Breaking the Code

Having established that expression and perception of emotions are important phenomena in music, this chapter takes a closer look at how psychological processes actually work. A first step is to consider the musical features. Which are the relevant features? How do they co-vary with specific emotion categories and dimensions? How are they modulated by musical style, culture, and historical context? It is a recurring notion from Ancient Greece that there are systematic relationships between musical structure and expression of emotions. Modern studies, however, differ from previous treatises by using psychological experiments to uncover ‘causal relationships’ between musical features and perceived emotions. The chapter focuses on the five emotions most frequently studied thus far (sadness, happiness, anger, tenderness, and fear). It also considers how musical features correlate with broader emotion dimensions, such as tension, arousal, and valence.