2nd International Conference for PhD Music Students
Kyri aki Zac h ar op o ulo u
De p artm ent of M usi c S tu die s, Arist otl e Uni ve rs ity of The ss alo niki, Gr ee ce
kyri akiz @m us. aut h. gr
The e d uc atio n al v al ue of m usi cal e moti o ns
Abst ra ct
This paper investigates the nature of musical emotions and their potential pedagogical
benefits, and also proposes some possible ways to successfully exploit them in the musical classroom.
A distinction is made between primary and secondary benefits of musical emotions: primary benefits
result directly from the internal qualities of music, as they originate from the induction or expression of
emotions that are evoked by music itself; secondary benefits emerge during musical activities as a
result of people's involvement with music, they constitute an outcome either of human relationships
that develop in the music community, or of personal involvement with the object of music. An attempt
is made to investigate the role of affect in music education, while implications for music teachers are
suggested.
Key wo rd s: musical emotions, music education
Emotions are the raw materials manipulated by composers and performers, they constitute
their incentive to create connections between sounds and external meanings. Therefore, emotions are
the main reason why music is a universal artefact of a diachronic value. As Blacking (1973) notes, no
matter how many years pass, when it comes -for example- to the Western European musical tradition,
the music of Bach, Beethoven, or the Beatles will always move listeners, and meanings will be
communicated, even to people from different cultural backgrounds. This power of music to evoke
emotions is acknowledged worldwide, and in some cases even considered to be supernatural or
magical (Kertz-Welzel 2005). Although music teachers are aware of these expressive and emotional
resonance qualities of music, a critical question arises: What is the value for music education of the
power of music in representing, evoking and communicating emotions?
Music educators could exploit the emotional power of music, in order to help their students
gain what I categorise as primary and secondary benefits. Firstly, I will explain which benefits I
categorise as “secondary”, (note this does not refer to their quality but to their origin). Secondary
benefits are those that result as a consequence of one's involvement with music, but do not emerge
from the inherent qualities of music. Moreover, secondary benefits may also result from other types of
art, and therefore are important not only for music teachers but also art teachers.
One of the secondary benefits is suggested by Kaschub (2002), who points out that the field of
2nd International Conference for PhD Music Students
music education is characterised by seven possibilities of interaction: the music teacher with herself,
the teacher with the other teachers, the student with himself, the student with the other students, the
teacher with the student, the teacher with the audience, and the student with the audience. In addition,
Kaschub reports that music educators have begun to pay attention to the advantages that result from
activities performed by peer groups, since these interactions seem to be very significant both for
personal learning and for the success of the group. Therefore, the development of this social
interaction - which is a type of emotional-social intelligence - through specially-designed musical
activities could benefit students. Music as a social activity is an excellent environment to cultivate the
perception and management of our social emotions. Indeed, one's perception of musical emotions
seems to share the same brain pathways with one's perception of everyday emotions in faces or
pictures (Resnicow, Salovey, and Repp 2004; Zacharopoulou and Kyriakidou 2008).
Interestingly, Mayer and Cobb (2000) propose the incorporation of the teaching of emotional
intelligence into the curricula of theoretical studies and creative arts. In particular, they suggest that the
educators in these fields should foster emotional reasoning - the reasoning that conditions emotions by asking students to figure out how the hero of a story feels and what emotions a musical piece or a
piece of art evoke. In other words, it is suggested that teachers activate students’ perception and
understanding of emotions. Mayer and Cobb argue that in this way, these lessons will “justify” their
presence in school education, by acquiring prestige and support.
Among the benefits that music affords are those that derive from the creation and production
of music. Activities such as music composition, performance, singing, or even the use of music and
other art forms in an interdisciplinary context could evoke intense, exciting and unprecedented
emotions in the students: emotions such as absorption, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation (Bakker
2005). In such states of flow or peak experiences (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), the role of the music
teachers is that of a facilitator whose goal is to help “students explore and continuously discover their
own creative personalities and, thus, empowering their personal involvement with music” (Lapidaki
2007: 107). The target of the music teachers should be the cultivation of the autonomous personality of
the students through the idiosyncratic transformation of the students’ experiences in music language,
by engaging novel approaches (Lapidaki 2007).
Multicultural societies are becoming a reality across the 21st century world as a consequence
of the large waves of immigration and general socio-economic changes during the 20th century (Banks
2002). This new situation raises questions for the community of music teachers in regard to the
political role of music in the new multicultural era (Lapidaki 2008). In fact, music could play a significant
role, since musical meanings may transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, particularly as music is
considered to be a universal language of emotions. Thus, the music teachers could guide their
students to listen, feel, compare and appraise musical pieces from different cultures, or even musical
pieces from the home countries of their co-students. In this way, students extend not only their musical
horizons, but also the horizons of their thought, while also learning how to understand themselves and
the “other”. In the same way, students with a different cultural origin can reshape their identity without
denying the cultural heritage of their parents, while at the same time discerning channels of
communication with the predominant culture.
Now I am going to refer to the primary benefits that emotional engagement with music may
2nd International Conference for PhD Music Students
produce, benefits which derive from musical emotions - emotions purely musical, benefits that
emphasize the uniqueness of music as an art. When language proves unable to express all that we
feel, or when it comes to the ineffable, music has the potential to express emotions in a unique way, in
a way that no other art form can. As Best (2004) puts it, “there is no substitute for music.” Music, due to
its inherent expressive qualities and its ability to denote extra-musical phenomena in a abstractive
way, maybe is a step forward in comparison to language. Renowned philosopher of music education
Bennett Reimer (2004) states that the experience of musical emotions is transformed in musical
experience, which may guide us to self-awareness and deep knowledge of our self. Music educators
“offer” experiences, and therefore learning, linked directly with the nature of consciousness. Reimer
characteristically comments:
“That is what makes music so special, I propose: its endless capacity to expand the
intricacies, depths, breadths, and diversities of conscious awareness, made available
to our minds and bodies through felt, sonic experiences” (2004: 27).
Finally, another kind of “primary” musical emotions are usually classified as “aesthetic”
emotions. Aesthetic emotions aroused by music have been discussed by philosophers of music since
the time of Plato. In particular, these emotions derive from the perception of the musical form, and
constitute a result of the cognitive assessment of the artistic object and its aesthetic value (Scherer
2004). Indeed, Robinson (2005) points out that listeners pay attention to expressive and structural
features of the music due to their emotional responses. Therefore, music teachers should expose
their students to as many aesthetic experiences as possible, and provide them with aesthetic literacy.
In this way, students may develop the cognitive processing of their musical or other art experiences
(Reimer 1992), an action that requires both feeling and thinking evolving in an interleaved manner,
which is practically weakening the Cartesian theory of the human mind as separate from emotional
processes, while supporting the claim that emotions play a central role in human decision making
(Damasio 1996), and therefore musical thinking.
Ack no wle d gem e nt
The author would like to thank Theodoros Lioris for helpful discussions on different aspects of the
emotional experience of music.
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2nd International Conference for PhD Music Students
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