Music

Emotion in Music Mirrors Speech

A good one from Scientific American:

When you hear Western music, you generally get the emotional tone. A major key is happy. (Music plays.) A minor one? That’s sad. (Music plays.)

And spoken voices reflect this tonality. Here’s someone sounding positive: “I don’t know who made this cake but it is fantastic!” And down on his luck: “The papers finalizing the divorce came today.”

The researchers wanted to know: are these sounds international? So they turned to classical music from southern India. Here’s one that represents joy. (Raga plays.) Another displays grief and sadness. (Raga plays.) As for the spoken word, I bet you can tell the positive speaker (woman speaks) from the negative one (woman speaks).

The rest of the article and its accompanying podcast is very good.  Give it a read/listen.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37988 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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