The effect of background music on the interpretation of a story in 5 year olds

Throughout development, children acquire knowledge both about the syntactical norms of tonal music, and about the relationship between musical form and emotion. The perception of emotional expression in music by children has been examined directly using chosen musical excerpts. However, although music is often heard as background to other activities, the effect of background music on the perception of other stimuli in children has not been studied. Aim: The aim of the present study was to examine whether "sad" or "happy" background music would affect the interpretation of a story read to young children. Method: Sixty kindergarten children (mean age=5.5 yeasr) listened to a read story, containing no conflict or words denoting clear emotion, with no background music, with the original melody from Chopin's Mazurka op.68 n.2 in A minor in the background, or with a major version of the melody in the background, and were asked 10 questions regarding the feelings of the story character by selecting happy, sad or neutral pictures of faces. Results: In most questions regarding various points of the story, as well as the story as a whole, children who heard the story with the minor background music tended to judge it as sadder, children who heard it with the major background music judged it happier, and children who heard it with no background music were more or less equally divided in their interpretation.. Conclusions: The present study suggests that even at a very young age, background music may affect the interpretation of other stimuli. By the age of 5, children are sufficiently familiar with the tonal idiom and sensitive to music norms to be affected by background music in their emotional interpretation of a story.