Blog 9 - Sounds and the Emotions (by O'Brian Davis)

In class we listened to several different sounds and recorded our emotional response to each. Some of these stimulated different emotional responses also, some of which were happiness, sadness, excitement, confusion, and peaceful. It is very interesting that the emotional responses were relative, when I had a sense of excitement others had a sense of joy or confusion. This discovery shows that each individual perceives music differently and thus have a specific emotional response to musical sounds depending on their interpretation of such sounds. In addition, when these individuals shared their emotional response sometimes I reconsidered my emotional response. I realized how easy one can attribute an emotional response of anxiousness and happiness, interchangeable, to the same musical sound, leading me to rethink my responses and carefully thinking about future responses. Sometimes I would record having both responses if I was unable to differentiate between emotions.