Inducing Emotions through Music and the Role of Musical Education

Emotions represent short and intense reactions to a particular event, consisting of a cognitive component, subjective feeling, physiological reaction, expression, and tendency of action. Although the relationship between emotions and music can be observed through each of these components, the primary aspect refers to inducing emotions in the listener, whereby listening to musical excerpts of different emotional coloration, motivated by diverse musical structure, causes an emotional response in the listener, including a proper physiological reaction. Based on the research review, the paper highlights a complex and often contradictory phenomenon of recognizing one's own emotions, thereby establishing a clear distinction between the emotions that music expresses and the emotions induced in listeners by specific music. Following the experiences of previous studies, a research has been carried out to examine the relationship between age, music education, familiarity with a musical excerpt, and the experience of emotions induced by a musical piece. In the research, participants were exposed to listening to music examples, and with each example, by selecting one of the six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, excitement, and calmness) on a scale from 1 (not emotional) of 5 (extremely emotional) the emotion they experienced. Along with the experienced emotion, the respondents assessed on a scale from 1 (not familiar) to 2 (well-known) their familiarity with a particular piece of music. The students of the fifth and seventh grade of elementary school, first and third grade of grammar school. The research results point to the importance of familiarity and education in experiencing music, and this research has updated the need for widespread and interdisciplinary study of listening to music.