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.

Interpretation is in the ear of the beholder.
 
I don't think there is a formula much beyond major keys are "happy" and minor keys are "sad" and all that rot.

Hi,
 
Pedro will be along any minute.
 

I yell "Damn it!" a lot when I screw up a perfectly good take.  Does that count as portraying emotion through music? 

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.

RobertB
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.

It's true that I can listen to the music I like and feel something from it, but how is that going to help me in any way in terms of making my own music?  There is no explanation of how I'm supposed to learn and incorporate what I've learned from listening to the music I like into making the music I want (this would be in terms of knowing what combinations of notes/rests to use to portray a specific feeling).  Again, I can learn and incorporate in terms of music theory, but not in terms of music psychology since there is no teaching of it.  In other words, I cannot gain any knowledge about music psychology.  And when you have no knowledge and no explanation of how to use that knowledge, you cannot achieve anything.  Sure, I can experience feelings from the music I like to listen to, but emotional learning is not the same thing as learning in terms of gaining knowledge and being able to use that knowledge.  In other words, just because I am experiencing emotion from the music I like to listen to, this means nothing when it comes to me wanting to compose and no actual knowledge is being gained (again, only feelings themselves are being gained).
 
Therefore, there would be no logic in being a successful composer just from feelings alone. In order to do anything right and skillfully, you need to have knowledge in order to do so. In my case, I wish to create music that portrays emotion that the general audience (practically everyone) can agree with. In order to do that, you would have to have musical knowledge of how the mind of the general audience works. There are many composers who are very successful at doing this, but it wouldn't be because they just created songs from the heart (their feelings). If that were the case, anyone can be successful at anything if they did everything from the heart. I could be the next Stephen Hawking having no knowledge of physics if I just came up with scientific ideas of my own from the heart. 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.

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...

Creating music that YOU enjoy will go much further than trying to figure out with the (mostly dim-witted) masses feel you should make.  The passion YOU put into the music will translate.

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 
 
 

"And when you have no knowledge and no explanation of how to use that knowledge, you cannot achieve anything."
 
You have a very limited view of knowledge. And you confuse explanation with understanding. This is not just a music thing, if you believe what you have said, you are deeply confused about life.
 
We might think that music expresses emotion because of a cognitive link with language, and that is true. But one can also experience emotion from an entirely language free stimulus. A painting can evoke a strong emotion, and it has very little at all to do with color theory or perspective. And the emotive language of poetry does not derive from the rules of grammar, rhyme or meter.
 
If you do not feel any emotional response to music (some people do not) then you are at a great disadvantage. If you do, then you have all of the knowledge you need to evaluate your own music, and if you can evaluate it you can shape it. Music psychology is an interesting study, but again you are confusing an explanatory model with the thing itself. You can have a PhD in the psychology of love, but it is neither necessary nor particularly helpful if you are falling in love. The emotional ear is what you need to listen to, and practice listening to your feelings is helpful, but you do not need perfect pitch.