How Different Tempos Can Create Emotion and Feeling


   Music is capable of making people feel emotions. Whether it’s happy, sad, hectic, or mysterious, the music somehow finds a way to add a specific character. In her book Thinking Musically, Bonnie Wade briefly introduces the idea that tempos, “reveal the character and mood of the piece of music”(Wade, 96). Whether it is a slow paced piece, a song with a fast tempo, or even music that accelerates and decelerates as it goes on, the tempo can give a piece of music a specific character that makes an audience feel different emotions.
With regard to determining a certain meter, humans are able to comprehend tempos from around 40 to 300 beats per minute. Any slower or faster and it becomes impossible to distinguish a set pulse. In a study done by Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, students “found that from the 1940’s until our current decade, the average tempo of our most popular songs fluctuated no more than 5 bpm, hovering between 117 bpm to 112 bpm”(The Resonant Human: The Science of How Tempo Affects Us). When volunteers were asked to create a beat, either by tapping or walking around, most averaged around 119 bpm. If this average tempo can be classified as a typical human frequency, one can speculate that slowing the tempo below 112 bpm or increasing it past 120 bpm would have an affect on the human interpretation of the music. Music with a slower tempo (less than 119 bpm) tends to evoke feelings of deep emotion and has often been associated with sadness.
For example, Samuel Barber’s classic Adagio for Strings does not contain a set bpm marking in the score. Therefore, the tempo becomes subject to the conductor’s individual taste. Because of the fragile nature of the piece, most conductors perform the piece at about 44 bpm to 60 bpm, just fast enough to imply a discernible pulse.




Many would suggest that a slow tempo automatically implies sadness in music. However, in pieces such as Adagio for Strings, one may argue that the slowed tempo does not assume sadness, but rather deep emotion. Human emotions are vastly complex, and slower tempos tend to draw out muddled, complicated emotions that are often summarized through the simple idea of sadness.
   While slow tempos often accompany feelings of sadness, faster tempos assist in delineating feelings of excitement, anxiety and even anger. The mood of an entire piece can shift from mourning to uplifting just by changing to a quicker tempo. Wiz Khalifa’s song “See You Again” when played at it’s original tempo (about 80 bpm) has a mourning tone. When it’s slowed down to about 63 bpm, it still has the similar saddening effect. However, if this song speeds up to 120, 145, or even 165 bpms, the whole mood of the song shifts and excites the audience instead of depressing as it did before. In Blake Madden’s article “The Resonant Human: The Science of How Tempo Affects Us,” he claimed, “Fast music tends to make us happier, unless it is in a minor mode or rhythmically fragmented, in which case it can inspire fear.” In the 1990’s, Lise Gagnon and Isabelle Peretz of the University of Montreal experimented with music by changing individual characteristics and found results confirming the correlation between mode and tempo on emotion as Madden had stated before. Gagnon further explained, “...both mode and tempo determine ‘happy-sad’ judgments with the tempo being even more salient, even when tempo salience was adjusted.” Although mode corresponded with emotion in this experiment, tempo proved to have a more prominent effect. In 1982, Milliman experimented with the effects of tempo on buying behaviors. He found that when playing slow music in the grocery store, there was a 32 percent increase in gross product sales, but when fast music was played, customers spent less time in the store because of high levels of arousal. These high levels of arousal lead to an effect known as the PAD model: high levels of arousal accompany faster tempo songs which leads to physically moving at a faster pace. Faster tempos not only affect us emotionally, but they also have a significant effect on aspects of everyday life.
There are various techniques that composers commonly use to invoke a different feeling in their piece of music. Acceleration (an increase in tempo) and deceleration (a decrease in tempo) are two techniques in particular that can impact emotion. At measure 39, in J.J Johnson’s “Lament,” he uses double time to create the feeling that the music is speeding up. Instead of quickening the tempo, the eighth note is subdivided. Subdividing the eighth note makes the piece feel like the tempo is accelerating, when really the tempo maintains the same pulse as before but a faster rhythm is implemented.


The recording below of J.J. Johnson (specifically at 2:20) demonstrates this effect.


Composers often purposely change the speed of the song with hope to induce a new emotion or mindset among the listeners. “Research has found that the tempo of music is the most important factor driving entrainment. Sometimes we entrain to music consciously. For example, people listening to music while exercising tend to match their movements to the beat of the music and use it a pacing mechanism” (Allen). Tempo changes are created with purpose, and are made to create a sense of increased energy in the listener. This ideology about speed can apply to many music scenarios. For instance, when a wind ensemble goes from an allegro marking to an adagio marking, there is a significant change in feel, from lively to slow. Tempo changes, like in the instances mentioned above, are made so that a certain emotional will influence the listener.
There are many different tactics used to create specific feelings or characters in music, but the most effective tactic is the tempo of the piece. Changing the tempo of a song can create a happier or sadder feeling, depending on if you speed or slow down the tempo. Different tempos even go further than just happy and sad to more complex emotions as well. The power of using tempos to create these feelings is a very meaningful technique and will continue to be a part of music-making for years and years to come.
Slow Tempos: Anika Hille
Fast Tempos: Emilia Soot
Acceleration/Deceleration: Frank Saxton
Intro/Conclusion/Bibliography/Blog: Mackenzie Taylor
Bibliography:
Allen, Rich, and W.W. Wood. “The Rock 'n' Roll Classroom.” Google Books.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Barber, Samuel. “Adagio for Strings.” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KylMqxLzNGo.
bongolicious77. “Jj johnson & company - Lament.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Feb. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvtxjlTUZs8. Accessed 30 Sept. 2017.
Comp. J.J. Johnson. Arr. Rex Cadwallader. Lament. Pacific Lutheran University.
Ford, Madeline. “Psychology Data and Research.” The Psychology of Music: Why Music Plays a Big Role in What You Buy, blog.motivemetrics.com/The-Psychology-of-Music-Why-Music-Plays-a-Big-Role-in-What-You-Buy.
“The Impact of Barber's 'Adagio for Strings'.” NPR, NPR, 4 Nov. 2006, www.npr.org/2006/11/04/6427815/the-impact-of-barbers-adagio-for-strings.
Khalifa , Wiz. “See You Again.” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKAFK5djSk.

“The Resonant Human: The Science of How Tempo Affects Us.” SonicScoop, 16 Aug. 2017, sonicscoop.com/2014/06/19/the-resonant-human-the-science-of-how-tempo-affects-us/

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