Emotion in Music: Nurture or Nature?

**Frownland** · 01-20-2017, 12:38 PM

It's probably been discussed here already but I couldn't find any threads and it's been on my mind lately.

Conventionally speaking, major keys are "happy", minor keys are "sad". We hear a guitarist add vibrato or some edge to their playing and we consider it emotive compared to the to the books rendition of, say, Mozart. Is this innate or is it learned? Do we naturally interpret dissonance as ugly, or is this only a product of being exclusively exposed (relatively speaking) to consonance?

Both science and conjecture based comments are welcome.

01-20-2017, 12:38 PM	#1 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	Emotion in Music: Nurture or Nature? It's probably been discussed here already but I couldn't find any threads and it's been on my mind lately. Conventionally speaking, major keys are "happy", minor keys are "sad". We hear a guitarist add vibrato or some edge to their playing and we consider it emotive compared to the to the books rendition of, say, Mozart. Is this innate or is it learned? Do we naturally interpret dissonance as ugly, or is this only a product of being exclusively exposed (relatively speaking) to consonance? Both science and conjecture based comments are welcome. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x