Mood and Notes (Part 1)

Prior Reading

1. The Holy Grail of Music
2. Swars and emotional response
3. Musical nuances and emotional response

Question

What mood is created given a set of notes?

Answer

We certainly know now, that the choice of swars (notes) matter in creating mood. However answering "what mood?" is subjective due to influences of culture, prior experiences, meaning of the composition, etc.
We will try and make the "What mood" part simpler to analyse. Let us define a spectrum of emotion, unstable to stable. We will not call these moods by their names, but rather just a point on this spectrum.

Stable Emotions

• Shades of Happiness (Amusement, Delight, Elation, Joy, Pleasure), 
• Shades of Love (Caring, Affection, Empathy, Friendliness), 
• Shades of Serene (Calm, Content, Relaxed) 
• Courage, Hope, Pride, Excitement, Anticipation, etc. 

Unstable Emotions

• Shades of Sadness (Despair, Disappointment, Hurt, Longing) 
• Shades of Anger (Frustration, Annoyance, Contempt, Disgust, Irritation) 
• Shades of Fear (Helplessness, Doubt, Tension, Stress, Agitation, Worry, Anxiety, Embarrassment Guilt, Shame) 
• Shock, Envy, Boredom, etc. 

Factors affecting stability

Right off the bat, we can come up with certain factors that usually dictate whether a piece of music is more stable or unstable.

• Tempo : slower tempos suggest negative emotions while faster tempos suggest stable emotions. 
• Choice of notes: A common observation is that "suddha" (natural) notes usually create more stability while "komal" (flat) or "teevra" (sharp) notes usually create more instability. 
• Proportion of notes: The relative ratio of Shuddha vs. Komal/Teevra notes used directly influences the resultant emotion. 
• Use of volume, timber, meaning, etc. 

Case study: Maarwa vs. Pooriya

Raga rules dictate the set of notes to use, allowed transitions between notes, time spent on a given note and relative proportion. Thus, if we take more than one Raga that have the same set of notes, then we should be able to analyze the relative differences in their emotions without too much effort.

Raga Maarwa and Pooriya share the same set of notes. However, it is commonly accepted that Maarwa is more negative than Pooriya.

Or, Maarwa < Pooriya in stability.

The difference between Maarwa and Pooriya is simply a matter of proportions.
In Maarwa, Komal Re and Shuddha Dha are prominent while Sa, Shuddha Ga and Shuddha Ni are diminished,

In Pooriya, Shuddha Ga and Shuddha Ni are prominent while Komal Re and Shuddha Dha are diminished.

Teevra Ma, for all practical purposes, is used in the same proportion in both.

We can state the following inequality:

Stability(Komal Re + Shuddha Dha) < Stability(Shuddha Ga + Shuddha Ni + Sa)

Based on the "Choice of notes" assumption above, we can see that Maarwa has a stronger negative side, while Pooriya has a stronger positive side.

More Questions

We were able to analyze a pair of Ragas with the same set of notes and separate them in the emotion spectrum based on their rules and proportions of notes.

However, we still don't know why! This will be the topic of a future blog.