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 *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html