Zur emotionalen Wirkung der Rockmusik
There no longer seems to be any doubt about the dominating influence the Rock music distribution exert on the musical behavior of the young people. It is thus with good reason that Rock music has become the subject of more and more research in the area of musicology, Jazz research and music education. On the other hand, most of these studies regard Rock music primarily under sociological, historical and analytical points of view. Special studies about the emotional qualities of Rock music are not very often carried out. A research project was involved therefore, in which a rather large number of young people from varying social backgrounds and levels of education were questioned about their musical behavior, especially about their reception of Rock music. A standard questionnaire was used to collect the social data such as age, sex, residence, education, income, spending money, musical equipment owned and Rock music records. Personal interviews with the subjects recorded their statements about favorite Rock music broadcasts, content and extent of daily listening, their attendance at Rock festivals and concerts as well as their emotional feeling by hearing or playing the Rock music. Within the scope of the results a system was developed which contains certain types of Rock music perception. An initial type can be defined here by "sound listening". It includes elementary-school pupils and thus primarily listeners from the lower class. A second type implies the term "progressive Rock" and is composed to a large extent of pupils with a better education from the middle- and upper-classes. A third type is characterized by "cognitive and emotional listening" and includes mostly students who prefer the more complicated Rock music genres. Moreover, the results of this study ascribe an attraction to Rock music which derives directly from its intensive emotional expression. Research projects on Rock music in the area of musicology, Jazz research and music education should nor forget therefore that the emotional expression must be regarded as one of the fundamental aspects of Rock music culture.