The Book’s Composition

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. Based on insights from a 20-year quest to unravel the mysteries of music and emotion,it is argued that real progress can only be achieved if we accept a number of basic premises about music and emotion. These premises constitute several themes, which will reoccur throughout the book. These themes are as follows: emotions depend on evolved mechanisms; music engages multiple emotion mechanisms; there are definitive limits to human introspection; emotional responses to music are intrinsically social; musical emotions depend on music-listener-situation interactions.