Perception of basic emotions in clinical improvisations : an experimental study

2016

Recently the Finnish music therapy research has focused on therapy of clients with depression. In music psychology the global interest in felt and perceived emotions in music has been a clear trend for two to three decades. This experimental study shares the interests of both fields by examining perceived emotions in improvised music from music therapy sessions. In the experiment, participants (n=29), who were professional music therapists (n=14) and music therapy students (n=15), were asked to listen to 21 short excerpts from seven improvisations that clients with depression have played in their therapy. Meanwhile or after each excerpt, participants were asked to rate the strength of each …