Facets of experience — Interviews on music and emotion in encounter with Frede Nielsen’s theory on multifaceted meanings in music experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT -- This article investigates music experience using interview data in an encounter with Frede V. Nielsen’s model and theory on a multifaceted universe of musical meaning. Originally, the data was conducted to gather knowledge on music and emotion, but as it turned out, the 10 qualitative interviews also revealed interesting aspects about the many ways we experience music. Nielsen’s model is used to analyse the empirical material further in relation to different layers or facets of experience, providing the research question(s): How can interview data on music and emotion contribute to our understanding of music experience, and how can Frede Nielsen’s model on a multifaceted universe of musical meanings contribute in such knowledge development? The interviews, as well as Nielsen’s model, was primarily defined within a hermeneutic and phenomenological frame. To some extent, the article is also inspired by postmodern (e.g. relational and interstitial) thinking and a scientific tradition encouraging subject–subject encounters. The results reveal that all the interview data on music and emotion can contribute to our understanding of music experience, and that all the layers of Nielsen’s model are relevant. However, the model seems to lack an explicit relational or intersubjective layer of meaning, which clearly appears in the interviews. Keywords: music experience, musical meaning, emotion, interview, Frede V. Nielsen