Why We Like Sad Music

“Why We Like Sad Music,” is obviously an article that assesses why people enjoy listening to sad music. In the article, the author explains a study done to determined whether “sadness in the realm of artistic appreciation [is or is not] the same thing as sadness in everyday life.” Throughout the study, the subjects listened to both perceivably happy and sad excerpts of music and after, they were asked to tell their perceived emotion of the music as well as their felt emotion. The study showed that more often than not, perceived emotion does not correlate to felt emotion. The article concluded that the emotions that we use while listening to sad music are vicarious, “where no object or situation induces emotion directly,” differing from real life. Because we don’t necessarily feel the sadness that the music might perceivably contain, sad music does not necessarily make us sad and we are able to like it. I thought that this article was really interesting because I myself have always wondered why sad music appeals to me so much. I think the study that was done was a really good way to figure out if there actually is a connection between sad music and our own felt emotions.