How to Portray Emotion Through Music

When it comes to music, emotion and getting that emotion across to the audience is the most important thing to me. I feel that if practically no one interprets any music I create the way I do and it just comes out as something that is either completely different to anyone else (has a different feel to everyone else than what I feel from it), and/or has no emotion to anyone else but me, then I will be all alone with my own interpretations. 
 
Now music theory just involves you learning about scales, note lengths, etc. and does explain the emotional (psychological aspects) of music to a certain degree. But it does not fully explain the psychological aspects. For example, if you wanted to create a song that is happy, music theory would just simply say to do that, you would use a major scale (the white keys). But if I were to just tap away at a bunch of random white keys (that does have rhythm and would technically be a song), even though it is in fact a song, it does not portray any emotion due to it being a bunch of random white keys and would, therefore, not be happy or anything. So there is clearly something more deep in terms of portraying emotion through music. Another example would be that there are different feelings of happiness (there is cheerful, motivational, heroic, etc.), so how would you know what combination of notes/rests to use to portray the specific feeling of happiness that you want? Music theory does not answer that (or does it)? This is obviously where music psychology would come in handy. It would be a book/teaching that explains the psychology behind knowing what combinations of notes/rests/instruments to use, etc. in order to portray the exact feeling that you want.
 
Is there such a teaching available on Youtube? If so, could you give me the link? It would be interesting to know the logical explanation behind my musical interpretations and everyone else's. It would be interesting to know if my musical interpretations are illogical and false and don't follow any given musical logic according to music theory and music psychology (some interpretation outside the realm of musical logic that I've just simply applied to my music), or if my musical interpretations really are true and it's just a matter of having the right audience who does have a knowledge of my style of music.

Hi,
 
Pedro will be along any minute.
 

You can learn the notes, and you can learn theory, but you can't learn emotion.
Listen to the music that moves you. I mean really listen to it. It's subtle stuff that conveys emotion.
You need to feel it when you are playing it. If it's not there going in, it won't be there going out.
You can't learn it from YouTube. It has to come from you.

Mozart Link
 In order to do that, you would have to have musical knowledge of how the mind of the general audience works.

There is no 'mind of the general audience'. People perceive music differently.
 
You can learn how to compose music mathematically, but the emotional side of it comes from you, as Bob said.
 

Therefore, great composers clearly had some "musical guidebook to the human mind" of some sort and I wish to know where I can get it or what link there is on Youtube that teaches this.

 
You are kidding, right...

This book may or may not provide some insight (and even if it doesn't, it's a very interesting read):
 

 
Beyond that, personally I believe that you're thinking about it too much. You're also asking too much of the human psyche in terms of consistency. Does "practically everyone" feel the same common emotion when hearing a particular combination of notes and rhythms? Of course not. There is likely to be some common ground, especially among people of the same culture, but apart from that our emotional reactions to music are deeply personal and are tied to memory and experience. I think "The Lark Ascending" by Vaughan Williams is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written - it sends shivers down my spine that are almost unbearable and evokes all the magnificence and beauty of nature. Yet I remember years ago playing it to a group of friends and them asking me to put something else on after about 5 minutes. I just felt horrified that people I was friends with didn't "get it." There are many other people who feel the same way about that piece of music as I do, but there are just as many people for whom it does nothing. One of my friends told me he thought it was bland, like the incidental music in an old movie. 
 
I don't think there is any formula written in stone which determines what notes and what rhythms evoke what emotions. There are certain general guidelines - happy major and sad minor, the dreamy and mysterious feel of the Lydian mode, the idea of tension/release, the movement of chords around a cycle back to a "home" chord which feels like the completion of a journey etc, but this is all pretty much broad brush stuff. Music, like any form of art, is the translation of inexplicable thoughts and feelings within your mind into an intermediate physical form which can be perceived by other people and hopefully "reconstructed" into the same feelings within their minds. It's the communication of your sense of life and your perceptions into a language that can be interpreted by others. But the likelihood of someone else reconstructing those thoughts in exactly the same way as they existed in the mind of the artist is very slim. Someone else's interpretation is always going to be colored by their own perceptions and experiences. At this point I'm talking pretentious BS at a level that I'm not comfortable with, so I'll leave it at that 
 
