The Value of a Psychological Approach

Psychology is commonly defined as the study of mental processes and behaviour. The main focus is on describing and explaining how people sense the world (perception), how they think (cognition), feel (emotion), and behave (action). Music psychology focuses on mental processes and behaviours that occur in connection with music: it aims to observe, and develop theories about, the processes involved in composing, performing, and listening to music. This chapter argues that at its core, the study of music and emotion is concerned with relationships between ‘musical events’ and ‘emotional responses’.The interface between them consists of psychological processes in the human mind. Thus, psychology is key to understanding how and why a listener goes from ‘sound’ to ‘significance’.