From Sorrow and Joy to Humming: How Do Human Emotional States Give Rise to Inner Music?

From Sorrow and Joy to Humming: How Do Human Emotional States Give Rise to Inner Music?

Author: Professor Islamuddin Feroz Former Professor, Department of Music, Faculty of Fine Arts, Kabul University

ORCID: 0009-0004-0024-1223

Abstract

In many emotional situations, human beings may experience a melody, rhythm, tune, or sound internally without consciously intending to create music or sing. At times, this experience may appear in the form of humming, singing softly, tapping one's fingers, or moving the body rhythmically. This raises an important question: Can human emotional states give rise to a form of “inner music”? If so, through what processes does this occur? Research in the psychology of music has demonstrated that music is closely and intricately related to emotion, memory, attention, imagination, and personal associations. The phenomenon known as “involuntary musical imagery” further demonstrates that music can enter the stream of consciousness without deliberate intention and may subsequently repeat itself in the mind. Music can also activate autobiographical memories and emotional experiences from the past, thereby creating a connection between present experience and previous events. Drawing on an analytical perspective, this article examines the relationship between emotional states, memory, environmental perception, imagination, and inner music. Its central argument is that inner music should not be understood merely as a direct reflection of an emotion. Rather, it emerges from the interaction of several cognitive and affective processes through which the human mind organizes external and internal experiences into auditory, rhythmic, and musical patterns.

Keywords: inner music, emotional states, emotion, musical imagery, memory, humming, music and emotion, imagination, perception

Introduction

Throughout life, human beings encounter situations that cannot always be adequately expressed through language. Sorrow, joy, longing, love, tranquility, loneliness, excitement, and wonder are experiences that may exist in the mind and body as feelings before they are transformed into words. In some of these situations, a person may suddenly become aware that a particular melody is running through their mind. Sometimes it is a familiar song; at other times, it may be difficult to determine where the tune came from. On certain occasions, a person may even begin humming, singing softly, or tapping their fingers without having consciously decided to do so.

At first glance, such experiences may appear simple and commonplace. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, however, they raise important questions. Why can an emotional state become associated with a particular melody? Why can a natural landscape, the sound of waves, rain, or even an image evoke music in the mind? Why are certain memories closely connected with music, and why does music sometimes repeat itself internally even when no external musical source is present?

Recent research has examined part of this experience under the concept of “involuntary musical imagery.” This term refers to the conscious experience of music in the mind without deliberate effort to generate or maintain it—an experience commonly described in everyday language as “having a song stuck in one's head” (Liikkanen & Jakubowski, 2020). Research suggests that this phenomenon is relatively common and can generally be considered a normal component of human musical cognition.

At the same time, music has a strong relationship with emotion. Researchers have shown that emotional responses to music do not result solely from the acoustic characteristics of music itself. Rather, various processes, including associative mechanisms, expectations, memory, cognitive appraisal, and physiological responses, may contribute to the emotional experience of music (Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008).

On this basis, an important question emerges: Can human emotional states themselves function as triggers for musical experiences occurring internally? The present article seeks to address this question.

Inner Music: The Silent Dialogue Between Mind and Emotion

Inner music may be understood as the mental experience of an auditory or musical pattern. Such a pattern may include melody, rhythm, lyrics, timbre, or even the overall emotional quality of a musical piece. This experience does not necessarily mean that the person is actually hearing a sound in the external environment. Rather, the individual usually recognizes that there is no external source for the sound and that the experience is taking place internally.

At this point, it is important to distinguish musical imagery from clinical phenomena such as musical hallucinations. In musical imagery, a person experiences music internally and generally recognizes it as a product of their own mental activity. In musical hallucinations, by contrast, the individual may experience music as though it were an externally originating sound. Research on involuntary musical imagery primarily concerns the ordinary, non-hallucinatory form of this experience. An important characteristic of inner music is that it does not necessarily begin with a conscious decision. A person may be studying, driving, walking, working, or simply resting when a particular piece of music suddenly appears in the mind. Research on involuntary musical imagery suggests that such experiences can be associated with several triggers, including recent exposure to music, memory associations, emotional states, environmental contexts, stress, and periods in which the mind is not occupied with a specific task (Liikkanen & Jakubowski, 2020).

This finding is important because it suggests that inner music is not simply the consequence of hearing music. The mind can retrieve musical elements from previous experiences, reactivate them, and reorganize them. Music in the human mind can therefore function as a network through which emotion, memory, environment, and imagination become interconnected.

Emotional states play an important role in this process. When a person is sad, their attention may become more oriented toward experiences associated with loss, longing, or sorrow. If a particular piece of music was previously associated with such an experience, the emotional state may contribute to the reactivation of that piece or a fragment of it. The same process can occur during happiness. A positive emotional state may direct the individual toward memories and associations connected with happiness, thereby bringing related music back into the stream of consciousness.

