Have you ever felt that your mood changes when you listen to a song? Do you turn to specific artists to lift your mood up, be more concentrated, or when you feel nostalgic? Well, the relationship between music and emotions could be supported by science, and here we tell you why.
According to pianist, fine arts graduate, physics graduate and science communicator Almudena Martín Castro, there is a minor scale and a major scale in music, the former being associated with the “sadder” tones and the latter with the “happier” ones. Although it is difficult to define exactly which notes generate one emotion or another (since, according to Martín Castro, this is largely modulated by cultural factors), Western musical systems use these scales which make us go through different states of mind.
The relationship between music and emotions has been studied from different disciplines in the area of social sciences or music, such as psychology, anthropology or music therapy, but there are also some investigations that analyze other scientific and behavioral components. For example, a neuroscientific study carried out in 2021, investigated the emotional induction of a group of participants with the aim of evaluating the effect of the perception of a piece of music with activating characteristics. Exercises were performed through images with negative emotional valence, then randomly, a group of volunteers listened to an activating music and another group listened to white noise. The emotional state that these people had before and after was evaluated, and the results showed that the music with activating characteristics decreased the feeling of sadness or anxiety.
Paolo Bortolameolli, Conductor and Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has a TED Talk where he explains why music generates emotions from a compositional point of view. Bortolameolli explains how patterns and playing with expectations play a fundamental role in this relationship. You can watch it here:
According to Stefan Koelsch, Professor of Music Psychology at the University of Berlin, music is so deeply embedded in our being that cultural background is not relevant in the emotional response we have to music. A study of emotion recognition in music was conducted with a number of participants from Cameroon who had never heard Western music before. These participants matched the perceived emotionality of a piece of music with participants from Western culture. His hypothesis has to do with the fact that in the West, the tonality of music often comes from the imitation of the tonality of the voice, so that lower and slower tonalities, for example, are recognized as sadder, by making the direct link to the sound of someone’s sad voice.
“We are innately musical creatures from the depths of our nature.” – Stefan Koelsch.
Whether mediated by a cultural component or as a universal phenomenon, it has been proven that music has the power to make different people share the same feeling, being a common language that allows us to reflect specific emotions. It makes sense that this, in turn, allows us to empathize with others who are attuned to the same emotions, which can have a positive impact on social bonding.
The next time you hear your favorite song, pay attention to the emotions it makes you feel. It may be that someone else, on the other side of the world, is feeling the same thing at the same rythm.
