“Hearing music as . . .”: Metaphors evoked by the sound of classical music.

Abstract

Can we modify our experience of music by "hearing it as . . ."? It is thought that musical meaning partly arises through the use of cross-domain mappings, or metaphors. These metaphors allow the listener to conceptualize music differently, explaining one domain in terms of another, regardless of musical expertise. The aim of the present line of experiments was to produce a dimensional model of the different metaphors used in Western classical music for a population of musicians and nonmusicians. With a large pool of 540 participants and 3 successive studies based on participants' own musical experiences (Study 1) and on musical excerpts (Studies 2 and 3), we reduced an extensive list of metaphors collected at concerts to 5 final categories. The experimental setup was based on a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to first extract a preliminary model of 5 factors and subsequently to confirm this model with a large number of participants. The resulting Geneva Musical Metaphors Scale comprises 5 metaphorical scales: Flow, Movement, Force, Interior, and Wandering. This model provides insight into how musicians and nonmusicians approach the use of metaphors when listening to Western classical music. This model might provide scientific grounds for music educators, musicians, and guided imagery and music practitioners to improve communication and teaching. It also creates a new way to label musical excerpts and classify them. Finally, this research offers a basis for investigating the understudied role of metaphors and visual imagery in classical music.

Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music

“…The dimensional model consists of two different subscales: "Valence," in which an emotion is described as positive or negative, and "Arousal," in which an emotion is described as more or less intense. The metaphors were assessed with the GEMMES (Schaerlaeken et al, 2019) which consists of five subscales: "Flow," "Force," "Interior," "Movement," and "Wandering." The entrainment caused by the music was also assessed with the Musical Entrainment Questionnaire (Labbé & Grandjean, 2014).…”

“…We recruited 162 participants for this study (65 females, years, ). This number of participants was based on a priori power analysis using data on metaphors from our previous studies to achieve a similar level of significance when comparing the ratings ( Schaerlaeken et al, 2019 ). All participants were French-speaking Europeans with normal, self-reported listening skills.…”

“…The GEMS consists of nine different subscales, representing distinct categories of emotions: “Joyful activation,” “Nostalgia,” “Peacefulness,” “Power,” “Sadness,” “Tenderness,” “Tension,” “Transcendence,” and “Wonder.” The dimensional model consists of two different subscales: “Valence,” in which an emotion is described as positive or negative, and “Arousal,” in which an emotion is described as more or less intense. The metaphors were assessed with the GEMMES ( Schaerlaeken et al, 2019 ) which consists of five subscales: “Flow,” “Force,” “Interior,” “Movement,” and “Wandering.” The entrainment caused by the music was also assessed with the Musical Entrainment Questionnaire ( Labbé & Grandjean, 2014 ). It contained 12 items that evaluate subjective musical entrainment (e.g., “Can you feel the beat?,” “Do you want to dance?”).…”

“…They were asked to rate how much they experienced each of the nine emotions of the GEMS or each of the five metaphors of the GEMMES on a Likert-type scale (1 to 8, 1 being not at all and 8 being very much ). We had provided further description for each emotion/metaphor based on the information that appears in the respective publications for GEMS/GEMMES ( Schaerlaeken et al, 2019 ; Zentner et al, 2008 ). For the group of participants who rated emotions, they were also asked to rate the excerpts on both “Valence” and “Arousal” subscales (for “Valence”: −4 to 4, −4 being negative and 4 being positive ; for “Arousal,” 1 to 8, 1 being not arousing at all and 8 being very arousing ).…”

“…Musicological writings today are dominated by the idea of music as a continuous, unidirectional forward movement through space ( Cumming, 2000 ). Recently, a series of three studies attempted to capture the most widespread categories of metaphors associated with Western classical music ( Schaerlaeken, Glowinski, Rappaz, & Grandjean, 2019 ). This led to the creation of the Geneva Musical Metaphors Scale (GEMMES), which consists of five subscales that can be linked to the most commonly used or relevant families of musical metaphors: “Flow,” “Force,” “Interior,” “Movement,” and “Wandering.”…”