The Contribution of Immanent and Performed Accents to Emotional Expression in Short Tone Sequences

Musical factors such as harmony, mode, and rhythm may generate perceivable emotional characteristics in music. However, so far the study of emotion and music has been concerned with main effects of factors, ignoring the contribution of interactions between factors. Evidence from music perception suggests that there is interdependency between factors, for instance, that musical stress and serial orderings of notes affect perception of tonality. The hypotheses in the present study were that certain pitches relative to tonality are important for specific emotional expressions, and that their importance is further increased by being emphasized either by immanent or performed accents. Simple three-note sequences in different progressions were created, preceded by either a minor or major chord context. Certain presumably important notes in these sequences, called target-notes, were manipulated with regard to immanent accents (melodic, metric and rhythmic accents, Experiment 1) and furthermore regarding performed accents (loudness, articulation and timing, Experiment 2). Listening tests showed that accent on a relatively tense note enhanced the intensity of associated anger. A note essential for the identity of major mode affected perception of happiness, whereas a note essential for minor mode affected perception of sadness.