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Arts & Communication

ARTICLE
Emotional experience of listening to music

among Croatian music school students

Amir Begić * , Jasna Šulentić Begić 1 , and Želimir Stehlik 2
1
1 The Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek,
Croatia
2 Department of Music Theory and Singing, Požega Music School, Požega, Croatia

Abstract

The experience of listening to music implies the evocation of pleasant and unpleasant
emotions in everyday life and music teaching. During music lessons, music can
stimulate or regulate students’ emotions, thereby promoting children’s emotional
development. This study discusses research conducted in 2024 to determine the
emotions evoked by different compositions in music school students and investigate
potential differences in emotional experiences based on sex, grade level, and
familiarity with the composition. In total, 134 students from primary and secondary
music schools in the Republic of Croatia participated in a survey. They listened to
eight different compositions for approximately 1 min. For each composition, they
noted whether they have heard it before, picked one of four emotions (happiness,
sadness, calmness, and anger/anxiety) that they felt the strongest, and rated the
*Corresponding author:
Amir Begić strength of that emotion on a scale of 1 – 3. Over half of the participants concurred
(abegic@aukos.hr) on the emotions elicited by each composition. There were no statistically significant
Citation: Begić A, BegićJŠ, differences in the expressed emotions among the students based on their sex, grade
Stehlik Ž. Emotional experience of level, or familiarity. The results reflected high levels of consensus about the emotions
listening to music among Croatian evoked by musical pieces between individuals from the same cultural backgrounds
music school students. Arts &
Communication. 2025;3(3):6009. and general age groups.
doi: 10.36922/ac.6009
Received: November 15, 2024 Keywords: Emotions; Listening to music; Music school; Music and emotion; Psychology
1st revised: February 6, 2025 of music
2nd revised: February 13, 2025
Accepted: February 18, 2025
Published online: March 11, 2025 1. Introduction
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s). Emotions have always been central to human interests because they are involved in every
This is an Open-Access article human activity. Writers, visual artists, and musicians frequently express a particular
distributed under the terms emotion in their works. In psychology, emotions represent short but intense reactions
1
of the Creative Commons
2
AttributionNoncommercial License, to stimuli, and every person uniquely expresses them. Emotions can be accompanied
permitting all non-commercial use, by physical changes, facial expressions, and actions. People can experience emotions
distribution, and reproduction in any in normative, muted, and/or overemphasized ways, depending on the situation and
medium, provided the original work
3
is properly cited. individual. Relationships also trigger emotion: different emotions emerge in competitive
and cooperative relationships. 4
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with Music triggers emotions, which can convey composers’ and musicians’ emotional
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional expressions and evoke “basic” (e.g., happiness and sadness), and “complex” (e.g.,
2
5
affiliations. admiration, wonder, and nostalgia emotions. Škojo highlights that music can evoke
Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 1 doi: 10.36922/ac.6009