Acoust. Sci. & Tech. 34, 3 (2013) #2013 The Acoustical Society of Japan PAPER A multi-dimensional study of the emotion in current Japanese popular music Ryo Yonedaà and Masashi Yamada Graduate School of Engineering, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, 7–1 Ohgigaoka, Nonoich, 921–8501 Japan ( Received 22 March 2012, Accepted for publication 5 September 2012 ) Abstract: Musical psychologists illustrated musical emotion with various numbers of dimensions ranging from two to eight. Most of them concentrated on classical music. Only a few researchers studied emotion in popular music, but the number of pieces they used was very small. In the present study, perceptual experiments were conducted using large sets of popular pieces. In Experiment 1, ten listeners rated musical emotion for 50 J-POP pieces using 17 SD scales. The results of factor analysis showed that the emotional space was constructed by three factors, ‘‘evaluation,’’ ‘‘potency’’ and ‘‘activity.’’ In Experiment 2, three musicians and eight non-musicians rated musical emotion for 169 popular pieces. The set of pieces included not only J-POP tunes but also Enka and western popular tunes. The listeners also rated the suitability for several listening situations. The results of factor analysis showed that the emotional space for the 169 pieces was spanned by the three factors, ‘‘evaluation,’’ ‘‘potency’’ and ‘‘activity,’’ again. The results of multiple-regression analyses suggested that the listeners like to listen to a ‘‘beautiful’’ tune with their lovers and a ‘‘powerful’’ and ‘‘active’’ tune in a situation where people were around them. Keywords: Musical emotion, Popular music, J-POP, Semantic differential method, Factor analysis PACS number: 43.75.Cd [doi:10.1250/ast.34.166] ‘‘activity’’ [3]. Using the SD method, Russell showed that 1. INTRODUCTION general affection was illustrated by a circumplex model, Musical emotion is expressed by various adjectives which was spanned by ‘‘valence’’ and ‘‘arousal’’ factors [4]. such as cheerful, tender, majestic, etc. This implies that This model was almost identical to the two-dimensional musical emotion is illustrated by a multi-dimensional space by which Hevner illustrated the musical emotion. space. Many musical psychologists illustrated this space Schubert pointed out that the ‘‘valence’’ and ‘‘arousal’’ with various numbers of dimensions. For example, Hevner dimensions agree, in principle, with two of the three illustrated the musical emotion using a simple two-dimen- dimensions Osgood and his colleagues proposed; ‘‘evalua- sional space. She selected short pieces of music and tion’’ and ‘‘activity’’ [5]. Taniguchi proposed more com- manipulated their mode, melodic direction, harmony, and plex structure to illustrate the musical emotion. He used 90 rhythm, systematically [1]. In another study, she also excerpts of classical music works as stimuli, and showed manipulated tempo and pitch level [2]. These variants as that the emotional space for them was constructed by five well as the original versions were presented, and the or eight factors [6]. listeners were requested to show the emotional features of Most of the dimensional studies described above the stimuli on the two-dimensional space in her experi- concentrated on classical music, and only a few studies ments. illustrated the musical emotion in popular music using Osgood and his colleagues invented SD (semantic multi-dimensional spaces. Iwamiya conducted a perceptual differential) method to clarify dimensions of an emotional experiment using popular music, in the contexts of car space for a set of concepts, and they showed that the audio with music [7]. He illustrated the impression of emotional spaces for various sets of concepts were music using three-dimensional spaces. Yamada, Fujisawa constructed by three factors: ‘‘evaluation,’’ ‘‘potency’’ and and Komori also investigated musical emotion in the context of a video racing game, and showed that the Ãe-mail: r [email protected] musical emotion in a set of popular music was illustrated 166 R. YONEDA and M. YAMADA: EMOTION IN CURRENT JAPANESE POPULAR MUSIC by a three-dimensional space [8]. However, the number of Table 1 Musical pieces used in Experiment 1. musical pieces used in these studies was small, and the Best-selling piece Artist dimensions of musical emotion in popular music have not AÁRAÁSHI ARASHI been clarified yet, using a large number of pieces. Kiseki GReeeeN Therefore, in the present study, perceptual experiments Good-bye days YUI were conducted, using large sets of pieces of popular music TadaÁÁÁAitakute EXILE which reflects the current popular music scene in Japan, to Sakurazaka Masaharu Fukuyama Arigatou Ikimonogakari reveal the dimensions of musical emotion in Japanese Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana SMAP popular music. The number of listeners and the number of Tomorrow never knows Mr. Children musical pieces have a compensating relationship for a Ningyo Hime Kumi Koda given time during the listening experiment. In