Classical music and emotions

[Gurn Blanston]

To each their own.

But of course! 

[mc ukrneal]

The argument is not about whether one feels something when listening to the music, it is on the source of the feeling. The emotion doesn't come from the music, it comes from you.

I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you suggesting that you would have experienced an emotion regardless of whether the music was playing?

[some guy]

Are Pastoral Symphony Symphonie Fantastique or Symphonie Pathetique particular enough for you as examples of music overloaded with emotional content?

OK. You're just not going to play fair. Oh well.

I had said that some particulars would make this conversation more insightful.

You said "OK," and then proceeded to give some more generalities.

And now you say "particular enough for you" as if wanting particulars were some strange desire peculiar to me. In any conversation, between any participants, particulars validate the generalities. In a conversation like this, where most of the content is generalities, there's just unfocussed yelling back and forth--well, unfocussed in regards to music, anyway. There's been plenty of focus, on the participants themselves.

So you have mentioned, grudgingly, three pieces that are overloaded with emotional content. Now, if we were willing (and able) we could talk about how (or how not) these particular pieces can be said to have emotional content. Three pieces with programs, too. (One of them implied.) That means that language, which can communicate fairly specific ideas, has been invited into the conversation.

I would first of all uninvite it. Just the music itself, with no programs. But that's just what we seem to be having the most trouble with--music as something itself.

[Florestan]

My response was the friendliest possible response available. You really must consider other possibilities. I consider and respect yours, but I am telling you that they are not the same as mine (or Sanantonio's, clearly). There is nothing remotely unfriendly about that. 

I wasn't talking about your response --- I just hold my horses and chose not to give you my reply. 

There is though a point you and sanantonio made that I can't let go unanswered: cultural conditioning. If the music itself carries no emotional content whatsoever and it is only the culturally conditioned listener that superimposes it on mere sounds, then how do you explain the fact that when the Jesuits established their reductions in South America in the 17th-18th century, the Guarani indians, without any cultural conditioning whatsoever, responded en masse, in an enthusiastic way, to Western music? Those naked savages who had no idea about major or minor scales, tonality or tuning  became so enthralled by it that in virtually no time they became experts not only in playing the instruments but also on making them and even on composing. See here and here for fascinating details and musical examples.

Besides that, if the music itself carries no emotional content whatsoever and it is only the culturally conditioned listener that superimposes it on mere sounds, then please explain the overpowering feeling of awe and the goose bumps I experienced when I was 13 and listened for the first time to Grieg's and Tchaikovsky's PC completely ignoring who these guys were, when and where they lived, what tonality were the concertos, what instruments were playing and who were the performers? Prior to listening to them (by mere chance) I had no idea that such music even existed, let alone knowing anything about its cultural history.

I can hardly wait for your and sanantonio's theory about these two historical facts. TIA.  0:)

[Florestan]

OK. You're just not going to play fair. Oh well.

Rubbish.

you have mentioned, grudgingly, three pieces

More rubbish.

I'm afraid a dialogue between you and me is impossible --- the mutual dislike is almost tangible. Let's agree to disagree and stop here. It's really no use.

[Mirror Image]

I'm with you, Florestan. Music carries emotions from the composer to the listener. What we perceive, however, is merely subjective as we don't know what the composer was thinking. Good music is never not without emotion. There's a reason as to why it continues to exist and thrive in our hearts.

[Daimonion]

Because one reacts to a piece of music with an emotional response does not establish that the emotional information was contained in the  music.  That emotional reaction originates from within the person based on their acculturation

I do agree with the function of acculturation. Still, however, we are acculturated to react emotionally (in this or that way) to a particular features IN music. If not, we could not explain that Person A reacts consistently with Emotion E to Music X (but not to many other pieces of music).

Emotion, in general, is a relation between a person and something in a world to which this person reacts. BOTH sides are necessary in the equation (each of them, when taken alone, is insufficient for the emotion to arise)!

