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The University of New South Wales

Expressiveness & Emotion in Music

an ARC funded project (DP0452290)

Publications

Despite much writing about it over the centuries, an understanding of the very nature of musical expressivity has remained essentially elusive. There is no generally accepted theory of how music expresses emotion or meaning. Indeed, researchers representing various disciplines use terms like emotion, affect, expressiveness or musical character rather loosely and somewhat interchangeably depending on context and the focus or approach of their respective fields. Emery Schubert and Dorottya Fabian at the School of English, Media and Performing Arts, UNSW received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Grant 2004-2008) to work on projects that integrate these theories and investigative methods.

Background | Problem | Our Approach

There are several ways of participating in this research at the Honours or Graduate level. Prospective students with a background and interest in

  • acoustics
  • psycho-acoustics
  • music aesthetics and philosophy
  • music psychology and perception
  • performance studies
  • musicology (theory, analysis)
  • 18th and 19th century music

are encouraged to contact Emery Schubert or Dorottya Fabian