The Healing Power of Sad Music

Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion, but we tend to find it pleasurable in an aesthetic context. What is the nature of pleasure that people experience from listening to sad music? Accumulated evidence suggests that pleasure in response to sad music is related to several factors (Huron, 2024).

1. Emotional expressions in voice and music. Music expresses particular emotions by emulating the vocal sounds produced by the human voice. When in a state of melancholy, people speak more slowly and softly, and with a lower overall pitch and darker sound. This is readily apparent in Samuel Barber’s famous Adagio for strings. It was voted in an International BBC poll to be the saddest of all musical works.

2. Music can be used for emotional release. Music helps to channel one’s frustration or purge (catharsis) negative emotions (anger and sadness). When we listen to sad music (or watch a sad film), we are disconnected from any real threat or danger that the music (or movie) represents. Watching a sad movie is not the same as visiting a homeless shelter. We feel sorry or sympathy without being burdened by the guilt of inaction. The sadness that music evokes is safe in the sense that you know that it isn’t really happening in the world.

3. The pleasure of sad music. Sad music can release the hormone prolactin, which is the same soothing and tranquilizing hormone that is released when mothers are nursing their infants. Prolactin produces feelings of calmness to counteract the mental pain. The hormone prolactin helps to curb grief.

4. Empathy. Empathy plays a significant role in the enjoyment of sad music. Empathy can be defined as the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing. People who are emotionally moved by sad or tragic arts tend to score higher on overall measures of empathy. Listeners who scored high on empathy are most affected by sad music. They tend to have a well-developed imaginative ability to recognize the experience of a fictional character or person.

5. Nostalgia. Sad music is a powerful trigger for nostalgic memories of foregone times. Such reflective revisiting of nostalgic memories may enhance the mood, especially if the memories are related to pivotal and meaningful moments in life (i.e., high school, or college). We enjoy the sweetness of these memories via vivid imaginations. There is some pleasure felt in recollecting the good times, but along with it, almost in equal measure, comes sadness from missing them.

6. Mood regulation. Sad music produces psychological benefits of mood regulation. Sad music can be experienced as an imaginary friend who provides support and empathy after the experience of a social loss. The listeners enjoy the mere presence of a virtual person represented by the music who is in the same mood can help to cope with sad feelings. For example, Schubert’s final three piano sonatas give voice and comfort to that part of us that feels alone. Schubert was 31 when he wrote these piano sonatas, and he died two months later in September 1828. Schubert knew the experience of loneliness and had the gift to convey it in his music.

In short, sad music enables the listener to disengage from distressing situations (a breakup, death, etc.) and focus instead on the beauty of the music. Further, lyrics that resonate with the listener’s personal experience can give voice to feelings or experiences that one might not be able to express oneself.

Source: Image by Piyapong Saydaung from Pixabay