Nine professional musicians were instructed to perform short melodies using various instruments - the violin, electric guitar, flute, and singing voice - so as to communicate specific emotional characters to listeners. The performances were first validated by having listeners rating the emotional expression and then analysed with regard to their physical characteristics, e.g. tempo, dynamics, timing, and spectrum. The main findings were that (a) the performer's expressive intention had a marked effect on all analysed variables; (b) the performers showed many similarities as well as individual differences in emotion encoding; (c) listeners were generally successful in decoding the intended expression; and (d) some emotional characters seemed easier to communicate than others. The reported results imply that we are unlikely to find performance rules independent of instrument, musical style, performer, or listener.

A distinction is made between emotion perception, that is, to perceive emotional expression in music without necessarily being affected oneself, and emotion induction, that is, listeners’ emotional response to music. This distinction is not always observed, neither in everyday conversation about emotions, nor in scientific papers. Empirical studies of emotion perception are briefly reviewed with regard to listener agreement concerning expressed emotions, followed by a selective review of empirical studies on emotional response to music. Possible relationships between emotion perception and emotional response are discussed and exemplified: positive relationship, negative relationship, no systematic relationship and no relationship. It is emphasised that both emotion perception and, especially, emotional response are dependent on an interplay between musical, personal, and situational factors. Some methodological questions and suggestions for further research are discussed.

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Strong Experiences related to Music (SEM) were investigated by means of some 900 persons' free description of their strongest experience of music ever. Most of them also completed a questionnaire containing statements about SEM. Content analysis of the free descriptions and factor analysis of the questionnaires successively generated a three-level descriptive system for SEM comprising seven fundamental categories'. General characteristics, Physical reactions and behaviours, Perception, Cognition, Feelings/Emotions, Existential and transcendental aspects, and Personal and social aspects. Each of them comprises a number of subcategories, which in their turn contain a varying number of specific reactions. The meaning of the categories is explained using quotations from the participants' own SEM reports. Comparisons are made with results from earlier related research, and various methodological problems are discussed.