A study of human mood tagging of musical pieces

We conducted a survey in which participants were required to label the mood conveyed within a variety of musical pieces. Two different representations of mood were used, the 2D emotion space as well as updated Hevner mood labels. The results show that survey responses using the two mood representations were both consistent as well as sensible. In terms of music piece characteristics that influenced participant's responses, it has been shown that the intensity/energy, tempo and beat strength consistently influenced participant's mood responses while tonality and pitch did not. Finally, the survey has raised many important questions relating to labeling musical pieces with mood, including the handling of a musical piece conveying more than one mood simultaneously, as well as a musical piece that conveys rapid mood changes.