Thus, the relationship between emotion and music should not be regarded as one-directional. Emotion can activate music, while music can also alter or intensify emotion. This reciprocal relationship is one of the central characteristics of the human relationship with music.

Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) demonstrate that emotional responses to music may arise through several mechanisms. Some are related to the characteristics of the music itself, while others involve personal experience, associations, and the listener's psychological state. Consequently, the same piece of music may evoke different emotions in different people because each person possesses a different history of experiences, memories, and associations.

This point is particularly important in understanding inner music. If music generated emotion solely on the basis of its acoustic structure, people's responses would be expected to be relatively similar. Everyday experience, however, suggests otherwise. A particular song may remind one person of a happy period in life and another person of separation or loss. Therefore, what appears as inner music is not simply a product of music itself; it is the result of the relationship between music and the individual's life experience.

Memory plays a central role in this process. Music is among the stimuli capable of activating personal memories with considerable intensity and speed. Research by Schulkind et al. (1999) on music, emotion, and autobiographical memory demonstrated that musical pieces can facilitate the retrieval of information and experiences associated with the past. This connection between music and memory means that hearing or imagining a melody can sometimes bring back far more than the music itself.

For example, a person may not have heard a particular song for years, yet during an emotionally significant situation, a few notes or a fragment of its melody may suddenly emerge in the mind. This may bring back a memory of a person, a place, a relationship, or a particular period of life. In such circumstances, music functions as a kind of bridge between the present and the past.

More recent research has also emphasized the relationship among music, memory, and imagination. Margulis and Jakubowski (2024) explain that music can evoke both autobiographical memories and imaginative experiences, and that the interaction among musical cues, meaning, context, and emotion can influence the formation of memories and imagined experiences.

From this perspective, inner music is not necessarily a simple act of remembering. Sometimes the mind retrieves fragments of music from memory, combines them with the individual's present emotional state, and constructs a new experience. Consequently, the melody experienced internally may not be an exact reproduction of the music previously heard; rather, it may be a reconstruction created by the mind.

This brings us to the role of imagination. When a person experiences a landscape, emotion, or memory, the mind does not simply replay the information received. Instead, it organizes and reconstructs that information. Music is no exception. A view of the sea may evoke tranquility in one person, loneliness in another, and memories of travel or childhood in someone else. In each case, the mental experience may be accompanied by a rhythm, melody, or humming.

This raises an interesting question: Does nature itself generate music, or does the human mind transform natural patterns into something musical? There is no simple scientific answer to this question. However, it can be argued that the human mind is sensitive to order, repetition, and patterns. The regular movement of waves, rainfall, wind, and even footsteps contain temporal structures. Such structures may interact with human perceptual systems and create conditions for rhythmic experiences.

Nevertheless, this should not lead to the conclusion that every experience of nature directly produces inner music. Human experience depends on context, personality, memories, and emotional states. The same landscape may have completely different meanings for the same person under different circumstances. On a peaceful day, the sound of the sea may be associated with tranquility; on a day of intense longing, the same sound may evoke a distant memory.

This is where emotional state becomes particularly important. Psychological state can function like a filter through which some environmental stimuli become more prominent than others. A person experiencing sadness may become more sensitive to stimuli associated with loss or longing, whereas a happy person may attend more readily to stimuli connected with positive past experiences. Consequently, the music that emerges internally may result from the interaction between the present emotional condition and the individual's reservoir of past experiences.

Humming is particularly interesting in this context. Sometimes music first emerges internally and is then transformed into vocal or motor behavior. A person may imagine a melody and then, without consciously deciding to do so, reproduce it quietly or tap out its rhythm with their fingers. This behavior can be understood as a transition from internal experience to external expression.

Research on musical imagery suggests that imagining music can be associated with processes involved in musical production and perception. Consequently, experiencing a melody internally may be accompanied by a readiness to sing or reproduce it. Humming, in this sense, may be one of the simplest forms of expressing inner music. A child may hum or sing before acquiring formal musical skills. Adults may likewise engage in the same behavior in a variety of circumstances, even when no audience is present. This suggests that music is not merely an artistic or social activity; it may also form part of everyday psychological life and the regulation of inner experience.

At the same time, inner music is not always pleasant. A melody that repeatedly appears in the mind may sometimes become annoying or intrusive. Research on involuntary musical imagery indicates that although people often do not regard such experiences as unpleasant, under certain circumstances they may become distracting or bothersome (Liikkanen & Jakubowski, 2020).

