Two professional drummers were instructed to play three rhythm patterns on a set of electronic drums so as to communicate specific emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful, tender, solemn, and no expression) to listeners. Listening tests confirmed that listeners on the whole perceived the intended expressions. Analyses of the acoustic variables available to the performers (i.e. tempo, dynamics, and timing) showed characteristic patterns of cue utilisation for each intended emotion. The results are discussed in relation to earlier research on communication of emotions in music performance and non-verbal vocal expression.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Balkwill, L.-L.
and Thompson, W. F. (1999). A cross-cultural investigation of the perception of emotion in music: Psychophysical and cultural cues. Music Perception, 17, 43-64.
2.
Behrens, G. A.
and Green, S. B. (1993). The ability to identify emotional content of solo improvisations performed vocally and on three different instruments. Psychology of Music, 21, 20-33.
3.
Bengtsson, I.
and Gabrielsson, A. (1980). Methods for analyzing performance of musical rhythm. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 21, 257-268.
4.
Clarke, E. F.
(1985). Structure and expression in rhythmic performance. In: P. Howell, I. Cross, and R. West (Eds.), Musical structure and cognition, pp. 209-236. London: Academic Press.
5.
Cohen, J.
(1988). Statistical power analysisfor the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). New York: Academic Press.
6.
Ekman, P.
(1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169-200.
7.
Friberg, A.
and Sundstrm, A. (1999). Jazz drummers' swing ratio in relation to tempo. Paper presented at the Acoustical Society of America ASA/EAA/DAGA '99 Meeting, Berlin, Germany.
8.
Frick, R. W.
(1985). Communicating emotion: The role of prosodic features. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 412-429.
9.
Gabrielsson, A.
(1988). Timing in music performance and its relations to music experience. In: J. A. Sloboda (Ed.), Generative processes in music: The psychology of perfornance, improvisation, and composition, pp. 27-51. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
10.
Gabrielsson, A.
(1995). Expressive intention and performance. In: R. Steinberg (Ed.), Music and the mind machine, pp. 35-47. New York: Springer.
11.
Gabrielsson, A.
(1999). The performance of music. In: D. Deutsch (Ed.), The psychology of music (2nd ed.), pp. 501-602). San Diego, CA.: Academic Press.
12.
Gabrielsson, A.
and Juslin, P. N. (1996). Emotional expression in music performance: Between the performer's intention and the listener's experience. Psychology of Music, 24, 68-91.
13.
Gabrielsson, A.
and Juslin, P. N. (in press). Expression in music. In: R. J. Davidson, H. H. Goldsmith, and K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences. New York: Oxford University Press.
14.
Gabrielsson, A.
and Lindstrom, E. (1995). Emotional expression in synthesiser and sentograph performance. Psychomusicology, 14, 94-116.
15.
Juslin, P. N.
(1997). Emotional communication in music performance: A functionalist perspective and some data. Music Perception, 14, 383-418.
16.
Juslin, P. N.
and Laukka, P. (in press). Improving emotional communication in music performance through cognitive feedback. Musicae Scientiae.
17.
Juslin, P. N.
and Madison, G. (1999). The role of timing patterns in recognition of emotional expression from musical performance. Music Perception, 17, 197-221.
18.
Laukka, P. (1997). Emotional expression in drumming performance. Unpublished C-level thesis, Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
19.
Ohgushi, K.
and Hattori, M. (1996). Emotional communication in performance of vocal music. In: B. Pennycook and E. Costa-Giomi (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, pp. 269-274. McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
20.
Palmer, C.
(1997). Music performance. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 115-138.
21.
Pittam, J.
and Scherer, K. R. (1993). Vocal expression and communication of emotion. In: M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, pp. 185-197. New York: Guilford Press.
22.
Plutchik, R.
(1994). The psychology and biology of emotion. New York: Harper-Collins College Publishers.
23.
Rose, R. F.
(1989). An analysis of timing in jazz rhythm section performances. Dissertation Abstracts International, 50, 3509A-3510A. (University Microfilms No. 9005520.)
24.
Scherer, K. R.
(1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143-165.
25.
Ternstrom, S.
(1996). Soundswell Signal Workstation v 3.4. Computer software, Soundswell Music Acoustics HB: Stockholm, Sweden.
