Emotions in Music (A Postscript)

Abstract

I should perhaps apologize for addressing this topic so soon after no less an authority than Peter Kivy seemed to announce in the pages of this journal that debate on it is over.1 In fact, however, by conceding that music can arouse ordinary emotions and even has a tendency to do so (a tendency, albeit, whose result remains unactualized for him and, in his view, for many other listeners), Kivy only ended debate (to his satisfaction) on that issue. He explicitly allowed for further discussion of the value of emotion properties in music, one of the topics I shall take up here. This question of value can be addressed both to those for whom arousal or feeling emotions perceived in music is central and to those, like Kivy, who do not feel the emotions (or similar states) they ascribe to musical pieces. Two further questions remain as well: How does music arouse emotions? (a question that Kivy believes has never been satisfactorily answered); and Are these really ordinary emotions that are aroused? (emotions that typically occur outside the context of listening to music as well).

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