 

My sole goal is to create songs in my head and translate EXACTLY what I hear in my head (not just the notes, but the exact sounds [instruments] that play).  I am, in fact, already able to create tunes and such in my head that I deem to be good.  Though my ability is good in this area, I am completely terrible when it comes to getting the notes out and such how I hear them in my head.  So I will need training in terms of being able to translate the notes in my head as well as being able to replicate the sounds of the instruments in my head.  Could you explain exactly what training I will need in order to become good at those things?

Mozart Link
My sole goal is to create songs in my head and translate EXACTLY what I hear in my head (not just the notes, but the exact sounds [instruments] that play).  I am, in fact, already able to create tunes and such in my head that I deem to be good.  Though my ability is good in this area, I am completely terrible when it comes to getting the notes out and such how I hear them in my head.  So I will need training in terms of being able to translate the notes in my head as well as being able to replicate the sounds of the instruments in my head.  Could you explain exactly what training I will need in order to become good at those things?

Asking for what exact training you will need is impossible.  The question is too broad.  You need to just start recording one of your ideas and keep working on it until it resembles what you heard in your head.  Sometimes just laying down ideas changes the idea as you start to work with it.  Kinda like molding something with clay.  Just start doing it and many of your questions will get answered in your own head based on your own process.

 

IMO trying to study emotions in music is like the famous "Professional mastering" button so many are looking for in DAWs. 
Unfortunately, the way you seem to think of music as chemistry and mathematics makes me think: If you have to ask that, you'll never understand it. You need a certain amount of skills and experience, of course, but if you need to start asking about emotions, then you're lost. You either have them, or you don't. It's like a robot in a sci-fi story asking for the key of being human.
There are hundreds of thousands of technically excellent composers and millions of good musicians in the world, but the minor differences that lift some of them to popularity or otherwise above the others are not pre-calculatable.

jamesg1213
by trial and error (like bapu I would guess)

Ya

bapu
Meaning no disrespect, but the OP is starting to sound a little like that guy in the Songs Forum that had that Cholly Jolly song he "sang" all the parts to.

Exactly what I thought. The 'Can You Produce My Song' guy.

sharke
This book may or may not provide some insight (and even if it doesn't, it's a very interesting read):
...

A much tougher read would be Peter Michael Hamel's "From Music to the Self" ... but beware the fact that this book is a total trashout on pop music!
 
Not a tough subject for me, and it is one of the best things I did while directing on stage and working with actors ... I was always able to help the actors find "their moments" and "their time", so they would know what, where, when, how and everything else with what they had around them!
 
There is no "secret" to this, but one ... and it may not sound right, but it is TRUE. It says ... LOOK IN THE MIRROR ... and when you come back with observations about what you are seeing that are not "personal" (in other words anything that HAS NOTHING to do with the play/music and so forth, then on that day, you will know ... how to say what you want to say.
 
The rest is just a bunch of words!

Emotion in music comes from outer space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZayBGWySc_0
 
Unless you mean something like Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpHgG4jILa0
 
and actually his music is more or less from the '60's.
 
 
Actually though I guess Blues are emotional, but first you have to play a guitar differently than others before perhaps.
 
 

Hi,
(long and detailed)
NOTE: This might be way too far, and thought of as not helpful. Essentially, an artist has to decide if he/she is going to be an artist or a copy of something else. END OF STORY!
 
If, otherwise, then press on. If you study the lives and history of the artists, in any discipline, you will learn quickly that many of them fought way too hard to be able to do what they did ... and this is something that you have to define for yourself.
 

When it comes to music, emotion and getting that emotion across to the audience is the most important thing to me...