the present BREAK OUT! Tohoshinki study, the number of musical pieces was given priority over Honnou Sheena Ringo I LOVE YOU Yutaka Ozaki the number of listeners. Order Made RADWIMPS Moreover, the correlations between the emotional Ai wo Komete Hanataba wo Superfly features and suitable situations of listening to popular monochrome Ayumi Hamasaki music were also investigated, in the present study. The Asita ga Kurunara JUJU Uso SID relationship between musical emotion and acoustic param- Dear Lonely Girl Miliyah Kato eters has been studied by many researchers. They suggest- Himawari Yuusuke ed that tempo was one of the most important parameters for Jyunrenka Shonannokaze musical emotion [9–11]. However, most of these studies GOLDFINGER ’99 Hiromi Go Aitakute Aitakute Kana Nishino used short musical materials which varied performing Ai no Mama ni Wagamama ni Boku B’z tempo, and the relation between musical emotion and wa Kimi Dake wo Kizutsukenai tempo has not been clarified in a large number of various Hitomi wo Tozite Ken Hirai musical pieces. In the present study, the relationship Tentai Kansoku BUMP OF CHICKEN between the tempo and the musical emotion is also Zenryoku Shounen Sukimaswitch Mikazuki Ayaka investigated. HONEY L’ArcenCiel Make my day Yui Aragaki 2. EXPERIMENT 1 STARS Mika Nakashima 2.1. Musical Stimuli Winter, again GLAY Tsubomi Kobukuro The musical pieces used in Experiment 1 were defined Rirura Riruha Kaela Kimura in the following way: First, the top 50 musicians were Tobenai Tori Yuzu selected based on the download ranking from June to CAN YOU CELEBRATE? Namie Amuro FUNKY MONKEY October 2009 in LISMO, which provides the most popular Lovin’ Life music retrieval services in Japan. Then the top-selling piece BABYS Addicted To You Hikaru Utada until December 2010 was selected for each of the 50 ANOTHER WORLD GACKT musicians based on the web site, Oricon Style (http:// Gekkouka Janne Da Arc www.oricon.co.jp/), the most famous music ranking site in Guuzenno Kakuritu GIRL NEXT DOOR Japan. The selected musical pieces are shown in Table 1. SOS TAMURAPAN White Love SPEED The play time of the pieces was ranged from 3.5 to 7.0 min. love the world Perfume TSUNAMI Southern All Stars 2.2. Procedure Boyfriend aiko Ten listeners, nine of whom were male and one was Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi UVERworld Real Face#1 KAT-TUN female, listened to the 50 pieces and rated the emotional Here We Go feat. VERBAL May J. features of them. Their ages ranged from 20 to 31 years Around The World MONKEY MAJIK old. Two of the listeners were musicians, and listened to Sakuranbo Ai Otsuka music at least several pieces from various musical genres a day. The other eight listeners were non-musicians, but listened to J-POP tunes through music players, car audio, TV programs, and internet at least once a day. In one trial, differential (SD) scales shown in Table 2. The SD scales a listener was presented a piece through headphones. The were shown in Japanese on the response sheets, in fact. listener was not allowed to rate while a piece of music These were bipolar seven-step scales, e.g., ‘‘very happy,’’ was presented. After the piece was finished, the listener ‘‘fairly happy,’’ ‘‘slightly happy,’’ ..., ‘‘very sad.’’ The SD rated the emotional features of it using 17 semantic scales appeared on a response sheet in a random order for 167 Acoust. Sci. & Tech. 34, 3 (2013) Table 2 Semantic differential (SD) scales and factor loadings of them in Experiment 1. SD scale Factor English Japanese Evaluation Potency Activity Mixed−Neat − 0.856 −0.383 −0.132 Clean−Dirty − −0.825 0.140 0.140 Showy−Humble − 0.540 −0.685 −0.294 Agitated−Calm − 0.713 −0.507 −0.322 Fresh−Sordid − −0.757 0.226 −0.293 Heavy−Light − 0.338 −0.349 0.759 Dark−Bright − 0.118 0.025 0.984 Cheerful−Gloomy − 0.133 −0.063 −0.977 Weak−Strong − −0.245 0.856 0.040 Hard−Soft − 0.784 −0.539 0.011 Loose−Tight − −0.168 0.866 −0.209 Powerful−Powerless − 0.318 −0.890 0.022 Monotonous−Varied − 0.045 0.613 −0.043 Tranquil−Restless − −0.633 0.604 0.247 Pleasant−Unpleasant − −0.892 −0.243 −0.238 Happy−Sad − 0.158 −0.107 −0.961 Warm−Cold − −0.669 0.202 −0.482 Contribution rate 0.319 0.264 0.243 each combination of listener and piece. The procedure ‘‘potency’’ and ‘‘activity’’ respectively, after the scales described above was repeated for the 50 pieces. The which show large loadings for these factors. These results listening level was decided by a preliminary experiment as show that the emotional space of popular music is follows: Eight pieces including the softest and the loudest constructed by ‘‘evaluation,’’ ‘‘potency,’’ and ‘‘activity’’ pieces were selected from the 50 pieces. Maintaining the factors. In principle, these factors are identical to the three original relative-level-differences among the eight pieces, dimensions of semantic space proposed by Osgood and his four listeners adjusted the volume dial in the headphone colleagues, and the number of the factors agrees with the amplifier to the most suitable level for them.