Our discussion, in consequence, tends to become similar to the discussion whether war is a property of an attacking side or rather of the defending one.

[Ten thumbs]

It is clear from this argument that there is no absolute and different people react in different ways to any particular work. However, having said that, most composers if wishing to create a work that is either sad, neutral of joyful know exactly how to proceed.

[Johnll]

Because one reacts to a piece of music with an emotional response does not establish that the emotional information was contained in the  music.  That emotional reaction originates from within the person based on their acculturation.  And this is easily displayed when two people have completely different emotional reactions to the same piece of music.

This is correct to a point. Part of it is a cultural. In fact some composers deliberately use culture to communicate emotion. Ives quoted, or used variations, of popular songs of his day to communicate. I have probably not heard 90% of those songs before but I have no problem in understanding most of what he intended to convey. I probably miss nuances but the essence I capture. I imagine those in Europe or Asia may not understand as well as we might but it is not zero because with mass media elements of culture are becoming universal. 
Institutions have long understood the emotional and political power of music.  The Catholic Church, Communist Russia, Fascist Germany among others certainly did. That goes for all art forms.

But lets say you are correct it is all culture and some pieces composed to be sad could sound happy to some and happy pieces sad to another. I consider that nonsense for the "average person" but even so why is it so important you you that music expresses nothing?

[Chaszz]

In a famous incident, while Handel was writing the "Hallelujah Chorus" his servant discovered him with tears in his eyes and he exclaimed, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself!" Someone who hears this music and experiences strong emotions has had her emotions stimulated by what Handel put into the music. They may be her own emotions, or they may be in some real sense a replay of Handel's emotions, or they may be a combination of both, but for the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter. The point is they would not be so strong and exciting had the composer not communicated something of an emotional nature strongly through the music.

Likewise nobody seems to think that Salieri is as great a composer as Mozart. This is probably because we feel a lot more emotion when listening to Mozart than Salieri. In every other way besides emotion, it is likely that Salieri was just about as good as Mozart. He used manuscript paper with staffs on it to write with, he wrote his notes below, on, and above the staff; he used two dots when he wanted a repeat, he used sonata form according to the generally agreed rules, he stated, developed and recapitulated his themes, he wrote melodies when called for and counterpoint when called for, and so on. Why else besides the feelings we have when listening to each of them in turn would virtually all of us prefer Mozart?

Further, the assertion that emotions are mediated by cultural connotations, that is, by things we have experienced in the past, is only partly true and is misleading. When a composer writes something original and new, either within an existing stylistic framework or in the course of creating a new style, it is partly its novelty that makes it worthwhile and important. An example of this is the expanded harmony Wagner used in Tristan und Isolde. Very little in previous music could have prepared listeners for the power of these expanded harmonies. They stimulated raptures, as reported in many quotes from that time, largely precisely through their novelty. They were based to an extent on traditional tonality, but their power lay largely in the ways they ignored and departed from it. Had these emotions been based merely on connections with previous music, they could not have been as strong.

I cannot actually prove cause-and-effect in any of this, any more than I can prove that the world outside me exists and is not merely a figment of my imagination. However, for purposes of living an ordinary life rather than one characterized by philosophical hair-splitting, it is natural enough to assume that the world outside me exists, that the emotions generated by the Hallelujah Chorus have a lot to do with the emotions Handel felt while writing it, that the reason we prefer Mozart to Salieri is the emotions Mozart's music stimulates in us are stronger than the ones generated by Salieri's music, and that the emotions stimulated by Tristan when it was new were based to a large extent on departure from tradition. Beyond this, I think the rest is for philosophical hair-splitters.

[Opus106]

If a piece of music is played in the woods, and no one's around to listen to it, does it convey any emotion?

[Daverz]

please explain the overpowering feeling of awe and the goose bumps I experienced when I was 13 and listened for the first time to Grieg's and Tchaikovsky's PC

You were a blank slate at 13?

[Florestan]

You were a blank slate at 13?

