What is musical empathy?

Abstract

This chapter starts with a review of the definitions, meanings, and uses of the concept of empathy in the domains of ethnomusicology, interpersonal relationships, aesthetics, and embodied musical cognition. The following five issues are then addressed: (1) How does the notion of empathy impact the classic theories of musical emotion? (2) It is possible to define different types of musical empathy, depending on the nature of its referent? (3) Do different performance contexts foster different types of musical empathy? (4) What light do theories of empathy shed on the process of association between persons and tunes? (5) Is there any connection between an empathic disposition and the musical form of de jale (“sorrowful”) tunes?