Musical emotions in the Roma community of Ceuaş

Abstract

In this chapter, the three contexts of musical tears (professional service, parties in the Roma neighborhood, funerals) are compared in order to determine whether they have any characteristics in common. The analysis of their differences leads to a concentric model illustrating three different modes on which musical emotions are experienced: “making emotion,” “sharing emotion,” and “expressing emotion.” The analysis of their similarities brings out three invariants of musical emotions: an aesthetic system (sorrowful tunes), “personal” tunes, and a specific way of being (milos, i.e., compassionate, empathic). It is argued that such invariants, since they are unaffected by the performance context, should be viewed as the “focal points” or “deep structures” of the relationship between music and emotion. While this result is local in scope, it makes it possible to sketch a few cross-cultural comparisons.