One of the concepts I need to understand to work on music and emotion is how music interacts with emotion. A theory that is often used in the scholarship is the Component Process Model (CPM) developed by Klaus Scherer. The dumbed-down version, so I can understand it, understands that when a person is confronted with an event, in this case music, they react to that event in five ways.
We evaluate the music
Our bodily state changes in some form
We sense an urge to act or respond in some form
We do act in some fashion
We understand that we are having emotions
Scherer provides this chart that is a little difficult to understand but I think we can work our way through it.
Menetrey and their fellow researchers explain Table 1 by stating that understanding emotions “starts with an evaluation of an event (Appraisal component) which leads to changes in Motivation, Physiology and Expression components. Changes in all these four components modulate the Feeling component.” These five reactions and processes do not happen linearly nor are they immediate. A person can move through the 5 in different orders and over a small or large amount of time. Practically, that means that someone could listen to a piece of music, or in my research context sing a song in church, and not have it impact their emotions until two weeks later out of the blue. Or they can break down in tears or jump for joy in the moment.
Menetrey’s figure one helps me understand this better:
We experience something, mentally process it, and can be motivated to move, actually move, express ourself and bounce between these while also re-appraising the stimulus, and then understand how we feel.
So, how does this relate to congregational singing? Douglas Bachorik connects CPM and congregational singing. He lists three points:
Doing an emotion becomes experiencing the emotion
“People in congregational singing are led in songs that may not, at the moment, represent what they are feeling, but the act of singing a song with lyrics that speak of joy, joined with a musical setting that was composed to express or induce joyful feelings, may lead individuals to begin to experience joy and create an observable synchronous group response of joy, in the manner of a collective emotion or atmosphere. Singing an emotion, in a group, may bring that emotion about.”
Having an emotion makes us want to do something
The song, in our circumstance, instructs the congregation in what to do. When listening to a song we engage in entrainment, which is moving to the music and creating a bond between those around us. Think about a congregation “spontaneously” clapping in rhythm to a song, or swaying to the beat, or tapping their feet.
Having an emotion can depend on time
“In the congregational body, the music-induced emotion takes place for at least as long as the duration of the song being sung, and, perhaps, for the entire musical portion of a typical church service.”
This is of importance for my study. It is not just the one song that can create and sustain emotion, but the whole service that sets the emotional tone. When a congregation is lead through 4-6 songs of joyful praise, a person that was not feeling joyful may at the end start to feel joyful.
While CPM was created to analyze emotions in people who are passively listening to music instead of actively singing, it provides a useful starting point. We must understand that during congregational singing and worship service planning, we are setting the stage for emotions to arise and evolve. Certain songs can trigger emotional responses, and the emotional tone of the service is influenced by the order of worship.