leadingtone:

one-rare-salad:

This is the article that should have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, instead of a new music online journal where all the people reading it know all of this stuff already.

Seems like I remember rolling my eyes at the original WSJ article a few weeks ago. It nebulously recounts a study by Guhn and Zentner, and an older study by John Sloboda, which it claims show that emotional responses to music are predictable to a high degree according to the use of specific musical devices such as a well-placed appoggiatura in a melody or sudden changes in harmony or tessitura. 

I haven’t reviewed the original studies, but for what it’s worth I have a strong suspicion they’re probably interesting in their own rights. It seems to me that this is a lamentably common case of poor science journalism—opportunistic baiting of much the same sort as a headline which reports NEW EARTHLIKE PLANET FOUND, COULD SUPPORT LIFE in response to the mere observation of, or even just the statistical calculation of the probability of the existence of, a planet within the habitable zone of a star 20 or more light years away. You know what I mean? The actual science is significant and valuable, and the media outlets sensationalize and cheapen it to sell papers, collect clicks, or whatever. One must be entertained at all costs. 

The damaging thing is that this kind of irresponsible reporting only lends creedence over time to anti-intellectual agitators of the scientists don’t know squat variety. Talk about “emotional responses.” Huxley, I fear, was right.