Comunicating emotions in Brazilian music: a comparison between the accoustic code used by classical and popular pianists

• Grant number: 10/00799-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: February 28, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Antônio Rafael Carvalho dos Santos
• Grantee: Danilo Ramos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the acoustic code used in musical performances of pieces from the Brazilian repertoire by pianists of popular and classical backgrounds in the process of emotional communication to its listeners. To this end, two studies will be done. In the first, classical and popular pianists will be invited to record pieces of Brazilian music (duration: one minute), belonging to the repertoire of free choice, being able to trigger Joy, Sadness, Serenity, Love, Fear and Anger in the listeners; in addition, each pianist will explain why each song was related to each emotion. In a second phase, listeners musicians (classical and popular) and non-musicians will make tasks associated with listening and evaluation of each piece of music recorded in the first phase through semantic differential scales related to the same emotions assessed, in order to compare the accuracy of the process communication of each emotion to the acoustic code used by pianists. A second study will be done by replacing the musical excerpts recorded in the first study by pieces of music belonging to the repertoire of Brazilian Choro, whose objective is to verify the influence of the limitation of the use of the acoustic code possibilities to a single musical style on the accuracy of the emotional communication process from pianists. These results will be analysed according to the Brunswikian Lens Model of Emotional Communication in Music Performance, developed by Patrik Juslin.