Sharing experienced sadness : Negotiating meanings of self-defined sad music within a group interview session

Abstract

Sadness induced by music listening has been a popular research focus in music and emotion research. Despite the wide consensus in affective sciences that emotional experiences are social processes, previous studies have only concentrated on individuals. Thus, the intersubjective dimension of musical experience – how music and music-related emotions are experienced between individuals – has not been investigated. In order to tap into shared emotional experiences, group discussions about experiences evoked by sad music were facilitated. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed four levels of discourses in the sharing of experiences evoked by joint music listening: (1) describing the emotional experience, (2) describing the music, (3) interpreting the music, and (4) describing autobiographical associations. Negotiated meanings of musical expression and emotional content were present. When exposed to different types of music and musical expression, the informants distinguished various kinds of sadness with distinct meanings. Shared experiences were affected by expectations of the musical style, structure, and performance, as well as expectations of the emotional content of music. Additionally, social norms and cultural conventions played important roles in the negotiations.