Subjectivity, Emotion, and Meaning in Music Perception

Department of Musicology, University of Graz, Austria (8-point) kessler@gewi.uni-graz.at http://www.uni-graz.at/muwi/kessler.html

Annekatrin Kessler

Department of Philosophy, University of Innsbruck, Austria klaus.puhl@uibk.ac.at http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/c6/c602/puhl.html

Klaus Puhl

In: R. Parncutt, A. Kessler & F. Zimmer (Eds.) Proceedings of the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM04) Graz/Austria, 15-18 April, 2004 http://gewi.uni-graz.at/~cim04/ Background in music psychology. Emotion and meaning in music can in general be studied in two different ways. On the one hand, empirical aesthetics (e.g. Berlyne 1971) tries to explain responses to music such as pleasure, preference, or physiological responses (e.g. arousal) by analysing informational properties of the music (complexity, structure, tempo, mode etc.). On the other hand, researchers investigate the function of music and its emotional qualities in everyday life (e.g. Sloboda 2001). Both quantitative and qualitative methods in music psychology try to generate meaning and emotion in music at the expense of actual, individual experience. Some approaches (e.g. Imberty 1979, 1981), however, try to link musical structures, musical expressivity and psychoanalytical concepts. Background in music philosophy. Phenomenology and postmodern philosophy criticise traditional psychologys construction of a subject as a closed entity. This concept was deconstructed by e.g. Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, who argued that the separation of any phenomenon from the observer as rational/conscious entity (Kant, Descartes) is a metaphysic construction. Ecos concept of openness of art and a postmodern concept of subjectivity give rise to a new way of describing music perception in which semiosis (motion of meaning) plays a major role (cf. Monelle 1992). Aims. Criticising psychological methods from a philosophical/postmodern point of view, we aim to explore the implications of a description of meaning and emotion in music as subjective/contingent qualities. Ecos concept of openness of art (in particular the differences between his 1st and 2nd categories) will be investigated empirically by combining psychoanalytic, semiotic and traditional music-psychological methods. Method. 6 postgraduate students of musicology were asked to listen to and later discuss the Confutatis of the Requiem by W. A. Mozart (Eco's 1st category of openness; questionnaire 1 and interview 1) and Six by John Cage (Eco's 2nd category of openness; questionnaire 2 and interview 2). Questionnaires 1 and 2 investigated similarities and differences between participants concerning the perception of meaning and emotion within the two pieces. Interviews 1 and 2 were unstructured and based on the participants' former (written) statements; here, participants reflected upon their own statements and related their musical experiences to their personal history. Results. The participants' statements were consistent with a concept of music perception as inextricably connected to the conscious and unconscious experiences of the present and the past (contingencies) of each person. Musical experience can be regarded as an interaction among cultural meaning, subject position/identity, and subjective contingencies. Conclusions. Meaning and emotion in music can only be described objectively by ignoring the subjective contingencies (cf. Rorty 1989) that enable musical experience. The subjective experience corresponding to Ecos idea of openness in art can be investigated using methods derived from psychoanalysis and postmodern analysis. An empirical method that allows participants to explore personal associations and respects individual differences is necessary if music is to be understood as a cultural phenomenon.

This qualitative study is based, on the one hand, on a broad concept of the subject/person and, on the other hand, on an open (see below) or deconstructed concept of the musical work. Those concepts are related to each other by definition and have implications for methods of investigating music perception, especially the structures of

meaning and emotion within music perception. Perception may be regarded as a process of communication between the perceived object and the perceiving subject that always takes place in a certain cultural, social, and historical context.

