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Music across all genres evokes a variety of emotions, irrespective of its timbre and tempo. Indian classical music (ICM) is no exception. Although being biased towards vocal musical styles, instrumental music forms one broad section of ICM. In this study, we have tried to compare the neural responses of music practitioners and non-musicians towards different emotions using audio clips from two popular plucked string instruments used in ICM, Sitar and Sarod. From pre-recorded performances of two eminent maestros, 20 clips of approximately 30 s duration were selected from the Alaap sections (initial introductory section without any rhythmic accompaniment) of different Raagas played in the two instruments. From an audience response assessment of 100 participants, a total of eight clips having maximum arousal for happy and sad emotions were identified from the 20 clips, using which EEG (Electroencephalography) recordings were collected from five musicians and five non-musicians. Robust nonlinear Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis technique (MFDFA) was applied to quantitatively measure the brain-state changes in different lobes for both categories of participants. In essence, this study attempts to encapsulate if and how prior musical training influences the brain responses towards two basic musical emotions in ICM using two instruments of same family.

The most interesting feature of Indian Classical Music is the existence of Raagas. Each Raaga has its own peculiar ascending and descending movement called the Arohana and Avarohana . Even if two (or more) Raagas are made up of the same notes, the combinational varieties of notes evoke different emotions. In this work, we envisage to study how emotion perception in listeners’ changes when there is an alteration of merely a single note in a pentatonic Raaga and also when a particular note(s) is replaced by its flat/sharp counterpart. Approximately 60 sec recordings were done for two pair of Raaga s which were chosen in a manner such that they are having difference in only one note keeping all others same. The fractal dimension of auditory waveform provides a robust nonlinear quantitative parameter with which the two pair of audio clips can be compared. Also, the emotional appraisal from these two pairs were assessed on the basis of psychological listening tests as well from cognitive response in the form of EEG experiments done on 5 participants. Interesting new results are obtained on how trivial changes in the note structure of a particular Raaga influences human emotion to a large extent.