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Arts & Communication Emotional experience of listening to music

all six basic emotions: Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, countering expectations. Reactions to certain music stem
surprise, and disgust. However, differentiating fear and from each person’s unique perception while listening to it.
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anger in music can be challenging, with surprise being the Several factors, such as musical preferences, personality,
most difficult measurement. and culture, impact subjective emotional interpretations
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Certain musical and expressive components are of music. According to Kallinen and Ravaja, the reason
associated with a specific emotional response: Fast and slow people react differently to certain music types is because
tempos can be associated with joy or anger and sadness or everyone has a unique past, leading to different emotional
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tenderness, respectively. Appoggiatura, or an unexpected experiences. Wang et al. demonstrated that an individual’s
sequence of harmonic progression, can trigger extremely level of emotional intelligence influences their ability to
strong emotions. Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac reported recognize emotions in music.
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that students recognized sadness in slow compositions in Dobrota and Reić Ercegovac distinguished between
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minor key with a consistent pitch and dynamics, whereas the emotions expressed by music and those evoked in
they perceived fear in fast compositions with dissonant listeners. Music can regulate mood, which means that
harmonies and large variations in pitch and dynamics. listeners can express and alleviate their emotions, have
Students identified happiness in music in major key with fun, console themselves, and/or reduce stress. Kallinen and
a fast tempo, a “dance” rhythm, and a relatively consistent Ravaja also emphasized the ability of music to express or
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pitch and dynamics. In addition, one should consider induce emotions, finding that music appeared to arouse
listeners’ familiarity with a piece and its complexity, which emotions similar to the perceived emotional quality of the
means that individuals perceive familiar and unfamiliar music. Miloš and Vuger found that the most common
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music as pleasant and less enjoyable, respectively. Further, reason for listening to music is to influence emotions, such
cultural-specific and acoustic characteristics – such as as stimulating a positive mood, improving or controlling
tonality, tempo, and dynamics – can express and elicit a bad mood, or diverting attention from a source of stress
emotions in music. For unfamiliarity with a musical work or negative thoughts. People seek support, comfort, and
and its culturally specific characteristics, listeners rely control over their emotional states through music, which
on acoustic characteristics to determine the emotional is one of the most effective strategies for self-regulating
characteristics of the piece. Ferreri and Rodriguez– mood. North and Hargreaves found that the research
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Fornells have added that the familiarity of a composition participants chose music that matched their current mood.
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influences our preferences; therefore, the more we listen to Thoma et al. reached the same conclusions.
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and familiarize ourselves with a piece of music, the more
we will appreciate it. These works were the impetus for this study; its goal
was to identify the emotions and its different compositions
Škojo has argued that knowledge of composition evoked in music school students. The study aimed to
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increases the intensity of positive emotions in listeners. examine the emotions produced by music compositions
Tonality critically influences listeners’ emotions; atonal among primary- and secondary-school children and
music induces emotions of tension, fear, and anger. whether the students’ sex, grade, and familiarity with
Daynes found that paying attention to tonality induced the compositions affected their emotional experiences.
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positive emotions; however, emotions were stronger in We hypothesized that significant differences would be
participants without musical education. In general, tonal observed between the participants based on these aspects.
music evoked stronger emotional reactions than atonal
music. Therefore, familiarity with music composition leads 1.1. Music education and emotions
to a greater understanding of the musical form and a better In music education, compositions can be used to teach
awareness of a piece’s details, which can impact a listener’s students about different music genres and styles, the
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emotional triggers. Moreover, Jansma and de Vries found influential works of groundbreaking composers, and
that individuals without musical training responded so on. However, students can use music as a stimulus
to music on a purely emotional level, whereas trained or regulator of their emotions, contributing to their
musicians responded more cognitively. emotional development. Numerous authors have noted

Ali and Peynircioğlu found that in music with a the positive influence of playing music on young children’s
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vocalist, the melody had a stronger influence on listeners’ physical development, with melodies encouraging them to
moods than the lyrics. However, the emotions the music move and coordinate, thereby promoting the development
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evoked also depended on the individual listening to it, of their motor skills with rhythm and tempo. Musical
considering the entirety of previous emotional and musical activities such as dancing, singing, and playing instruments
experiences. Sometimes, music can evoke emotions improve coordination and balance. 16

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 2 doi: 10.36922/ac.6009