Musical Emotions Explained

Stephanie Rocke, Emotions: History, Culture, Society ...Patrik Juslin's aim to explain listeners' musical emotions from a psychological perspective is fully achieved. Perhaps designed as a textbook for a course on music psychology, it also meets the needs of scholars from other disciplines; all terms are clearly explained regardless of their disciplinary origin, and little is assumed.

CHOICE Juslin connects music and emotion to all manner of other human processes (e.g., learning, memory, perception) and, most strikingly, to aesthetics. The author's direct engagement with aesthetic judgment helps lift the book from something like an impressive compendium (a list of references runs 45 pages) to something much grander and more important. That the writing is consistently friendly and personal, never clinical, is somewhat surprising. Through some magic discussion remains accessible to almost any mature reader, even as the author marches through his argument with remarkable precision. The book could prove especially useful to musicians and might prompt them to think differently about what they do.

Music Perception Handbook of Music and Emotion, by Patrik N. Juslin and John A. Sloboda, is an excellent book. It is comprehensive and up-to-date, well organized, well written, and stimulating.

Patrik N. Juslin is Professor of Psychology at Uppsala University in Sweden, where he directs their research and teaching in music psychology. His work focuses on the perception and experience of sound in music and speech, particularly in relation to emotion, also covering areas such as music education, health, music performance, and aesthetics. Juslin co-edited the Handbook of Music and Emotion (2010) together with John Sloboda, and has also previously worked semi-professionally as a guitar player.

Part I: Introduction 1: Setting the Stage: Overture in C Major 2: The Book's Composition: Aim and Structure 3: The Value of a Psychological Approach 4: Music, Experience, and Affect Part II: Expression and Perception of Emotion 5: What Is Meant by Emotional Expression? 6: Empirical Studies: What Have We Learned? 7: Music as Expression: Objections and Obstacles 8: Breaking the Code: The Musical Features 9: How Are Music and Emotion Links Studied? 10: Viewing Music Through a Brunswikian Lens 11: The Voice of Angels? Iconic Expression 12: Further Layers: Intrinsic and Associative Expression 13: Deviation From the Exact: The Role of the Performer Part III: Arousal of Emotion 14: Beyond Perception: When Music Moves Us 15: Does Music Arouse Emotions? How Do We Know? 16: The Prevalence of Emotional Reactions 17: How Does Music Arouse Emotions? 18: Jumping at Shadows: Brain Stem Reflex 19: Get Into the Groove: Rhythmic Entrainment 20: Mirroring the Expression: Contagion 21: Ring My Bell: Evaluative Conditioning 22: Blast From the Past: Episodic Memory 23: Seeing in the Mind's Eye: Visual Imagery 24: What Comes Next? Musical Expectancy 25: Predictions, Implications, Complications Part IV: Aesthetic Judgment 26: Aesthetics: The Hard Problem? 27: Traditional Approaches to Aesthetics 28: What's Special? Adopting the Aesthetic Attitude 29: Aesthetic Criteria: Meet the Usual Suspects! 30: A Novel Approach Towards Aesthetic Judgment 31: Aesthetics and Affect in Broader Perspective 32: The Last Chorus: Putting It All Together 33: Coda: Final Outlook Appendix: The Lens Model Equation