This demonstrates that inner music is not always the product of conscious choice. Some of it may emerge automatically from interactions among memory, attention, and environmental stimuli. A frequently heard song, a simple musical phrase, a familiar rhythm, or even a non-musical association can initiate the process.

The human mind, in fact, creates networks of connections among sensory experiences and memories. A place may remind someone of a song; a song may bring a person to mind; that person may evoke a particular period of life; and that period may once again activate a specific piece of music. The relationship among music, memory, and emotion is therefore not linear but multidirectional.

From this perspective, human emotional states do not necessarily “create new music” directly. Rather, they may create conditions under which certain auditory patterns are activated from memory and imagination. This is an important distinction. To claim that sadness directly produces a melody would go beyond the available scientific evidence. It is more consistent with current research to argue that emotional states can influence attention, memory, and associations and, through these processes, increase the likelihood that certain musical patterns will emerge in consciousness.

The experience of inner music also differs considerably from one individual to another. Listening history, musical preferences, life experiences, musical training, and everyday habits may all influence the kinds of music that appear in the mind. Research reviewed by Liikkanen and Jakubowski (2020) indicates that the musical material experienced involuntarily can vary considerably, although familiarity and repetition appear to be important characteristics.

Thus, it is not possible to establish a simple formula such as “sadness equals slow music” or “happiness equals fast music.” Such a relationship would be overly simplistic. A person may think of a happy song while feeling sad because that song reminds them of a pleasant person or period in their life. Conversely, someone may think of a melancholy melody while feeling happy because that piece forms part of their personal identity or evokes meaningful memories.

This complexity demonstrates that inner music is more than a reflection of acoustic characteristics; it reflects the individual's relationship with experience. Music in the mind is often accompanied by meaning, and that meaning emerges from the person's life history.

From this perspective, inner music may be considered one of the nonverbal languages of the mind. Human beings cannot always express their feelings in clear sentences, but a melody may emerge internally and become a carrier of those feelings. That melody may come from the past, be inspired by the environment, or emerge through a combination of several experiences.

Ultimately, the relationship between emotional states and inner music can be conceptualized as a cycle: an external or internal experience generates an emotional state; that state influences attention and memory; memory and association activate a musical pattern; the musical pattern is experienced internally and, in some cases, becomes humming or motor behavior; the music may then, in turn, modify or intensify the person's emotional state. Such a cycle demonstrates that music, emotion, and memory are deeply interconnected within the human mind.

Conclusion

Inner music is one of the subtle yet widespread experiences of human life. It may emerge during moments of sadness, happiness, longing, tranquility, wonder, or contact with nature and may sometimes move beyond the level of mental experience into humming, singing, or bodily movement.

Psychological research suggests that this phenomenon cannot be attributed to a single cause. Emotional states, memory, association, attention, imagination, environmental stimuli, and musical characteristics can all contribute to the emergence and persistence of inner music (Liikkanen & Jakubowski, 2020).

Music can also bring the past into the present through its connection with autobiographical memory. A melody may be more than a melody; it may carry the memory of a person, a place, a relationship, or a particular period of life. Research on music and memory demonstrates that this relationship between music and personal memories is an important feature of human experience (Schulkind et al., 1999; Margulis & Jakubowski, 2024).

Accordingly, it is more appropriate to understand inner music not as the direct product of an emotion, but as the outcome of an interaction among emotion, memory, imagination, and perception. Sadness does not by itself create a particular melody, nor does happiness necessarily generate a specific tune. Rather, emotional states can alter the direction of attention and association and thereby influence the likelihood that particular musical patterns will become active in consciousness.

Perhaps this is why, when standing beside the sea, listening to rain, looking at an image, recalling a memory, or even experiencing silence, a person may sometimes feel that something inside has begun to sound. That sound may not have come from the outside. It may be the result of a silent dialogue among present experience, past memories, and current emotion.

In this sense, humming can be understood as the moment when inner music crosses the boundary of the mind and enters the external world. At such a moment, a person may not simply be reproducing a song; they may be expressing a part of their inner experience through sound. Music, therefore, can be regarded as one of the ways in which the human mind establishes connections between emotion and meaning, past and present, and the outer world and the inner self.

References

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Liikkanen, L. A., & Jakubowski, K. (2020). Involuntary musical imagery as a component of ordinary music cognition: A review of empirical evidence. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27(6), 1195–1217. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01750-7

Margulis, E. H., & Jakubowski, K. (2024). Music, memory, and imagination. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 33(2), 108–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214231217229

Schulkind, M. D., Hennis, L. K., & Rubin, D. C. (1999). Music, emotion, and autobiographical memory: They're playing your song. Memory & Cognition, 27(6), 948–955. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03201225