 
This is good to a point. By the time you catch Iggy Pop and others, who are basically insane on stage, it makes you wonder where emotion ends and insanity starts. Then you can hear a Peter Hammill crying and screaming in his material and you ask yourself ... if he is really hurt ... and he is ... that's the way he does it, though he is older now.
 
There is a good side to that and a bad side to that. The good side, is that (usually) that person is a fairly good student of expression, or they are not capable of doing any of this. However, there is a more recent development of things, in the "metal", progressive and otherwise area, where I seriously think that this is about the cookie factory and not the ability or the talent behind it.
 

...  I feel that if practically no one interprets any music I create the way I do and it just comes out as something that is either completely different to anyone else (has a different feel to everyone else than what I feel from it), and/or has no emotion to anyone else but me, then I will be all alone with my own interpretations.

 
YOU ARE all alone with your interpretation!
 
I DO NOT see the same thing that you do, and vice versa!
 
See?
 
And you, or me, expecting the audience to understand and "know" what you are doing and thinking, is pretentious and will get you thrown out a few times before you find out that in the end, this is called "the fourth wall", and that is something that you have to learn to let go.
 
Concentrate on your work! Forget what is outside the wall, because if you don't you will LOSE everything that you want to do, and I guarantee you that you will quit!
 

... music theory just involves you learning about scales, note lengths, etc. and does explain the emotional (psychological aspects) of music to a certain degree. But it does not fully explain the psychological aspects. ...

 
The "idea", which no teacher I have ever met tells you, is that you can bend, shape, turn, those scales, notes and other details to express yourself better.
 
But this is not "simple", and should NEVER be put into a generic bullmerde type of thing like major is happy and minor is sad, which Bach showed is not true at all! It is an illusion that has a tendency to make you conform to something that is not there ... that you are supposed to feel this, when in fact you got an erection instead! It's important you see that rather neanderthal way of defining music is for the dogs, cats and monkees of the world, not you or I!
 
But remember that DAW's are making this harder to define, by using sound effects instead of "expression". The effects themselves become an expression because it might give you a feeling that you can not define or understand.
 
In general, this confuses the issue a lot more than it helps, specially if the music is a bunch of confusion anyway, and no one does anything except play around with another toy! Which is supposed to define something for you?
 
Right!
 

... This is obviously where music psychology would come in handy. It would be a book/teaching that explains the psychology behind knowing what combinations of notes/rests/instruments to use, etc. in order to portray the exact feeling that you want. ...

 
Incorrect. (In my book!)
 
This is where you want to define yourself and your expression better!
 
You need to get off pop/classical/anything music to do this, because the best expression is not on the air/tv, and it looks like it is buried and hidden and occult (old day's expression!), but it is not. It's out there, but because it is so individualistic, most people, tend to stay away from it, because they get somewhat scared that someone takes things this far! AND they can't, for whatever reason!
 
When you come to grips with those expressions, it will take a little time, but you can bring out yours. You might already have it, but because you are comparing things so much to scales, notes and professors, there is no way that you will EVER find yourself in there. Because it is in YOU, not them!
 
Remember that!
 

... It would be interesting to know if my musical interpretations are illogical and false and don't follow any given musical logic according to music theory and music psychology ...

 
It is (All), way too subjective to be discussed, and things like this tend to come off a bit like ... therapy ... because you will find way too many moments where you think/feel that you have to look in the mirror again and figure out things again.
 
It's not, EVER, about figuring out anything.
 
Take a hint from your dreams ... and how wild and off kilter they can be, and that should give you a hint. However, society thinks that it is all about "control" of those "primitive" ideas, and this is where the majority of "emotion" and the details that you are looking for reside. NOT, necessarily, in your ideas! For it to be effective, it has to come from the soul. If you just want pop music, then any words will do and no one will give a damn about it's meaning but they will walk around like a zombie! And make sure you pay your $100 bux to go see your favorite star!
 
Again, this is about "you", not music. When you arrive at that conclusion, the rest will be a piece of cake, and you will enjoy it, too!
 
Hope this helps ... I had more to say, but I had to trim it down as it was already way too long.