physical

emotional responses in them, such as tears or chills. The most frequent musical events were

new/unexpected harmonies, supporting the theory that unexpected musical events or substantial

changes were associated with physiological responses (Arjmand et al Emotional Responses to

Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Mark Periods of Musical Change).

Music behaves in a way similar to language. In his article published in 2017, Alistar

Jennings further elaborates by stating “Music has structure, progression and syntax -- just like
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language. The brain even processes musical syntax using the same area it uses to process

language syntax” (Jennings Why does music make us emotional?). This can be applied to when

one notices a person speaking emotionally; they have similar acoustic characteristics to music.

Fast, loud, and high for excitement and happiness, slower and softer for melancholy. The brain

stem is attuned to certain sounds in the environment; hence why quieter noises do not excite

individuals as much as loud noises. In turn, certain chords can sound pleasant “..because of how

we divide tones into different pitches: harmonically simple, consonant chords, like majors, are

easy to do this for, but harmonically complex chords, like tritones, are harder to distinguish and

so we find them dissonant. But these automatic brain mechanisms are only the beginning of how

we read meaning into music” (Jennings Why does music make us emotional?).

The way the human brain process music and sound is astonishing in various ways. For

one, the “brain regions associated with emotion and reward have been shown to also respond to

emotionally powerful music. For instance, Blood and Zatorre (2001) found that pleasant music

activated the dorsal amygdala (which connects to the ‘positive emotion’ network comprising the

ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex), while reducing activity in central regions of the

amygdala (which appear to be associated with unpleasant or aversive stimuli). Listening to

pleasant music was also found to release dopamine in the striatum (Salimpoor et al., 2011, 2013).

Further, the release was higher in the dorsal striatum during the anticipation of the peak

emotional period of the music, but higher in the ventral striatum during the actual peak

experience of the music. This is entirely consistent with the differentiated pattern of dopamine

release during craving and consummation of other rewarding stimuli, e.g., amphetamines”

(Arjmand et al Emotional Responses to Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Mark Periods
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of Musical Change). Many areas of the brain are activated and at work when listening to music,

bumbling activity, and rushing chemicals evident through various pieces of evidence.

As previously stated, music and sound are so embedded into humanity throughout time

and history. The way musicians were able to gain emotional responses evolved over history, as

well as our physiological and neurological response through evolution. Composers purposefully

arrange notes and rhythms in such a way (along with other compositional methods) to achieve a

specific feeling to be interpreted by the audience. Certain sounds and patterns within said notes

can trigger emotional and physiological response in the listener through the means of biology.

Though some individuals may be less affected by others, it does affect humans one way or

another; it is simply by nature. Emotions are successfully provoked through music.

Works Cited

Arjmand, H., Hohagen, J., Paton, B., & Rickard, N. (2017, November 08). Emotional

Responses to Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Mark Periods of Musical Change.

Retrieved October 14, 2020, from

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02044/full

Douek, J. (2013, November 19). Music and emotion-a composer's perspective. Retrieved

November 02, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3832887/

Jennings, A. (2017, December 29). Why does music make us emotional? Retrieved

November 02, 2020, from https://insidescience.org/video/why-does-music-make-us-emotional

Schaefer, H. (2017, November 24). Music-Evoked Emotions-Current Studies. Retrieved

October 14, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5705548/

Utton, D. (2018, February 01). The emotional power of music. Retrieved October 14,

2020, from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/power-of-music/how-to-create-emotion/