Building the anticipation: How variation in tension mediates emotions in music

Previous research on music-evoked emotions has suggested that people experience heightened tension around expected musical events, which mediates peak-pleasurable emotions. Electronic dance music (EDM) break routines are short and highly emotive music motifs, which are proposed to increase tension to peak levels during build-up passages, prior to highly expected drop passages that evoke peak-pleasurable emotions when listeners’ expectations are fulfilled. Continuous tension ratings throughout EDM break routines are therefore useful to better understand tension patterns around music expectations and their relationship with peak-pleasurable emotions. Thirty-four participants listened to break routines, while continuously rating felt tension. Peak-pleasurable emotions were then measured once via the two-dimensional space of valence and arousal after each break routine. Results showed that tension increased during build-up passages prior to expected drop passages, where it then decreased when expectations were fulfilled. While average tension did correlate with dimensions of peak-pleasurable emotions (valence, arousal, emotional strength, and emotional response), our data reflected continued feelings of average tension after break routines, rather than peak-pleasurable emotions as predicted. This suggests that tension is altered by music expectations, but that greater tension may not always increase peak-pleasurable emotions.