Putting Musical Feelings Into Words: Children's Verbal Descriptions of Music-Evoked Experiences

Abstract

There is limited empirical research devoted to exploring children's subjective responses to music, despite extensive examination in the literature of their ability to recognize emotions said to be expressed by music. To address this gap, we recruited 26 participants aged between 5 and 11 years with the aim of learning more about their capacity to report on their music-evoked experiences, and to test the suitability of a categorical measurement scale as an age-appropriate self-report format. Participants were invited to give free descriptions of how six musical stimuli made them feel and to rate their music-evoked experiences using the categorical scale. Their responses revealed an awareness of music-induced feelings, visual imagery, and imagined narrative, and the capacity to describe these in detail. All participants were able to use the categorical measurement scale; however, the richness of their free responses suggests that an open format might capture more comprehensive and meaningful data than a forced-choice format. We recommend further testing with a much larger sample of participants from a wider population.