Music, emotion, and our place in the digital world: What vocal tone quality in song reveals about our emotional response to the digital revolution.

This paper is forthcoming in a special issue of Anos90. Please cite this preprtin as follows (this metadata record will be updated when the publication is available):

Spreadborough, K. (in press). Music, emotion, and our place in the digital world: What vocal tone quality in song reveals about our emotional response to the digital revolution. Anos 90. https://doi.org/10.26188/21716471.v1

Abstract:

  

Technology is changing the way we engage with the world. But what is our emotional response to the challenges brought about by such technological innovation? The arts, as a place of expression, reflection, and speculation, provide a way of interrogating such questions. Modern popular vocal songs specifically provides a rich art-form for considering emotional responses to technology. In addition to linguistic, visual, and musical devices, such songs also afford communication through tone quality. In this paper, I propose using tone quality in modern popular vocal songs as a mechanism for interrogating our emotional response to technological influences. I contend such songs may provide insight into recent generations (born circa 1990 on) emotional experiences of technology, given this music forms part of the cultural landscape in which this group participates. This paper takes as its case study the 2014 song “Satellites” by artist EMA. I explore what tone quality may reveal about emotional attitudes to technology. This is achieved through the application of an analytical approach designed specifically for examining emotion conveyed through tone quality. This paper concludes with a discussion of how tone quality and song more generally provide a rich pallet of musically expressive devices and how this may shed light on our emotional response to technology.