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The concept of the subject

How can the subject in music perception be defined or characterised? What implications does the concept of the perceiving subject have on the concept of the work of music, and vice versa? Phenomenological psychology Phenomenological psychology (cf. Herzog 1992) and critical psychology (cf. Hollway 1949) have criticised the concept of the subject within quantitative psychology. Based on the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, who aimed to delimit the fields of research of natural sciences from human sciences according to the concept of the person (Husserl 1952), it is claimed that human experience and meaning are inherently qualitative and should thus be investigated qualitatively. The constitution of each phenomenon is dependent on concrete structures of meaning (cultural and individual). Perception always takes place from certain cultural and subjective positions. The subject in music perception Our study is based on a phenomenological concept of the subject; i.e. we tried to allow the subject to appear in all its aspects (see list below). People react to music not only in a cognitive or vegetative way, but experience music according to their cultural and subjective position. We distinguish between the following main aspects of the subject, which, however, cannot be (are not necessarily) separated in perception itself, but which can be analysed reflectively:
cultural identity national identity sexual identity (gender) temporal identity (being the same person through time) bodily identity

personal history, i.e. to the subjective and contingent experiences of each individual. By means of the psychoanalytic method of free association (Freud), unconscious structures of meaning can appear and thus be reflected upon by the subject. Our method allows for the possibility that in our actual perception (of music) we are also influenced by unconscious aspects of the subject. Music therapy Music therapy, when understood as psychotherapy, is based on the idea of projection (cf. Decker-Voigt 2000 p. 216). During the process of perception the patient projects into and perceives in music the above mentioned conscious and unconscious aspects of the subject. Perception becomes a process by which the meaning of a given object is constituted by the perceiver. Thus, music therapy has phenomenological roots. While talking about a certain perceived piece of music, the patient becomes able to reflect structures of meaning that had before been unconscious.

Ecos openness of the work of art

In his book The Open Work, Umberto Eco aims to show that the concept of a musical work cannot be described independently from the perceiving subject, for it is open to a diversity of interpretations and ways of perception. The amount of information carried by a piece of music, for example, cannot be determined objectively, because it depends on the way the music is perceived by a certain subject in a certain social and cultural context (Eco 1977 pp. 132-139). Eco distinguishes between two categories of openness within his concept of the work of art: 1st category According to Eco, this type of openness is the basis of every act of perception (cf. MerleauPonty 1945 pp. 381-383). Every phenomenon can be perceived in many different ways depending on the perceiving subject. Western classical music, like any work of art, is fundamentally open to an ambiguity of interpretation and perception, although the inherent and composed musical structure does not change.

Psychoanalysis The above-mentioned aspects of the subject may never be completely conscious. Through unconscious-ness, they are associatively connected both among each other and to the

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2nd category This category of openness applies to many compositions of the 20th century, e.g. to compositions by Luciano Berio and John Cage (cf. Eco 1977 p. 55). Here, the openness of the musical work and the freedom within music perception is not only an epistemological but also an aesthetic fact. By means of aleatoric methods, for example, the traditional concept of the work is destroyed. Unlike the concept of the musical work as closed entity, the inherent structure of such pieces is in many aspects open, both to the performer and to the listener. According to Eco, this category of openness is characterised by a higher degree of information than the first category.

experiences with this music, i.e. the statements should be similar both according to the vocabulary and to the cultural meaning (similar music-historical knowledge.) 2. So the individual differences in emotion and meaning should be easily distinguishable from the inter-individual common meanings. 3. Subjects personal interest in a musicological investigation should motivate their frankness towards the investigator. 4. Subjects and the investigator use about the same scientific language. 5. Musicologists should be used to reflecting upon their musical experiences.

Qualitative investigation
We aimed to investigate the intersubjective similarities and subjective differences, and Umberto Ecos concepts of 1st and 2nd category of openness of the musical work, within music perception: Method 6 postgraduate students of musicology each filled in two questionnaires and attended two interviews. They were asked to listen to and later discuss the Confutatis of the Requiem by W. A. Mozart (Eco's 1st category of openness; questionnaire 1 and interview 1) and Six by John Cage (Eco's 2nd category of openness; questionnaire 2 and interview 2). Questionnaires 1 and 2 investigated similarities and differences between participants concerning the perception of meaning and emotion within the two pieces. Interviews 1 and 2 were unstructured and based on the participants' former (written) statements. Subjects. According to the qualitative method in psychology, subjects were chosen systematically. The following characteristics of the subject pool (theoretical sampling), all postgraduate students of musicology, should contribute to a clarification of the main questions of this study:
1. Subjects have comparable a level of education, and probably also comparable

