What does it mean to say of a piece of instrumental music that it has Essay

What does it mean to say of a piece of instrumental music that it has certain emotional qualities - Essay Example A musical instrument being an expression of emotion in a persona or number of characters, the listener is right to imagine, in accordance with the nature and development of the music, a persona undergoing an emotion or series of emotions, or a number of characters doing so. Hence, it can be said that the idea that the emotional qualities of music are such that they are liable to induce an emotional response in the listener. This liability in a musical instrument need not be thought of as a disposition of the emotional quality of a piece of music to arouse a corresponding emotion in listeners who perceive the quality. When it comes to the use of musical instruments, a very great deal depends on the correct conception of the emotions. A common view is the so-called cognitive theory of the emotions, which is adhered to by the principal of philosophical sceptic about music’s ability to arouse emotions of the garden variety. The cognitive theory exists in many forms, which differ in both the number and nature of the elements of which emotions are said to be composed. What is definitive of the theory is that it represents each type of emotion as being defined by a particular kind of proposition or thought plus some combinations of bodily sensations, he donic tones, and feelings. Therefore, when the emotion is experienced, prompted by something perceived, imagined, or thought about, it will have a real or imaginary object upon which it is directed, the emotion being about this intentional object (Lippman, 46). Scepticism about pure instrumental music’s ability to stimulate extra-musical emotions in a listener in an artistically relevant manner arises at once from the fact that music is a non-representational form of art, presenting no scenes or actions that the listener might respond to emotionally as the viewer of a film or the reader of a novel might. Although instrumental music is extremely limited in its imitative capacity, it may nevertheless produce all the effects of imitation. Instrumental music can excite different dispositions, but it cannot imitate them. Furthermore, instrumental music has certain instrumental intrinsic qualities of an emotional nature and that these qualities excite corresponding feelings in the listener. Instrumental music, it is claimed, operates at the emotional level by some systems of resemblances. Such psychological manifestations of emotional state are an extremely important stimulus in interpersonal interaction; sensitivity to them and interpretation of them are essential social skills. However, to explain emotional response to instrumental music as occurring solely in terms of iconic resemblances between features of the music and physical expressions of emotion, is under-representing the complexity of the response to this aspect of the music. Therefore, whatever the philosophical or semantic concerns, the implication of the much preceding evidence remains that we process emotion in musical sounds, whether vocal or instrumental, in the same way as vocalizations of affective state. The acoustic signals used in the production and perception of emotion in instrumental music appear to be the same as those used in vocal utterances, such as high intensity and harsh timbre for anger, low intensity and tempo and slow vibrato for sadness, whilst variation in timing and intensity typifies fear (Cochrane, Fantini & Scherer, 58) . The processing and production of instrumental music involves important social-emotional capabilities which can be evidenced by studies of performance of music by individuals with Williams syndrome, and autism. A well-known feature of