Naslov
Corporal and emotional meaning in music: How much meaning can be communicated to listeners through improvisation

Autori
Dukić, Helena ; Parncutt, Richard

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
CIM19- Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology

Mjesto i datum
Graz, Austrija, 26.09.2019. - 28.09.2019

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Poster

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
improvisation ; haiku ; communication ; emotion ; movement

Sažetak
Background in music and emotions Musicologists and researchers (Newcombe ; 1992, Robinson and Hatten ; 2012) have independently come to an understanding that in order to convey emotional expression and understanding, music needs to construct some sort of non-musical meaningful content that the listeners empathize with. This non-musical content develops and changes through time creating a sort of narrative dramatic structure. Background in music and meaning Theory by Salgar and Romero (2016) suggests that music could convey corporal meaning and Meyer (2001) proposed music can express emotional meaning, but none of these theories have been confirmed in practice. Aims To what extent can a musical improviser communicate the meaning of a short text to an audience? Can listeners guess the improviser’s intended emotions and implied movements? Can they guess the specific topic, subject, or story? Main contribution Four pianists read nine haikus, three of which focused on animals (horse, snake, bird) and their movements, three on human emotions (confident, caring, playful), and three on the natural environment (sun, lake, mountain). The pianists then improvised on each haiku, trying to express the content in music. In subsequent interviews, they described how they felt about the haiku and how they imagined associated movements and emotions. The 36 improvisations were played in different random orders to 17 school children aged 12 to 14. Each tried to guess what the music was about and describe the feelings and movements of the story’s subject. All interviews in both stages were recorded, transcribed, and assigned by three independent coders to six basic emotions (Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Surprise, Disgust) and ten movement types (Fast, Slow, Regular, Irregular, Up, Down, Big, Small, Smooth, Rough). A Pearson’s correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between the pianists expressed emotion and movement and listeners perceived emotion and movement. There was a significant correlation between pianists’ intentions and listeners’ perceptions for emotions Happiness, Anger, Surprise, Fear, and Disgust, but not for Sadness ; and for movement types Slow, Fast, Irregular, Up, Down and Rough, but not for Regular, Big, Small, Smooth. Listeners usually could not guess the haiku theme that was represented in the title of the each haiku. Implications for musicological interdisciplinarity Results are consistent with the idea that music lacks the specificity of semantic content but can communicate clear and unambiguous emotions (Happiness, Fear, Anger, Surprise and Disgust) and movements that are either not context dependent or are important for immediate survival (rate of movement ; Slow and Fast and direction of movement ; Up and Down).

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Psihologija, Glazbena umjetnost

POVEZANOST RADA