Musical pieces. The two pieces as examples for U. Ecos two categories of openness - were chosen for the following reasons: Confutatis from the Requiem by W. A. Mozart is well known and relatively simple in its structure. Because of its traditional harmony, its Christian motives, and its big contrasts in timbre we expected the above mentioned aspects of the subject (cultural identity, gender, body etc.) to be evoked easily. The piece Six by John cage (composed for 6 percussionists in 1991), was chosen because of the aleatoric principle according to which it was composed and its large diversity of timbre. According to Umberto Eco, this piece should allow a wider range of interpretations, i.e. perceived emotions and meanings. Open questionnaire. Before responding to the open questionnaire, subjects were asked to listen to the music several times. Then, they were first asked to write down all thoughts, feelings, bodily impressions, recollections, and associations that come to their minds while listening to the music (question 1), and later asked them to try and

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connect those thoughts, feelings etc. to some musical parameters and/or to the text (question 2). Unstructured interview. The unstructured interview was based on the questionnaire. Here, we took up the basic ideas, concepts, and emotional words that the subject had written and asked him/her for some further information; e.g. we asked the person what he/her associates with a certain concept or word. By this process of communication the different aspects of the subject (see above) should come into light and the subjects musical experiences should be related to their personal history. Transcriptions. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. However, instead of transcribing only the content of the subjects statements, we noted every aspect of speech that could have meaning, e.g. intonation, pauses, and speed. This should help interpreting the interview in its deep structure. Examples Mozart. With the Confutatis, the intersubjective sphere was the opposition of power versus weakness that was associated with the timbre of the voices (men versus women), the instruments (trumpets, percussive bass lines etc.), the dynamic and the emphatic rhythm, and could be related to bodily reactions (high versus low tension/arousal). On the basis of this, almost every participant perceived and interpreted this opposition with different priorities. The aspect of power, for example, was experienced as either political, sexual, moral, or religious. How come, people react so differently to a piece of music, of which the meaning seems to be so obvious? One female participant experienced the gender aspect very clearly. Further associations with the power of the men choir were fear, threatening, martial and evil. The women choir was experienced as tender and comforting. Identifying with the women, she explained in the interview that this was her concept of man in general, which in turn was associated with the relationship to her father.

Cage. Here again, participants had in common the perception of an opposition linked to the texture of the music. This opposition was interpreted as silence/peace versus motion/noise/John Cage in a lumber-room. This was further associated with the oppositions mechanic/city/traffic versus nature/avenue and meditative versus disturbing. While nature was not consistently associated with silence but also with noise, disturbing and motion, nature was consistently perceived as pleasant and city or traffic as unpleasant. So the aesthetic evaluation did not depend on the musical texture but on its interpretation. Those associations could again be linked to the personal history of the participants, but in a more superficial way: one participant said she heard the traffic because she once heard a performance using traffic noises. Another participant said the music would remind her of some music she used for meditation although the disturbing elements prevented her from falling into a meditative state. In general, identification played a minor role while certain pictures from our daily life were the main experienced meanings. Interpretation The results suggest that emotion and meaning in music perception differ according to the applied method of interrogation and the piece, i.e. 1st vs. 2nd category of openness of the work of art, and can be distinguished into a subjective and an intersubjective sphere. Questionnaire versus interview. In the open questionnaire, subjects in general answered in a more superficial way than during the interview. As a consequence, we found more inter-individual similarities of perceived meaning and emotion within the written statements. But, based on those similarities, subjects interpreted and thus experienced the music in slightly different ways. During the interview, we tried to find out why those experiences differed in certain ways, and found that each interpretation was dependent on the subject position/identity that each person had taken towards the

