Durham University
Researchers at Durham University, UK and the University of
Jyväskylä, Finland, said their findings could have implications for how music
therapy and rehabilitation could help people's moods.
The
musicologists looked at the emotional experiences associated with sad music of
2,436 people across three large-scale surveys in the UK and Finland.
They
identified the reasons for listening to sad music, and emotions involved in
memorable experiences related to listening to sad music.
Writing in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, the researchers said that the majority of people surveyed highlighted the enjoyable nature of such experiences, which in general lead to clear improvement of mood.
The
researchers said that listening to sad music led to feelings of pleasure
related to enjoyment of the music in some people, or feelings of comfort where
sad music evoked memories in others.
However,
a significant portion of people also reported painful experiences associated
with listening to sad music, which invariably related to personal loss such as
the death of a loved one, divorce, breakup, or other significant adversity in
life.
The
research was funded by the Academy of Finland.
Lead
researcher Professor Tuomas Eerola, Professor of Music Cognition in the
Department of Music, Durham University, said: "Previous research in music
psychology and film studies has emphasised the puzzling pleasure that people
experience when engaging with tragic art.
"However,
there are people who absolutely hate sad-sounding music and avoid listening to
it. In our research, we wanted to investigate this wide spectrum of experiences
that people have with sad music, and find reasons for both listening to and
avoiding that kind of music.
"The
results help us to pinpoint the ways people regulate their mood with the help
of music, as well as how music rehabilitation and music therapy might tap into
these processes of comfort, relief, and enjoyment.
"The
findings also have implications for understanding the paradoxical nature of
enjoyment of negative emotions within the arts and fiction."
Study
co-author Dr Henna-Riikka Peltola from the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland
said sad music led to mixed emotions.
Dr
Peltola added: "There seem to be two types of enjoyable experiences evoked
by sad music listening.
"In
these instances, music is typically the central source of these experiences,
and aesthetic qualities were very much involved in the experienced pleasure.
"Alternatively,
sad music is also associated with a set of emotions that give comfort to the
listener, and where memories and associations play a strong part of making the
experience pleasant. These experiences were often mentioned to confer relief
and companionship in difficult situations of life.
"However,
a large number of people also associated sad music with painful experiences.
Such intense experiences seemed to be mentally and even physically straining,
and thus far from pleasurable."
The
three types of experience associated with listening to sad music (pleasure, comfort
and pain) were found across the different surveys.
The
researchers added that experiences of enjoyable sadness were not affected by
gender or age, although musical expertise and interest in music seemed to
amplify these feelings.
Older
people reported stronger experiences of comforting sadness, while strong
negative feelings when listening to sad music were more pronounced for younger
people and women.
Each
type of emotional experience associated with sad music could be connected to a
distinct profile of reasons, psychological mechanisms, and reactions, the
researchers added.
Professor
Eerola added: "We think that this demonstrates well the functional nature
of these experiences.
"Although
the positive experiences seemed to be the most frequently associated with sad
music, truly negative experiences are not uncommon in any of the samples in our
research."
Commenting
on the study Professor Jörg Fachner, Professor of Music, Health and the Brain,
at Anglia Ruskin University, who was not part of the research team, said:
"This study confirms that music therapists can work with authentic
experiences when using music representing the sorrowful and painful content of
sad life events such as the death of a spouse or child.
"Some
people enjoy sad music and derive a lot of comfort out of such music in certain
situations but when a particular piece of music becomes a container for a
negative emotion related to a personal or environmental challenge, a music
therapist would carefully start working on its representations.
"A
skillful, trained music therapist can sense and adapt to the individual meaning
of the sad music representing negative experiences and memories as described in
this study."