I don't know how emotion is coded in music.  I've always found minor
scales and melodic minors to feel somehow 'happy', 'smooth' and
'uplifiting'.  - sometimes.....

I think emotion is coded in our brain.

sometimes i write up the top of a score 'as you like' and try to hear
the performers emotion.

another trick i have employed is to get a breath player - flute for
example to expel all possible air from their lungs on one passage, and
then write something particularly tricky and 'demented' to come just
after that - to see how it comes out when they are a bit 'dizzy'.  from
my experience that has given a performer an 'edge' a few 'imperfections'
for a performer who is usually perfectly in time and has pitch I could
only dream of having.

personally i think a musical score can contain whatever a composer
wants to to contain, and it's not limited to dots on a page and a bunch
of obscure italian terms...  so the title is sometimes a good way to
engender emotion.  perhaps telling a little story - thats another good
way i think.

so - manipulative person that I am as a composer - I try to hit them in
the heart...  a drop of acid...  often i will tell them what i was feeling
when i wrote a peice - i try to be honest...

Amy

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