GLEE-ful??

Life tastes sweeter because of the presence of sound. Perhaps you might have already been asked a certain question countless of times: if you’re only allowed to choose one sense over the other (either vision or audition), what would you choose and why? Of course, there would be various explanations for the response(s) to the question. And for the purpose of tackling a more specific topic in this blog post, I would just leave the matter of defending your answer to your cognitive structures.

Before I proceed to the next part, let us first define some basic terminologies. What is sound? Sound can be defined in two aspects: the physical and the perceptual. In the former, it pertains to the changes in the pressure that occurs in the air or some other medium while for the latter, sound refers to the experience one attains during the process of hearing (Goldstein, 2010). We hear a myriad of sounds in our everyday living. Naturally, one cannot possibly say that he/she have not taken the chance to appreciate music. The music that we hear may consist of pure tones (e.g. whistling sound) or complex tones (e.g. sounds which are created by musical instruments).

It is often said that music is the language of emotions. True enough, whenever one feels high (happy) or low (sad), just the sound of music would surely uplift one’s spirit or even increase one’s feeling of happiness (Hunter, Schellenberg, & Schimmack, 2008). And whenever one experiences the feeling of sadness, he/she can either spend repair efforts during a negative mood or maintain the positive mood if he/she is in a state of feeling such (McCrea, 2000). But then again, there is a factor that must be taken into consideration in this statement. Current researchers have contended that there is a difference between persons who have a low self-esteem (LSE) and those who have high self-esteem (HSE). According to Heimpel, Wood, Marshall, &Brown (2002), people who have low self-esteem are less likely to be motivated in mood repairs compared to individuals with HSE. It was proposed by Wood, Heimpel, Manwell, and Whittington (2009) that this seems to be the case because “LSEs feel less deserving of positive affect— happiness, joy, pleasure, and so forth—than do HSEs and that feeling relatively undeserving dampens their motivation to lift themselves out of a sad mood (p. 363).”

Music that has a slower tempo and minor mode tends to be associated with sadness (Hunter Schellenberg, & Schimmack, 2008). So whenever sadness envelopes one’s being and chooses to listen to this type of music, it just highlights that particular emotion. Undeniably, there are times wherein to be fully immersed in the emotions portrayed by a particular song being played in your mp3 player, for example, many individuals turn up the volume to a high level that he/she can no longer hear the sound on the external environment. Involving oneself in listening to high volumes of music would lead to the exposure to leisure noise (Goldstein, 2010). The loudness of the music (which is related to the sound pressure or amplitude) that is included in this kind of activity has been associated with the consequences of having temporary and permanent hearing losses.

So for those who wants to indulge themselves in the abyss of sad songs (emo, screamo, sad love songs, etc), it would just be fine doing so but always remind yourself to play the music in the proper volume (not too loud but can be heard just as much). Music can serve as the gateway to feeling a greater sense of sadness or happiness. Whatever portal you choose, try not to become too distracted by it since anything in excess it bad for us.

Now, let us think again. Do sounds really make our lives sweeter? Or do they make it even bitter? ;)

REFERENCES:

Goldstein, E. B. (2010). Sensation and Perception (8th ed.). Belmont, CA, USA: Wadsworth Publishing.

Heimpel, S. A., Wood, J. V., Marshall, M. A., & Brown, J. D. (2002). Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 128–147.

Hunter, P., Schellenberg, E., & Schimmack, U. (2010). Feelings and perceptions of happiness and sadness induced by music: Similarities, differences, and mixed emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4(1), 47-56. doi:10.1037/a0016873

McCrea, S. M. (2000). Beyond hedonism: Broadening the scope of affect regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 180–183.

Wood, J.V., Heimpel, S. A., Manwell, L. A., & Whittington, E. J. (2009). This Mood Is Familiar and I Don’t Deserve to Feel Better Anyway: Mechanisms Underlying Self-Esteem Differences in Motivation to Repair Sad Moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2, 363–380.

(Jeni)