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Arts & Communication Emotional experience of listening to music

In addition to the physical benefits, early childhood the nature of music-related emotion is not related to a
musical education remarkably affects children’s mental child’s level of development or age but is an innate quality.
growth by encouraging the development of social Therefore, music education is essential for developing
skills, language, memory, and spatiotemporal skills. students’ social-emotional learning, which is learning
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Music enables emotional expression and helps improve the skills necessary for managing feelings, creating social
emotional intelligence. Music students are aware of their relationships, gaining self-awareness, solving problems,
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positive or negative emotions and can articulate them. making decisions, and setting goals. 24
Playing an instrument can help students to accept, express,
and use their emotions and contributes to satisfaction, 2. Methods
self-acceptance, and successful emotional development. 2.1. Process
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Music education, in addition to stimulating the emotional
development of children, also affects their personalities. The research was conducted in 2024 and included primary
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Küpana found that musical activities affect students’ and secondary music school students in the Republic of
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emotional, social, and cognitive development. Active Croatia, where students attend primary and secondary
participation in music-making creates a possible alignment music schools for 6 and 4 years, respectively, and play
of one’s emotional states with others and a sense of instruments from the first grade. Data were collected
empathic community. When combined with dancing or through a survey. Written parental consent was obtained so
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movement-based games in groups or pairs, music makes that the research would be conducted per ethical codes.
students feel good, creates a positive learning environment, A total of 134 students participated in the research, with
and helps them connect with each other during the activity slightly more than half being girls (Table 1).
and in their future social interactions. Notably, music Table 2 shows the school level and grade distribution of
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helps students to recognize their emotions, in addition the participants. The fewest participants were in the fifth
to those of and others, and communicate with them. grade of primary school (7), while the most were in the
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Because a developed awareness of one’s current feelings third grade of primary school (23).
is the foundation of emotional intelligence, listening to
music can be regarded as emotional education connected 2.2. Goals and hypotheses
to a child’s emotional intelligence and demonstrated by a This study investigated the kind of emotions compositions
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clear recognition of their inner world. Listening to music evoked in primary and secondary music school students
can impact the entire atmosphere of a classroom, and and whether there were differences in emotional
the proper selection of music can regulate a classroom’s experiences based on sex, grade level, and familiarity with
atmosphere and emotional climate. 12 the composition. Research was based on three hypotheses:
Škojo points out that the emotional experience of H : There will be a statistically significant difference
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1
students while listening to a piece notably impacts student in emotional experiences of compositions among
motivation and interest in music. Therefore, the role of a students based on sex;
music educator during a listening activity is to transform H : There will be a statistically significant difference
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a student’s initial emotional experience into an esthetic in emotional experiences of compositions among
one, in which the teacher acts as a mediator between the students based on grade level;
music and the student. Therefore, selecting appropriate, H : There will be a statistically significant difference
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high-quality music and preparing for listening activities by in emotional experiences of compositions among
assigning relevant tasks is essential. When students listen a students based on familiarity with the piece.
piece for the 1 time, they establish an emotional schema, 2.3. Materials and procedures
st
which subsequently transfers to long-term memory.
They reactivate the same schema while hearing the same The students were instructed to listen to excerpts of eight
piece again by adding newly observed compositional different compositions (Table 3) of approximately 1 min.
information. According to Vidulin and Radica, students For each piece, they were asked if they have heard it before,
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listen to music and use their cognitive abilities to perceive which of four emotions (i.e., calmness, anger/anxiety,
and understand a composition based on what they sadness, happiness) they felt the most strongly, and the
already know and have experienced. Nawrot found that intensity of that feeling on a scale of 1 – 3. Average values of
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even children under 4 years of age can interpret discrete up to 1.00, 1.01 – 2.00, and 2.01 – 3.00 were determined for
emotions by harmonizing their facial expressions with the weak emotional intensity, medium, and high intensities,
music they are listening to; their perception of emotions respectively. The excerpts predicted to elicit sadness were
was reportedly similar to that of adults. In other words, in minor key and had a slow tempo with quiet dynamics.

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