Blog 10: Music and Emotion

In Kathleen Higgins book, The Music of Our Lives, she discusses about music and the emotions that are revealed when listening to music. There are three theories regarding the relationship between emotions and music. The first is the Imitation Theory which states that music imitates emotion, the second is the Arousal Theory which states that music arouses emotion, and the Expression Theory which states that music expresses emotion. Though it is difficult to accurately correlate music and emotion, I believe these three theories are a great start. I believe that different genre's of music causes different emotions to be portrayed or expressed. Now the debate is whether the composer meant to portray those certain emotions or is it the interpretation of the listener? It is also debated whether the emotions of the composer is expressed through their music. I believe it is difficult to answer these questions as well as explain why certain genre's of music are associated with certain emotions. However it is evident that these are emotions are present. It is difficult to not have any sort of emotion when listening to music. Therefore, Higgins poses a great argument in this passage.