Do we learn which emotions to attribute to music?

Great question. I’ve had this and this in my list of things to read, but haven’t got to them yet. They seem very relevant, however.

I think we do. I am afraid that I will forever associate certain classical tunes with Cartoons because of Warner Brothers.

Music for me only is emotional because of what I may have been doing the first time I heard a song and that is how music can make us happy and in some cases sad again because of experiences and emotions we felt or once felt. There is a certain singer I can no longer listen to because of the once happy wonderful emotions they once brought to my life and forever will only serve as a sad reminder. As a musician I know that amazing feeling of emotions playing music that just listening could never come close to duplicating. Very few things in life can come close to that feeling I get when my fingers are creating sounds and rhythms that reflect my emotions, heartbeat and mood.

I think it is a combination if things. I think some sounds we innately like to listen too. Other sounds we associate with certain memories or feelings and it gets all tied together in our brains. I think this goes for natural sounds around us and also music.

I’ve tried listening to classical music radio stations and guessing the mood of the music. then when the presenter reveals the title of the piece, I can see if I am right. Mostly I am in the right area but get the detail wrong. I think it’s is a learned association though – we are exposed to all sorts of music from a very young age. It would be interesting if there have been any studies done on this though

We might find the answer in the learned journal – The Psychology of Music

Having played and studied music over the past 50+ years, I am of the opinion that the mood of the music has to do with the cultural context in which it is performed.

One of my musical mentors said that a minor chord seems to sound sad because the intervals are more discordant than a major chord. The explanation was much more detailed, but after years experience, I’m not sure if that is it. I actually believe it is much more cultural and learned than anything else.

According to this theory (extremely simplified) major chords (such as this C Major) sound “happy” and minor chords (such as this C minor sound more “sad”, and at first listen, to western ears, it is true.

However, if we listen to You Oughta Know (Alanis Morissette) we hear a minor tonality, with a definite happy feel to the song. Conversely, I Dreamed a Dream (from_Les Miserables_) is written in a major key, but definitely has a sad message.

There is a lot of Euro-American folk music that doesn’t fit the major=happy/minor=sad meme as well. And when you look beyond western music, there are many happy songs where the tonality would be the equivalent of minor.

Interesting points. I just read the latter article @hominid provided, and learned a lot. In the article, the author claims there are very pronounced similarities between “sad” melodies, and the “affective vocal expression”, which conveys sadness in speech. I had never thought about the similarities there, and spent some amusing minutes trying out the phrase “all right” in different “modes”. I was easily able to hear not only sadness and happiness, but (suppressed) anger, frustration, impatience, indifference, contentment…

The author goes on to say that these similarities (mostly concerning intervals) are probably due to music imitating vocal expressions. This makes sense to me.

I do think, though, that some of the emotions we feel when listening to music are learned, simply remembering previous exposure.