When it came to classical music I was completely ignorant and illiterate, and according to the "cultural conditioning" theory I should have felt nothing at all.

[some guy]

This is a gross misrepresentation of what cultural conditioning means. You were born into and had lived for thirteen years already in a certain culture. You were neither ignorant nor illiterate, even, I venture to guess, when it came to classical music. If you watched any cartoons or saw any movies or tv shows, you inevitably heard something that was either classical music or inspired by (a rip-off of) classical music.

[Opus106]

When it came to classical music I was completely ignorant and illiterate...

And so was I, until 20 -- or so I thought. You may not have exactly heard, say, Jochum conduct the Concertgebouw, but the cultural influences of music from centuries past have flown down to us in various other forms. And the emotional reaction that people generally (I won't deny that there are exceptions) tend to associate with sounds, notes, and sequences thereof are from millenia ago. If you get the time, read the first chapter of Philip Ball's book "The Music Instinct". (I say first chapter because I didn't go beyond the third, but he delves a little deeper into these topics further on.) You will find that there are cultures on this planet who don't listen to music for "enjoyment" or "pleasure" (using the terms rather loosely), but use it in a sort of 'operational' way, e.g. to accmplish certain tasks required by their culture, some as mundane as to make others aware of their presence (and before you ask: no, it's not simply a call or a cry).

[Daverz]

When it came to classical music I was completely ignorant and illiterate, and according to the "cultural conditioning" theory I should have felt nothing at all.

To clarify, you had no exposure to Western music until the age of 13?

There's a wikipedia page on this:

"These studies have shown that children at the age of 4 are able to begin to distinguish between emotions found in musical excerpts in ways that are similar to adults.[16][17] The ability to distinguish these musical emotions seems to increase with age until adulthood.[18] However, children at the age of 3 were unable to make the distinction between emotions expressed in music through matching a facial expression with the type of emotion found in the music.[17] Some emotions, such as anger and fear, were also found to be harder to distinguish within music."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_emotion

[Florestan]

And so was I, until 20 -- or so I thought. You may not have exactly heard, say, Jochum conduct the Concertgebouw, but the cultural influences of music from centuries past have flown down to us in various other forms.

Please specify three such forms that would explain the rapture I felt when hearing Classical music at 13 for the first time in my life.

To clarify, you had no exposure to Western music until the age of 13?

None whatsoever.

Actually, let's forget about me and address the case of the Guarani I mentioned above: what do you make of it?

[Opus106]

Please specify three such forms that would explain the rapture I felt when hearing Classical music at 13 for the first time in my life.

I can't explain your rapture, sorry. But some sources of emotional association have already been mentioned by Michael and Dave, namely your parents and various forms of entertainment where music is used to great effect.

[Karl Henning]

Probably we've all felt rapture upon listening to music at one time or another. Music has an effect upon one's emotions, certainly.

Pinning specific emotions which any piece of music expresses, though, is trying to nail Jell-O™ to the wall.

[Florestan]

I can't explain your rapture, sorry. But some sources of emotional association have already been mentioned by Michael and Dave, namely your parents and various forms of entertainment where music is used to great effect.

Fine, but this begs the question why didn't I feel the same way about the entertainment music which I must surely have heard before that age?

Be it as it may there is something that I really don't understand: the all-out war that some people here (not you) seem to be waging on the theory that expressiveness is an inherent property of music which composers can purposefully use to express specific emotions, feelings, moods etc in their music. I support it because empirical data and my own experience seem to be in agreement with it, but after all it is just that, a theory. If someone would prove to me with mathematical precision and beyond any doubt that it is false, my life wouldn't change a iota: I would still enjoy the music I enjoy now, the way I enjoy it now and my sleep will be just as good as it is now. Apparently, not so with those who oppose the theory: one would think that for them that theory's being false is really a personal, existential issue, and if it were true their whole worldview, piece of mind and enjoyment of music would crumble; otherwise how could one explain the rancor, the bitterness and the grimness with which they fight it and those who support it?