A Comparison of Perceived Musical Tension and Aesthetic Response

Abstract

This study used the Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) to measure musicians' and non-musicians' perceptions of ongoing "aesthetic response" in the first movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 104, in an attempt to determine if musical "tension" might relate to the aesthetic experience. Subjects (musicians n = 43, non-musicians n = 40) indicated their aesthetic responsiveness using the CRDI. Analysis focuses on composite graphs of mean group responses and comparisons to results of a previous study (Madsen and Fredrickson, 1993) which replicated the work of Frede V. Neilsen entitled "Oplevelse af Musikalsk Spending (The Experience of Musical Tension)." Results of this study indicated some co-variation between perceived tension graphs of subject responses from the previous study and recorded aesthetic response, primarily in the musicians. Overall, tension responses were found to be more variable than the aesthetic response, with the latter being consistently positive and somewhat higher. Non-musicians' responses were consistently more positive than musicians' responses throughout, which conforms to the findings in previous studies using the CRDI with these populations.