It was like a kiss from the sun after a particularly violent storm. That was how I felt after listening to Antonín Dvořák’s Humoresques No. 7, Op.101 at a masterclass I attended. The 7th Humoresques is famous in the history of classical ensemble music for its use of contrasts and holds emotional significance for me as it was one of the first pieces I ever took to competition. The piece is so moving that it elicits in me a feeling of “frisson” which is, “the psychophysiological response to rewarding auditory and/or visual stimuli that often induces a pleasurable or otherwise positively-valenced affective state and transient paresthesia (skin tingling or chills)”. This phenomenon has only been recently defined, yet references to it and attempts to use it as a mode of musical communication stretch back to the 1950s. As influenced by the historical case study conducted by Mara Mills where she reports on the failure of Weiner’s infamous “hearing glove” to convey complex audio patterns like those found in speech through the skin and the example of Gallaudet’s “dubstep floor” which could convey a limited sense of music via low frequency bass vibration I have created a completely soundless visual-tactile stimulatory experience of what frisson and emotions I feel when listening to Humoresques. The exhibit was created in my dining room and primarily utilizes a handheld speaker which has been adapted to vibrate to the bass tones of the original Humoresques. As one hand feels the vibrations of the original piece, your other hand is guided through a curated lineup of objects and motions that are tied to a specific visual stimuli and presented on the screen in front of you. Each change represents a paired stimuli and emotional response that I have attempted to translate the Humoresque into.

 

Feeling Frisson Presentation Slides

When going through the slides, please read the slide comments. They include the timings of the exhibit as well as more details on how the experience was setup.

 

Exhibit Setup:

 

Citations:

1. Harrison L, Loui P (2014). “Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative model of transcendent psychophysiological experiences in music”. Frontiers in Psychology. 5: 790. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790
2. Meyer, L. B. (1956). Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
3. Nasser, Latif. “Helen Keller and The Glove That Couldn’t Hear.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 20 Sept. 2014,
4. Michele Friedner & Stefan Helmreich (2012) Sound Studies Meets Deaf Studies, The Senses and Society, 7:1, 72-86, DOI: 10.2752/174589312X13173255802120