The Positive/Negative Music Test
by Don Robertson

Back in the mid-1970s, when I was giving seminars on the effects of positive and negative music, I created a short "Positive-Negative Music Test." This was a five-minute recording that I played for my seminar participants that comprised five or six different selections of music played back-to-back without a pause between. When a listener is forced to switch abruptly between positive and negative compositions, the effects of each are much more noticeable than when the same selections are presented in their own context. Here is a similar test that I have created for visitors to the DoveSong website.

The Positive/Negative Music Test is in MP3 Format

Instructions

1) Click here to download theMP3 file to your PC or MP3 player.
2) Turn up the sound. The test will take five minutes
3) Sit back, relax and listen. You might learn more about the difference between positive and negative music that you ever suspected.

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The selections on the test are from these works:

• Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy

• Moses and Aron, by Arnold Shönberg (Opera)

• Mass in G, by Franz Schubert

• Lulu, by Alban Berg (Opera)

• Ave Maria, by Franz Schubert (from the Fantasia movie)

• Downward Spiral, by Nine Inch Nails (Contemporary rock)