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music. This subject position in turn could be explained by the individual experiences that each person associated with certain perceived emotions or meanings. Mozart versus Cage. According to Umberto Ecos theory of the open work, the piece by John Cage should evoke a much larger diversity of subjective meaning than the piece by W.A. Mozart, while the piece by Mozart should generate a larger sphere of common meanings than the piece by Cage. This could not be confirmed. Although the process of perception was very similar for both pieces, namely an interaction among cultural/inter-subjective meaning, subject position/identity, and subjective contingencies, the main difference in perception between those two pieces seems to be the fact that for the Confutatis the subject position appeared much clearer. Subjects said it was due to the lack of traditional musical structure (cultural identity) that they could not really identify themselves with the piece by Cage and consequently did not have as many associations with their personal history. Subjectivity versus inter-subjectivity. The results reinforce our assumption that music perception can be distinguished into a subjective and an inter-subjective sphere of emotion and meaning. This inter-subjective sphere can be explained in terms of timbre and contour, i.e. within our culture we seem to have learned to associate certain timbres (including dynamic and instrumentation) with certain meanings and emotions. E.g. within the Confutatis, the men choir along with its fortissimo, the rhythm and the trumpets etc. was associated with power and strength, while the soft melodic lines of the women choir accompanied mainly by violins was associated with weakness. Based on this very fundamental intersubjective sphere, e.g. the opposition between power and weakness, however, each subject perceived and interpreted the music in its own way depending on its subject position and its personal background.

Implications
The interviews reinforced the assumption that emotion and meaning in music perception is constituted by a process of interaction among cultural (inter-subjective) meaning, subject position/identity, and subjective contingencies. What implications does this have for other musicological disciplines? Aesthetic considerations Our study might help to clarify a discussion between Umberto Eco and the American Pragmatist Richard Rorty. Some years after publishing The Open Work, Umberto Eco came up with the idea of the intentio operis (cf. Eco 1996). By this notion, Eco restricts his former model of the open work by claiming that every work of art can be interpreted and perceived in only a limited number of ways (hermetic semiosis). The communication between the intention of the perceiver and the intentio of the work of art is determined by the coherent structure of the work of art itself. Eco calls such interpretations that go beyond the intentio operis over-interpretations. Richard Rorty criticises this idea of the intentio operis vehemently, saying that every work of art is exclusively constituted by its interpretation or perception; we cannot step out of the hermeneutic circle. (cf. Eco 1996) Our study suggests that instead of talking of an intentio operis or of over-interpretations, we should accept the fact that the perception of a certain piece of music changes individually depending on the perceiving subject. There is, however, a sphere of intersubjective, similarly experienced emotions and meanings, which can be explained either by traditional conventions or by bodily reactions common to all human beings or both. Implications for a Semantic Analysis Music analysis is usually based on the concept of an ideal, epsitemic subject (cf. Imberty 1997), which means that the actual experience of music - taking place in a certain time and on a certain place, i.e. in a

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certain social and historical context - is not taken into account. Instead, traditional music analysis is oriented by the idea of music per se. If we give up thinking about the work of art as a unit or closed entity, we also need to give up the epistemic subject. Analysing music could then be based on empirical studies such as the one we presented in this paper.

Summary
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the two spheres of cultural/inter-subjective vs. contingent/ subjective meaning and emotion in music perception. We assumed that the subject of music perception is affected by music in many ways and aspects, which in turn interact with the perceived emotions and meanings. Only a broad concept of the subject and a corresponding method is able to bring those dimensions into light. We wanted to test Umberto Ecos two categories of openness of the musical work empirically, i.e. whether a piece by John Cage evokes a much larger diversity of subjective meaning than a piece by W.A. Mozart, and whether a piece by Mozart generates a larger sphere of common meanings than a piece by Cage. The interview transcripts are consistent with a view of music perception as an interaction among cultural meaning, subject position, and subjective/contingent meaning. This idea emerged when unstructured interviews allowed participants to explore their personal associations. Umberto Ecos model of the open work could only be confirmed for the openness of 1st category (see paragraph above). The piece by John Cage that we regarded as a good example for the openness of 2nd category did not evoke a greater diversity of emotions and meanings than the piece by Mozart but rather a small range of similar interpretations.

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