On Cultural, Textual and Experiential Aspects of Music Mood

We study the impact of the presence of lyrics on music mood perception for both Canadian and Chinese listeners by conducting a user study of Canadians not of Chinese origin, Chinese-Canadians, and Chinese people who have lived in Canada for fewer than three years. While our original hypotheses were largely connected to cultural components of mood perception, we also analyzed how stable mood assignments were when listeners could read the lyrics of recent popular English songs they were hearing versus when they only heard the songs. We also showed the lyrics of some songs to participants without playing the recorded music. We conclude that people assign different moods to the same song in these three scenarios. People tend to assign a song to the mood cluster that includes “melancholy” more often when they read the lyrics without listening to it, and having access to the lyrics does not help reduce the difference in music mood perception between Canadian and Chinese listeners significantly. Our results cause us to question the idea that songs have “inherent mood”. Rather, we suggest that the mood depends on both cultural and experiential context.