The major point Brown made was that music is good at representing emotion, but does not really induce emotion. Some of the aspects of how music represents emotion also apply to language, but mode is unique to music. His (obvious) example was the Western association of major keys with happiness and minor keys with sadness. He did mention that this was very culturally specific, which cuts out a lot of potential objections. (I've noted in the past that Jew are capable of being perfectly happy in minor keys.) I was, however, disappointed that all of the examples he played (two Beethoven pieces and a clip from the movie, "Vertigo") were Western, as I'd have liked to know more about, say, how emotion gets represented in Indian ragas.
This was still interesting, but I don't think I really learned anything new. I'm still enjoying the series and I'm looking forward to the other two lectures this month.
