麻豆传媒

Why do you think music is so powerful?

There are three key reasons. The first is something one of my colleagues calls the 鈥渄arling-they鈥檙e-playing-our-tune鈥� theory. Music is a very powerful source of personal associations. Secondly, music has inherent characteristics that mimic the emotional signals of the world. The third 鈥� and most interesting to me 鈥� is the emotional effect of engaging with musical structure itself as it unfolds over time, which relates to the fact that our emotions are tuned to detect change.

Why is music so good at associations?

A piece of music associated with an emotional event in your life can bring it flooding back when you hear it again. Of course, that is pretty idiosyncratic and unpredictable. Everybody will have their own special song, their memories. We know from research into the psychology of memory and the psychology of emotion that close to events of high emotional charge your brain takes a 鈥渞ecording鈥� of all the other things that were going on at that heightened moment.

And how does music mimic emotional signals?

The most important signals are human vocalisations. My colleague Patrik Juslin, with whom I wrote Music and Emotion, is probably the leader of research in this area. He has shown that if you manipulate music in the ways in which speech is manipulated to make speech sound emotional, then that music sounds emotional too.

If I spoke very, very slowly, pitching my voice down at the end of words and sentences, you would interpret that as me being pretty depressed. If you write or play music like that 鈥� slowly with a falling cadence 鈥� listeners immediately say, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 sad鈥�. They are what I call 鈥渋conic connections鈥�. And they are very powerful, almost universal and automatic. It doesn鈥檛 really matter what culture you come from because you make links to these innate human vocalisations of excitement, depression and so on, which the entire human race shares, so the mapping is very simple. There are only a handful of basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger and, possibly, tenderness. Some people argue that disgust is one.

But how do we use music to detect change?

This is the aspect that I鈥檝e done the most work on. Our emotions are tuned to detect change. In the animal kingdom change evokes fight or flight 鈥� it鈥檚 about survival. For us, change can either be positive and helpful (falling in love) or negative and we want to avoid it (sickness or death in someone we care about). Emotions kick in when the environment changes in ways that are personally important to you. This overrides whatever the organism might be doing to force it to concentrate on the change, because that is vital.

Our systems are exquisitely and delicately tuned to monitor the environment the whole time for change. We are very, very good at recognising pattern, and when patterns change. And remember, music is par excellence pattern 鈥� pattern in sound.

How does this work?

Our brains are constantly trying to work out what the pattern in the music is and trying to guess what鈥檚 going to come next. For most people this isn鈥檛 an active process, it just goes on subconsciously and passively while listening to music. Because so much music in any one culture shares a common language and a common pattern 鈥� like tonality, the major scale, rhythm, harmony and so on 鈥� it soon becomes very easy to make predictions about what鈥檚 going to come next. More often than not those predictions are fulfilled. But sometimes you are expecting the tune to go up yet it goes down, or you鈥檙e expecting it to end but it doesn鈥檛. Those little surprises produce emotional reactions every time. It鈥檚 like a roller coaster: the emotion goes up and down according to what is happening in the music.

How do you research this?

We鈥檝e been plotting those troughs and peaks by having people hold a joystick slider while they listen to music. As the music gets more emotional, they push the slider up. When it gets less emotional, they push the slider down. You get a trace of their emotional reaction. Now, unlike the associative memories, these reactions are not idiosyncratic. By and large, people experience higher or lower emotion at the same point in the music 鈥� and this is useful scientifically because you can isolate those points and ask what鈥檚 happening there.

Have you found out?

Yes. There are some musical devices composers use that seem to explain some of this. One is called an appoggiatura, or a suspension, which is when melody is going along and then suddenly there鈥檚 a note that is not part of the harmony at that point. A great example is the Beatles鈥� standard Yesterday. The first note of Yesterday is an appoggiatura because it鈥檚 out of the harmony. Then it resolves down to the key note on the the second syllable (鈥�-ter-鈥�) which relieves the tension. If you analyse musical compositions that are harmonically surprising, it turns out that they contain many appoggiaturas.

Another device is rhythmic syncopation. As we listen, we work out the pattern of a tune鈥檚 timing: one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four. We line up what comes in with those beats. In a syncopated beat, a melody note occurs before it should. It鈥檚 a little jolt.

So the emotional temperature rises when you get a lot of this happening?

Yes, and when it rises enough, people move from recognising that something is happening to feeling that something is happening. This is an important distinction, and it鈥檚 a distinction that has really confounded and confused a lot of research. Because there are two ways of answering the question: 鈥淲hat emotion is there in the music?鈥� You can detect objectively that the music sounds sad, but you don鈥檛 feel sad yourself. But when you start feeling something yourself, that is the thing about music which is more variable.

How you respond will depend on factors inside you and inside the music. This is why a piece of music at a friend鈥檚 house that really bowled you over can leave you cold when you take the CD home and play it on your own.

