Comparing emotional experiences in film and music narrative

Are emotions in music, much like in a film, elicited through a narrative agency? I am interested in exploring whether there is a narrative within a piece of absolute classical music that, although not consciously perceived as having a literal meaning, uses the same mechanisms of emotional manipulation as a narrative in a film. I will explore the influence of narrative elements in music and film on the experiences of ‘aesthetic’ emotions; a more nuanced palette of basic emotions. A piece of music and a piece of film will be restructured in such a way as to interrupt the significant features of a narrative. The interrupted version as well as the original version will be presented to the participants after which their emotional valence and arousal will be measured. The results would give us a better understanding of what narrative components might have an influence on the experience of ‘refined’ emotions, and how this differs in the case of film and music.