Effects and Affects of Timbre

Do you listen to music to change your mood? Do you know what song to put on when you’re feeling sad, or when you want to celebrate something? The effect that music has on our emotions is the main reason why most people listen to (or create) music! Now, one of the first things we all learn when we take music lessons, is that the major mode sounds happy and the minor mode sounds sad. Similarly, you can imagine that something that has a very fast tempo may make you feel quite different emotions compared to music that has a very slow tempo. A lot of research has focused on these individual musical characteristics, but relatively few have researched how differences in timbre can change the emotions of the music listener.