Well-known and unknown music as an emotionalizing carrier of meaning in film

For many years, research has been conducted on film music in general and on its potential to convey meaning in particular. Surprisingly, some fundamental research gaps have remained. Does unknown film music express and induce emotions and convey meaning in a way that is equally distinct and predictable, compared with well-known music? Does the same music simultaneously influence more than one of the (as yet mostly individually tested) aspects through which music can convey meaning? This study, with 139 participants and a 2×2 between-subjects design, manipulated the emotional connotation and level of familiarity of an ambiguous film scene’s background music. The results provide an empirical basis for the practical knowledge that carefully selected and edited film music can communicate specific emotions, thereby inducing predictable emotions in the recipients. As an instrument of nonverbal communication, a music track influences several aspects through which music can convey meaning: the attributed film genre, the perception of the general film atmosphere, and the protagonists’ emotions, social behaviors, and relationships to each other. The genre associated with film music and the music’s expressed emotions have a significant impact, whereas whether the music is well-known or unknown to the audience is not crucial, as predicted.