Further Layers

This chapter first reviews the notions of intrinsic coding and associative coding. It then considers how these may be combined to produce musical expression of emotions, both basic and complex emotions. It suggests that there are some prototypical musical emotions frequently expressed in music, which are linked to the ‘functions’ of music in our evolutionary past. It proposes a list of seven ‘prototypical’ emotions which are expressed often in music: happiness (festive songs), sadness (mourning), love-tenderness (lullabies and tender love songs), anxiety (existential fears in life), nostalgia (social/cultural identity), anger (protest and war songs), spirituality-solemnity (religion), and sexual desire (mating).