Emotional connections in music: a deeper dive into expression and emotions in music

Abstract

The lessons that I have devised in this report cover the effects of emotional connections with choral music. From a historical and personal viewpoint, connecting one’s emotions to a piece of music is a way to get the most out of what the music is trying to portray. Making an emotional connection with a piece of music can help an individual dig deeper and help them see past the basics of the piece. While pitches, rhythms, dynamics, and other markings are important to how the music is designed and followed, expression and emotion are what allows the essence of the piece to be experienced. These thoughts and lessons have come forth from the vast knowledge gained in both my early undergraduate study in vocal performance, as well as in my master’s program when learning about how to program or introduce pieces. With these lessons that I produced for my students, I not only attained many different thoughts and connections from the individual responses, but also learned more about some of my students in the process. Throughout my master’s program, I have increased my knowledge base from the teachings of my professors with emotional and expressional thoughts in the forfront of my mind. A few of the main points that have helped me in my progress are understanding how and where our music education comes from, as well as a deeper understanding behind vocal pedagogy and learning how to introduce pieces to young adults. As I began creating the framework for this report, I really tried to focus on letting the students use descriptive writing, as this is something that I do not see much in ensemble classes. Through this, I found that not only did students have a decent understanding of how to research a piece, which I asked them to do, but they were also able to share deeply emotional and mature thoughts that I, as their teacher, might not have ever known about without doing this research.