Do composers use these 鈥渢ricks鈥� to manipulate us?

I鈥檓 sure some musicians and composers stick with tried and tested things that they know have a greater chance of jerking a tear or whatever. Some melodies that musicians would think were really bad and quite manipulative do work on the emotions very effectively.

Take the first line of Land of Hope and Glory: it鈥檚 got that appoggiatura in it. And even people who loathe jingoistic stuff sometimes find themselves being carried away by this tune. These effects can be strong, but can also be resisted.

How come?

This is where the societal bit comes in. It鈥檚 to do with selection. When my daughter was younger, we would be driving in the car and flipping channels. Within two seconds of hearing a bit of classical music, she鈥檇 say 鈥淯gh鈥�, and completely filter it out. Many elderly and middle-class people have that immediate filter-it-out reaction to pop or rap. These strong 鈥渃hoices鈥� are often linked with social identity. Many social groups are partly defined by the music that they share.

Do we use these effects of music in our daily lives?

I have to say we don鈥檛 know very much. What we do know is that many people choose music that means a lot to them; they say they couldn鈥檛 live without it. Another bit of research I鈥檝e been doing with my colleagues at Keele University involves paging a group of volunteers seven times a day to ask what they are doing. Often we have found that they are listening to music, mainly by choice but sometimes simply because a store has music playing in the background.

So what鈥檚 going on?

When we call them, we ask people to fill in a questionnaire that tells us about their emotion at the time. The emotional change is greatest when people have chosen the music themselves. That tells you they know something about what kind of music they need to effect change. But why do people need to effect change? One of the things that surprised us, but perhaps shouldn鈥檛 have, is that the most common place for people to listen to music is in transit. The car is the symphony hall of the 21st century. People keep their favourite collections in their cars. And when you ask about this, they say it鈥檚 about getting them in the mood for the next thing they are going to do. Driving home from work you play soothing music to forget the stresses of work and get into a more mellow mood.

They are playing with their emotions?

That鈥檚 right. It鈥檚 as if people are using music as a self-administered emotional therapy or emotional amplifier to modulate, to moderate their mood. There鈥檚 nothing else that does this like music does. People who know about blindness and deafness have said deafness is the cruellest sensory deprivation because it cuts you off from the world of the emotions. Vision is cold, hearing is hot. Music is about sociability and company. Music is a companion, a comforter, a person who is there with you in hard times.

Is it my imagination, or is there really more music about these days?

In highly industrialised societies, we listen to more music, but we make less. If you look at how much music is going on in an African village, you find that people are singing and dancing all the time. Work has its songs, so does leisure, but the difference is that people are making music, rather than walking around with things plugged into their ears listening to it.

What has changed for us is that music has become much more individualistic. People listen to most music alone. They do it in a self-referring way, to achieve personal outcomes. In other times and places music has had a social and cohesive function.

Is performing very different from listening?

We know that the human body is naturally rhythmic. We like doing rhythmic, coordinated things, so there is a natural impulse to perform. And that gives added emotional benefits. Performers talk about performance as an intense, emotionally satisfying experience, of getting into the 鈥渇low鈥� 鈥� or absolute absorption.

How about composing?

Composition is a tricky one, because in Europe it is tending to become a specialised and precious thing that only a few classically trained people do. And many of those composers have gone off on a track by themselves, producing music that, frankly, no one wants to listen to. To find out what is going on for most people you need to study pop composers, because they tend to make music in an improvisatory, social way. The Beatles鈥� songs emerged in the studio where one of them would come up with a little twist and say: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 good, remember that, we can make something of that.鈥� That鈥檚 the natural way for compositions to emerge. Children do this before they become socially embarrassed, humming and singing to themselves, and making up little songs. It鈥檚 a natural human activity.

Do you play?

Yes. I鈥檓 a trained pianist although I don鈥檛 get to play much these days. I had lessons from a very early age and I was a junior exhibitioner at the Royal Academy of Music in London. I could have been a professional musician, but it required too much obsessive practice. That wasn鈥檛 what I wanted.

What are your favourite works?

For a gripping, totally involving experience, I would pick something like a Mahler symphony. The late Romantic symphonies, such as Tchaikovsky鈥檚, also have a wide emotional palette. But this 鈥渨hat鈥檚 my favourite piece鈥� game can be overplayed. It depends what you鈥檙e looking for, and everyone鈥檚 tastes 鈥� their 鈥渟trong choices鈥� 鈥� change. I couldn鈥檛 relate to Mozart for the first 30 years of my life. Now I think he鈥檚 one of the greatest composers.

Is there a different emotional response when you listen to classical music than when you listen to, say, rock or jazz?

Jazz is an interesting example. What you鈥檙e doing is marvelling at the clever ways in which the performer is doing things you hadn鈥檛 imagined possible with a familiar tune. That fits very well with that surprising jolt of the unexpected and with the aesthetic delight of performers tricking you as they play with your expectations.