Robin Orr Recital Room, Faculty of Music
All lectures start at 5 p.m.
The Wort Lecture Series 2012-13 entitled Gloomy Sundays, Wicked Games, and Broken Hearts: The Science of Sad Sounds will be given by David Huron, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor at the Ohio State University, where he holds joint appointments in the School of Music and in the Center for Cognitive Science.
SERIES ABSTRACT
What is the appeal of sad music? How does music evoke tears? Or transport a listener to a nostalgic reverie? This series of four lectures focuses on three emotions — sadness, grief, and nostalgia — and their many musical manifestations. Lectures integrate behavioral and physiological studies with cultural and music analyses, in an effort to understand the paradoxical musical enfatuation with negative emotions.
20 November 2012
Lecture 1. Animals at Heart: Emotion and Motivation
Research in animal behavior provides useful conceptual tools for understanding human emotions such as sadness, grief and nostalgia.
Slides and audio examples:
22 November 2012
Lecture 2. Take a Sad Song and Make it Better
What makes sounds sound sad? Why is the minor scale sad, but only for Western-enculturated listeners?
Slides and audio examples:
29 January 2013
Lecture 3. Oxytocin, Dopamine and Other Molecular Friends
Why is sad music pleasurable? Why does adolescence figure so strongly in music-related nostalgia?
31 January 2013
Lecture 4. Laugh ’til you Cry, Cry ’til you Laugh