Music Structure and Emotional Response: Some Empirical Findings

TLDR

Eighty-three listeners completed a questionnaire on physical reactions to music and identified specific passages that reliably evoked those reactions. More than 80% of respondents reported shivers, laughter, tears, and a lump in the throat, with tears most reliably triggered by sequences and appoggiaturas and shivers by unexpected harmonies, supporting emotion theories based on expectation confirmation and violation.

Abstract

Eighty-three music listeners completed a questionnaire in which thev provided information about the occurrence of a range of physical reactions while listening to music. Shivers down the spine, laughter, tears and lump in the throat were reported by over 80(% of respondents. Respondents were asked to locate specific musical passages that reliably evoked such responses. Structural analysis of these passages showed that tears were most reliablN evoked by passages containing sequences and appogiaturas, while shivers were most reliably evoked by passages containing new or unexpected harmonies. The data generally support theoretical approaches to elmotion based on confirmations and violations of expectancv.