The Importance Of Sad Music

Why do people listen to sad music? This has been a question that not many can answer because if you ask anyone they would most likely say that the reason you are listening to sad music is because “you’re depressed”. We have always seeked answers for this question because many don’t know the reason as to why they listen to sad music. Is it helpful? Or does it make us feel worse? Some people listen to music to shift their mood, while others do so to help alleviate feelings of unhappiness, or emotional discomfort. In the article “Music Evokes Vicarious Emotions in Listeners” published in May, 2014 by Ai Kawakami, Kiyoshi Furukawa, and Kazuo Okanoya, proposes that even though sad music is usually perceived as something negative, listeners actually …show more content…
Throughout this article, the authors’ use a technique that is known as logos, this tool is used to appeal to logic of the target audience. In the article it mentions in its study, “… that it is essential to distinguish between perceived emotion and felt emotion…two kinds of emotions in response to music make: positive relationship,s negative relationships, no systematic relationships, and no relationships.” (Kawakami, Furukawa, Okanoya) All of these four relationship patterns in response to music are all very different because they cause people to feel different emotions while listening to sad music. Even though sad music can be perceived as something negative it can actually help a person develop positive feelings and create a positive relationship with the music because it pertains to personal experiences that a person has gone through. Sad music can also create a positive relationship because it can connect with personal histories and emotional memories that we face as individuals. Generally sad music is thought to make its listeners sad, and by doing so can cause individuals to have a negative outlook on certain situations and certain people, then again, it could give you the clarity you had been searching for, for a long time. For example, listening to a sad song after a break up can make you feel a sense of regret about the relationship and possibly the person you were with, but at the same time could make you feel like you did the right thing and could easily give you the sense of relief and could go along with how you were feeling at that exact moment. Leading by this example, Kawakami, Furukawa, and Okanoya use the technique of logos by trying to persuade the audience by reason and based on