Structure of subjective experience of classical music

Abstract

Previous studies on the subjective experience of music did not give unambiguous results related to the number and content of dimensions underlying the experience that one has in contact with various musical pieces. Furthermore, previous studies have provided no evidence relating to the structure of subjective experience of classical music pieces. The aim of this study was to determine the number of structurally distinct dimensions of the musical experience of classical music pieces and the relations among obtained dimensions. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 28 participants were asked to produce descriptions of their subjective experience of 44 short segments of music pieces. In the second phase, 44 participants rated the same set of musical pieces using a scale comprised of the most frequent descriptors obtained in the first phase of the study. Results have shown that musical experience descriptors are grouped into five interrelated dimensions of musical experience: the Aesthetic Experience, Affective Tone, Tension, Content–Fullness, and Structure. The paper discusses the nature of these dimensions, their relationship and compares them to those obtained in previous studies both related to the experience of music as well as art in other modalities.

Keywords

• subjective experience
• classical music
• aesthetic experience
• structure