While most humans experience deep emotions when listening to music, our understanding of what makes it happy or sad doesn’t seem universal, according to new research.
“The degree of familiarity with major and minor music plays an important role”
Conducted by Australian researchers, this new study published in the journal PLoS One was mainly interested in emotional perception of musique major and minor. In Western cultures, the first is almost systematically considered as happy, and the second as sad : transposing a major melody into a minor key seems to instantly introduce a feeling of mourning or melancholy.
It appears that such emotional associations are not shared by some isolated communities of Papua New Guinealittle exposed to Western music.
« The degree of familiarity with major and minor music plays an important role in the perception of the former as happy and the latter as sad “, Explain Eline Smithlead author of the study.
To reach these conclusions, Smit and his colleagues examined the emotional associations of major and minor tones in people living in Sydney and in several villages in the valley of the river Uruwa in Papua. The latter is only accessible by small plane or after several days of walking, and its various communities have similar musical traditions but varying levels of familiarity with Western-style music.
Surprising results
The scientists played various recordings combining a major melody and a minor melody or a chord progression to the participants, who had to indicate which tune made them happy.
« Western listeners and most Papua bands exposed to Western music were more likely to say the major chord progression or melody was the happiest “, Explain Smit. « The group from Papua with little exposure to Western music showed no preference and were just as likely to choose the minor version. »
Although these works show the importance of the degree of familiarity in the emotional perception of music, Smit stresses that this does not mean that there are no universal answers concerning it.