The Feeling of Musical Mode and its Emotional Character in a Melody

Abstract

The present investigation, conducted on music students and non-music students as well as middle-aged subjects, had two aims. The first was to try to discover, through a synaesthetic bias, whether there is a difference in emotional reactions to the many musical modes in existence in Japan. The second was to make a comparison between age groups of the way in which melodies which differ only in one aspect, namely musical mode, are heard. The results show that (1) each mode produced a different impression, according to melodic type, on the listeners, but (2) there were additional differences in the emotional modal characters according to age group and to whether the listeners were musicians or non-musicians.

A vocal basis for the affective character of musical mode in melody

“…Only one cross-cultural study has isolated the influence of mode on perceived emotion. Hoshino (1996) played simple major and minor melodies to Japanese adults who grew up before WWII and were reportedly unfamiliar with Western musical conventions. Although Hoshino's methods were somewhat unorthodox—subjects were asked to associate melodies with colors, which they later described with emotional labels—she found some evidence for cross-cultural similarity in modal perception: major melodies were described as bright and warm, whereas minor melodies were described as dark and melancholic.…”

“…Similarly, in Indian musical traditions, descriptions of which modes are appropriate for various emotions are found in ancient Sanskrit texts, such as the N ātyśāstra (~200 CE; Capwell, 1986, 779; Devy, 2002, 3–4). Further examples come from the Middle East and East Asia, where the affective connotations of different modes are documented in Persian and Japanese musical traditions (Nettl, 1986, 531; Hoshino, 1996). …”

Sensory stimuli and e‐tailers

“…Aligned with the findings suggested by study one, the two main effects came out as significant. The mean scores for the levels of the stimuli suggest that, for this e-tailer, Vivaldi stimulates greater levels of purchase value ($73.18), followed by Bach ($57.96), with Debussy the least conducive to purchase ($22.89); variations consistent with Hoshino (1996). Bright, primary colours generated a higher mean sales level ($62.87) than dull, pastel colours ($41.36), which is consistent with Crowley (1993).…”

“…The product category being sold was indoor plants and accessories for apartment dwellers. For the aural dimensions, three background music types were used covering pitch (Kotler, 1974), tempo (Milliman, 1982) and emotion (Bullerjahn and Gueldenring, 1994;Hoshino, 1996). To minimise the preference of a music type confounding the study (Herrington and Capella, 1996) classical music was selected for all three.…”

A Novel Methodology to Study the Propensity to Appreciate Music

“…Such views, often based on observed cultural differences, have been voiced following studies with Japanese (Hoshino, 1996) and Indian (Gregory & Varney, 1996) participants, and their emotional responses to indigenous-compared with Western-music. Additionally, it has been argued that fetuses in the womb are able to hear and even respond to music, either played to the mother or relayed via an earphone on the mother's abdomen (Campbell, 1997;Swain, 1997).…”