Psychology of Music

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ali, S. O.
Right arrow Articles by Peynircioglu, Z. F.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Psychology of Music, Vol. 34, No. 4, 511-534 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0305735606067168

Songs and emotions: are lyrics and melodies equal partners?

S. Omar Ali

Zehra F. Peynircioglu

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC

We explored the role of lyrics and melodies in conveying emotions in songs. Participants rated the intensity of four types of emotions in instrumental music or the same music paired with lyrics. Melodies and lyrics conveyed the same intended emotion in Experiments 1 and 3 but were mismatched in Experiments 2 and 4. The major findings in Experiments 1 and 2 were that lyrics detracted from the emotion in happy and calm music (positive emotions), but enhanced the emotion in sad and angry music (negative emotions). In all cases, melodies of songs were more dominant than the lyrics in eliciting emotions. In addition, in Experiments 3 and 4, the emotion in the songs appeared to transfer, simply by association, to pictures of common objects arbitrarily paired with the songs.

Key Words: circumplex theory • music


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Psychology of MusicHome page
Z. F. Peynircioglu, B. E. Rabinovitz, and J. L.W. Thompson
Memory and metamemory for songs: the relative effectiveness of titles, lyrics, and melodies as cues for each other
Psychology of Music, January 1, 2008; 36(1): 47 - 61.
[Abstract] [PDF]