Legal Commentary

?Major and Minor Music Compared to Excited and Subdued Speech?

By Eugene Volokh

Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log) links to Daniel L. Bowling, Kamraan Gill, Jonathan D. Choi, Joseph Prinz, and Dale Purves, Major and Minor Music Compared to Excited and Subdued Speech, 127 Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 491 (2010); here?s the Conclusion (paragraph break added):

In most aspects of music ? e.g., intensity, tempo, and rhythm ? the emotional quality of a melody is conveyed at least in part by physical imitation in music of the characteristics of the way a given emotion is expressed in human behavior. Here we asked whether the same principle might apply to the affective impact of the different tone collections used in musical compositions.

The comparisons of speech and music we report show that the spectral characteristics of excited speech more closely reflect the spectral characteristics of intervals in major music, whereas the spectral characteristics of subdued speech more closely reflect the spectral characteristics of intervals that distinguish minor music. Routine associations made between the spectra of speech uttered in different emotional states and the spectra of thirds and sixths in major and minor music thus provide a plausible basis for the different emotional effects of these different tone collections in music.

I haven?t read the article, nor do I have the knowledge needed to evaluate it; but it sounds interesting, so I thought I?d pass it along.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).