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Expression of Emotion in Music

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Expression of Emotion in Music ……………………………………………………………….…………………………………………….. expression of emotion in music why music lovers aren’t masochists ……………………………………………………………….…………………………………………….. C.H. van Groesen, s102028 Tilburg University Tilburg, 2012 P a g e | 2 Contents Introduction page 3 Preliminary remarks page 5 Part I: Why do we enjoy negative art? Page 7 contains the main research question along with interesting related topics Part II: Symbolism as foundation of expression page 9 presents the two dominant theories of symbolism and metaphors and shows why symbolism is not a viable explanation Part III: Emotions inside music: causality page 18 outlines two important theories with regard to musical expressiveness Part IV: Appearance Emotionalism page 22 gives a detailed account of the views of Stephen Davies, and follows the main lines of criticism before adding own elements in the discussion Conclusion page 32 Bibliography page 33 P a g e | 3 Introduction Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno believed that art, in its negative form, was the key in the battle against the instrumental reason which had already manifested itself in the atrocities of World War II (1966, Horkheimer & Adorno 1988). Only by approaching these extreme negative feelings – anger, despair, loss, etc. – through ‘negative art’ could one remember how the sophisticated, enlightened human reason had suddenly sank into barbaric depth. After Auschwitz, the act of writing a (happy) poem was already enough to make people feel sick and disgusted, according to Adorno. Art had become impossible, at least the art we were used to making and experiencing. Immanuel Kant (2009) thought that the most sublime experiences were found in the objective finality of nature. Scenes which appear to have been designed with a specific purpose, yet having no (apparent) practical use, which go beyond our comprehension make us weak with fear yet leave us also in amazement. If art can recreate these kind of scenes, without being threatening (thus only being recognizable as deserving of our fear), it can be called ‘sublime’. It does seem that negative feelings in art have a deeper or more profound effect on our experience. We see these kinds of emotions in all kinds of art as well as forms of popular culture. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to the philosophical puzzle of music. A central question is how musical works can express emotions. Since musical works are not psychological agents, the traditional paradigm of expressing emotions does not work and needs to be adjusted. The distinction between expression and expressivity might come in handy, since works of art (and thus musical works) do possess this. Expression is something agents do, namely outward manifestation of an emotional state. An interesting question is the relation between this and expression. A different distinction is made between expressivity and representation. Musical works do not represent emotions, they express them. Emotions in music are no mere descriptions of emotional states, but are more closely related to expressions. However, this remains a troubling (and interesting) question. Since music plays a large part in many people’s lives, it seems strange that we do not really know why certain music has such a lasting effect on us and our moods. Entire genres of music are full of emotions that we would normally avoid as much as possible: anger, sadness, despair, grief. Still, these kinds of music are also the ones that help us through difficult times. But why would we deliberately seek out and appreciate music that would make us unhappy? Surely not all music lovers are masochists! In this paper we will explore this issue based on modern day theories in the field of philosophy of music. After some preliminary remarks, we will outline the main research questions before splitting into two presuppositions; namely whether the emotional expressivity of music works through symbolism or causality. This is important because the underlying question entails a difference in processing the input we receive from listening to music. Either we actively shape what we hear into known symbols or metaphors, or we are tied to what is inside the music and works as a cause-and- effect structure in our listening. Music’s expressive power can be revealed in its ability to compel us to draw up metaphors describing the musical lines into forms suitable for human interaction. It can persuade us to think that these metaphors fit the music perfectly, but how would they do such a thing? Also, every metaphor would, especially in a scientific context, demand an explanation yet at the same time refuse one, since if there was such an explanation, it would immediately destroy the P a g e | 4 need for the metaphor. Simply put, it would become more of a literal truth. It is obvious that the listener is responsible for creating the extramusical content in this kind of theory. But is representation the same as expression? In the notion of causality it should already be in the music, perhaps put there on purpose by the composer in order to enrich our experience of his compositions. But would this experience contain the emotions of the composer himself, or something distinct from him and a specific part of the musical work, intrinsically bound to that piece and that piece only? We will outline the dominant theories in both cases; presentational symbolism which originated from Susanne Langer and exemplificational symbolism from Nelson Goodman from the side of symbolism. In this section, we will also take a closer look at the use of metaphors in describing emotional expressivity. For causality, both the expression and arousal theory are considered before diving deeper into the theory pioneered by Stephen Davis, appearance emotionalism. Obviously, the question whether we should find our answers in symbolism or causality determines where exactly we find emotional expressivity in music – the three logical options being the composer, the listener or the music itself. After reviewing criticism from (among others) Peter Kivy, Jenefer Robinson and Jerrold Levinson, we will add our own thoughts and arguments to the discussion, hopefully in order to address some of the weaker points of Davies’ theory. P a g e | 5 Preliminary remarks First, to make the discussion as clear as possible, I feel the need to give specific definitions of certain terms used in this field. While it is possible for the sake of readability that synonyms are being used, the true meaning of a word should not give grounds for extra discussion in this matter. These definitions are taken from Patrik N. Juslin and Daniel Västfjäll’s excellent work in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2008), ‘Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms’, and while they stem from psychological, empirical research (instead of philosophical research), they fit very nicely into the existing material. Affect An umbrella term that covers all evaluative – or valenced (i.e., positive/negative) – states such as emotion, mood and preference. Emotions Relatively intense affective responses that usually involve a number of sub- components – subjective feeling, physiological arousal, expression, action tendency, and regulation – which are more or less synchronized. Emotions focus on specific objects, and last minutes to a few hours. Musical emotions A short term for ‘emotions that are induced by music’. Moods Affective states that feature a lower felt intensity than emotions, that do not have a clear object, and that last much longer than emotions (several hours to days). Feeling The subjective experience of emotion (or mood). This component is commonly measured via self-report and reflects any or all of the other emotion components. Arousal Activation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Physiological arousal is one of the components of an emotional response but can also occur in the absence of emotions (e.g. during exercise). Preferences Long-term evaluations of objects of persons with a low intensity (e.g. liking of a specific music style). Emotion induction All instances where music evokes an emotion in a listener, regardless of the nature of the process that evoked the emotion. Emotion perception All instances where a listener perceives or recognizes expressed emotions in music (e.g. a sad expression), without necessarily feeling an emotion. P a g e | 6 Second, I feel it is necessary to make a few general remarks regarding the expression of music. It must be clear for the sake of the discussion that there exists a distinction between the expression in or through music, the latter which may include the composition or performance as vehicle of expressing emotions. Because the lack of a human voice, words, symbolic or literary titles or textual context (see Davies 2006) it seems that the former is the most pure form of expression and thus should serve as a starting point of discussing the problems of emotional expressivity in music. Secondly, one should note that when we talk of music, we mean the ‘pure’ kind, not burdened by words, movements or other expressive elements. Taking these points into account, the difficulty in the claim that emotions may be expressed in music lies in the notion of feeling sad music. In the non- musical cases it generally follows that something that is sad feels sad, or is experienced as sad. Stephen Davies formulates one of the instrumental questions as follows: why does musical expressiveness compel from us emotional responses if that expressiveness is not related to the expression of human emotions? (Davies 1980, p. 67). There has to be a connection between the expressed emotions in music and in daily life, since musical expressiveness takes from and reflects the emotions we experience on a daily basis. There are three major differences between the emotions expressed in music and those felt by people: they are unfelt, necessarily publicly displayed and they lack emotional-objects.
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