For most people, music acts as a stable mechanism that they countlessly turn to. Despite the emotion, there is always a song to coincide. At a party, all that is needed is an anthemic melody, blithe lyrics, and a driving beat to make the night an incredible memory. On a road trip, it only takes one Jack Johnson song and a window seat to become tranquil. Does music have magical powers?

Think about the last time you were REALLY sad. What did you do? When I asked my friends this question, 7/10 of them said the same thing; “I sat on my bed and listened to sad music”. The instantaneous reaction seems like it should make sense; listen to the type of song that matches your emotional status… but why would we want to amplify our sorrows by downing ourselves in depressing music. Shouldn’t we listen to happier music to make us feel better? Or do people not want to feel better nor help themselves when they are sad? I guess the odd connection between people’s sadness and their music selection caught more than just my attention, as a case study was published in the Frontiers in Psychology journal this summer.
44 diverse participants each listened to three, 30 second songs, all of which were transposed into minor keys to induce “sadness”. After they were asked how they felt, and how they thought other people would feel while listening to this song. After the songs were transposed into their major keys, and the participants listened again. Again they were asked those same two questions. A felt emotion is how t
hey themselves felt, and a perceived emotion is how they thought others would feel. This study concluded that the felt emotions differed from the perceived emotion. The response from the felt emotion varied from “romantic, fascinated, and dear and in love”, while the response from the perceived emotion varied from “tragic, gloomy, and miserable”. Similarly in the major key, “perceived blithe emotions were rated higher than their felt counterparts.” NY Times. This case is arguing that sad music intact generates positive emotions within people. So how is this possible?
Psychologist Ai Kawakami, who ran this experiment, defines this emotional response as “vicarious emotions. we experience secondhand sadness that somehow transforms into something lovely and positive.” (Huffington Post
). Today there is not much information on vicarious emotions, so it is hard to understand how our second set of emotions react.

Though Kawakami’s observations do give a viable reason to why people turn to sad music when they are sad, I hypothesized a different theory. When my parents dropped me off to college, I was a wreck. I didn’t stop crying, and of corse I had “The Scientist”, “Yellow” and “Desperado” on repeat. Though looking back, listening to those songs didn’t make me feel romantic or fascinated. Instead the harrowing lyrics and provoking music provided me with the comfort that I wasn’t alone in my emotions. When I would hear my neighbor’s up beat pop music blasting from next door, it only made me feel that much more sad and alone. From experience alone, I think people find comfort in listening to sad music because it makes them feel like they are not alone.