Expressivity and Music

Abstract This chapter discusses different ways in which music has been regarded as expressive in the literature. First, the chapter considers some parallels and contrasts between language and music. Although the two domains share some general characteristics, they also differ significantly in ways that can help to explain how musical expressivity is “special”. This discussion paves the way for the following three sections, which review empirical studies on how music expresses emotions, induces emotions, and is performed in an expressive manner. Each section outlines theoretical models that may explain the findings. The final section considers some unresolved issues in the field, and return to the issue of how expressivity in music may differ from that in language. It is argued music may be a suitable domain to explore the notion of hybrid semantics, which goes beyond truth-conditional relevance.