Is music as an art form exceptionally emotional?

There is no doubt much music is designed to evoke an emotional response, or that the emotions represented by such attempts range from the sublime to the dangerous. Heavy metal is often cited as inducing hatred or anger; pop is said to induce lust; and classical music supposedly puts us in touch with our nobler emotions. No doubt fans of each genre and their typical behavior have strengthened these stereotypes over the years, but whether there's truth behind them remains to be seen.

Certainly a song can make us feel a certain way. If it's fast-moving and cheerful it'll generate one response, while a slow-moving song in minor chords will engender quite another. Does that mean the music has independent power over the listener? No, it only means that humans are quite comfortable relinquishing control in the face of stimulation.

We can put the problem another way. If music is capable of squeezing emotional responses out of us against our will, how is it that six people can have six different responses to a single song? Wouldn't one song make all who listen to it feel the same way? Of course, one might object, music is subjective, so one song will come across differently to different people. But how can this be if music is essentially an emotional and emotion-inducing art form? If there are moods and emotions embedded in the very fabric of musical compositions, how can we resist them, and how can we have different emotional responses from each other?

But some people enjoy opera, and others hate it. Some people are soothed by listening to heavy metal, while others are horrified by it. One person is happy listening to pop songs, another can't change the channel fast enough when one comes on the radio. Why?

Music, like all other art forms, captures and presents the worldviews of its creators. Does it matter that much of it has no lyrical content, or that the lyrics are often indiscernible? Not at all. The primary way music affects us, like all other forms of art, is rationally; whether we realize that or not doesn't keep it from being so. Musicians see the world a certain way, and infuse their art with that vision; the result is always something which we can rationally apprehend.

Diversity among genres is sufficient to prove this. Some heavy metal is exceedingly intricate and complex, built on rules of composition lesser musicians would be unable to comprehend and translate to meaningful compositions. By the same token, some heavy metal is simplistic and devastating in its lack of structure, sufficient only to prove its composers are at best muddled in their thinking, or at worst consciously attempting to spread confusion and nihilism. While both types of heavy metal are capable of generating emotion, they're also able to be subjected to rational analysis, and emotional responses suspended until a conclusion is reached.

If we can't listen to music dispassionately, all music should be banned. What if a particular song is overheard by someone in whom it evokes an emotional response so strong that that person commits a crime, or loses their mind, or simply dies? Such a possibility should not be tolerated.

Yet this is clearly a ludicrous proposition, as is the idea that music can bypass our rational faculties and penetrate our emotions without our permission or complicity. There is no such thing as music without meaning; the meaning of a song may be bad, but it does exist, even in purely instrumental music. The way a song is structured belies its meaning, and can be analyzed on its own terms.

Why do we insist that music is capable of moving us against our will? Is it simply that we prefer to deny culpability, or is it more related to our desire for valid experience as opposed to what is seen as the harshness and coldness of pure reason? Whatever the answer, to assert that music moves us independently of our will is to assert that we are incapable of self-government, and consequently that we are without moral obligation or culpability, lies that have spread throughout the entire fabric of the human race and continue to inform our intellects with untruths of which we may or may not be aware.