Music and emotion: Themes and development
This special issue draws on a selection of papers presented at the inaugural International Conference on Music and Emotion in Durham in 2009, focusing on the scientific approach to understanding music and emotions. In this editorial we consider the current state of research into music and emotion, drawing comparisons with the earlier special issue of this journal published ten years ago and between the two edited collections which mark progress in this period. We consider issues of theory and methodology in relation to the wider field of psychology of music as illustrated by the papers in this volume and other recently published research, considering some of the barriers towards progress a…
Exploring Engagement with Music in Everyday Life using Experience Sampling Methodology
The types, functions, sources and effects of musicians’ bodily movements have been studied in soloists’ live and recorded performances, to a lesser extent in their practice sessions and rehearsals, and in ensemble musicians’ rehearsals. The present study explored the effects of familiarity and expertise on singers’ and pianists’ bodily movements and eye contact in ensemble rehearsals. Two established singer-pianist duos rehearsed three songs in different combinations. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken. Bodily movement and eye contact were used to consolidate technical details, convey musical information and coordinate entries. Singers used gestures to reflect and support…
Strong experiences of music in university students
Research in Sweden has recently defined and explored the concept of strong experiences of music, which had been hitherto ignored by much research in the psychology of music and emotion. From a large-scale study of over 900 adults, Gabrielsson and Lindström Wik (2003) found that strong experiences of music included positive and negative responses to music, and could occur with any genre of music. The current research explores the generalisability of the strong experiences of music studied by Gabrielsson and Lindström Wik with a university student population in England, and compares the efficacy of the methods of analyzing accounts. 64 undergraduate students who had elected to take a music ps…