The Emotional Impact of Musical Vibrations

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Recommended: Expression of emotion through music

For this paper, I listened the RadioLab episode on musical language. I chose this one because, being a musician myself, I’ve always been interested in the psychology behind music, specifically why certain sounds can so drastically alter our emotion. After all, they’re all just vibrations. So what is it about some vibrations that make them so much more significant to us than others? This is one of the primary questions addressed in this podcast.
In discussing how music affects us emotionally, the hosts referred to Igor Stravinsky’s orchestra, The Rite of Spring; specifically its debut, which, to put it simply, was a disaster. The audience was so deeply shaken by the performance that they started a riot. The major factor attributed to this fiasco is the liberal usage of particularly dissonant chords throughout the piece. I have a friend who once joked that “music theory is just dumb bullshit made up by nerds”, which may be partially true, but there is a scientific reason for why we tend to prefer certain sounds over others. In the simplest terms, musical notes can be divided into two major categories: consonant and dissonant. Consonant can be described simply as sounds …show more content…

This made me begin to think about what other elements of music can affect the mood. The most prevalent factors I came up with were lyrics, key, and tempo. Lyrics are maybe the most obvious, although possibly the most powerful as well. Since lyrics portray a specific message through spoken language, having knowledge of their content and meaning can drastically change the listener’s interpretation of a song. Many people enjoy being able to relate to the subject matter, and often find comfort in the way the songwriter is able to describe a specific feeling or experience in ways more eloquent than the average person might be able

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