The Emotional Power of Music
Eduardo Coutinho
The main interests of the Music & Emotion Focus are the causal basis and
experiential nature of the expressive powers of music, as well as the implications for
emotion regulation. In our research we address four fundamental issues: 1) the
types of emotions elicited by music; 2) the modulatory effects of individual,
contextual and cultural factors in emotional experiences with music; 3) the dynamic
pathways and underlying mechanisms whereby certain types of emotions are
elicited by music in the listener; and 4) the similarities and differences between vocal
and musical expression of emotion. We address these issues from a transdisciplinary
point of view, by bringing together a series of collaborations with philosophers,
psychologists, computer scientists, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, therapists,
artists, as well as with a various organizations, performance venues and music
festivals. Amongst our current research projects are: the creation of a new taxonomy
of emotions elicited by various music genres and their relation to the various
emotion components (e.g., subjective feelings, motor expression, appraisal); the
structural aspects of music that are determinant factors on the expression,
perception and production of emotion, and on the neuro-biological mechanisms
underlying the link between music perception, cognition and emotion; a special issue
centered on the discussion of the expression of emotion in music and voice; and
various studies on the role of individual and contextual factors on the emotions
produced by music in everyday life contexts .