Musical Emotions (Listening, All Levels)

 Musical Emotions

Bence Pókász

Part 1: The Game

Finding proper inspiration is one of the most important parts of the first phase of creative writing: creating a story concept. Inspiration can be both hard to come by, and hard to look for, as it can be anything: an TV show, a picture, a book, or music. I like to work with music as it had been my most important source of inspiration in the last six years. 

Level and Learning Outcomes

During this task, the students will learn to identify how certain sounds will make them feel, and how to use that in writing. The discussion of their solutions is also a perfect opportunity to practice communication skills.

Materials Needed

  • Songs (See Appendix A)

  • Music Player and Speakers

  • List of Emotions (See Appendix B)

Object of the Game

To connect music to feelings

Rules of Play

The students will need to work individually in their original place, or the task can be done in pairs. A smartboard, or simply a Bluetooth speaker is required to listen to the songs.

The students will need to listen to a given number of songs (six in this case) and write down how listening to them made them feel. After this, there is a list of emotions they will need to pair to the songs and then we will compare the results.

Part 2: Reflection

Someone told me that I can't listen to emotions and I decided to prove them wrong.

Music is a favorite source of inspiration of mine when I'm writing stories. When I teach creative writing I often have the group write something after listening to a song from a movie's or a videogame's soundtrack.

I created this game by improving this task to include elements, such as matching the songs to a list of words and adding a discussion which I think would result in interesting debates.

My group responded well to the game and they enjoyed it. I thought that their pairings would be similar, but each of the solutions were very different, as the songs provoked various emotions in all of them. One student did not like the song Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern, as it made them feel fear, but also found it to be overdramatic, while the majority of the group found it quite enjoyable.

Most students enjoyed Home on the Wastes more, and described it as a welcoming, warm country song, that would be sang around a campfire, while around half of them found Fallout 3's Main Title to be inspiring, with the other half feeling depressed after listening to it.


Part 3: Appendices

Appendix A The Songs

Fallout 3 Main Title - Inon Zur

https://open.spotify.com/track/3ynOh82NOks4d4YcKkcrnt?si=Zq30kvRASZecxgIHPWcrGQ

Queen of Drangleic - Motoi Sakuraba

https://open.spotify.com/track/0ELpwa6obqoY605QYuGU70?si=3HQZJPTJRNKI9KL3kWQ6DQ

Children of the Omnissiah - Guillaume David

https://open.spotify.com/track/4X8EWmG3c2eIRxPDsPGU0O?si=5OnzKKAkR5OfImkSxtSpDg

Home on the Wastes - J.E. Sawyer, Nathaniel Chapman

https://open.spotify.com/track/089ZixvQZXrCHLNURKOh8L?si=s9DA8TpqRFycuaHZJ-EPXg

Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern - Woody Jackson

https://open.spotify.com/track/71tjUqsaiFFKWpn8xhoPWh?si=rupQvotLRrmf_yIIjFUMiA

Wrath of the Righteous Main Theme - Dimitry V. Silantyev

https://open.spotify.com/track/0gX3vycUAw2L2gnh6zM3vD?si=scOIXkxHRtGQ-KK79CA1mQ

Appendix B: The Emotions

Calmness, Sense of Duty, Longing, Anger, Curiosity, Sense of Belonging

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