In an interview with a laughing teacher in Cabinet magazine (yes, she gets groups of people, sometimes individuals, to laugh as a kind of therapy) she proposes that although we think of laughter as the symptom, the effect, the visible outward sign of an interior state, it might sometimes be the exact opposite. She says that sometimes laughter produces the interior state that we think it stems from. The effect produces the cause, in other words. Hence the success of her therapy, or so she claims.
Music possibly works the same way — it can produce the emotions and feelings that we tend to assume generated it in the first place. We assume that a singer sings because he or she is happy, melancholy or filled with anger. We believe the song is an outlet, a manifestation of these emotions and feelings. But I would argue that what is actually happening is that the song they are singing is producing, or more likely, rekindling and dredging up that emotion in the singer. And in the listener. A well-made song resurrects the emotion it depicts — it does not necessarily derive from that emotion. With the exception of method actors (and there are method singers too) most actors don't actually need to feel the emotions their performance depicts before they get on stage or before the camera rolls. If their craft is well-honed and the script is good, then they will convince us, and possibly themselves as well, that they are deeply in love, furious or out of their minds. Their performance — going through the motions, the gestures, the facial expressions — may sometimes stir those emotions in the actor. Or singer as the case may be.
This is heresy to a lot of critics who would like to believe that creative work is reflection of interior states, that a direct conduit links the emotion of the artist and the composition, and of course interpretation of their work. Critics and sometimes the public come to believe that craft is suspect, as it can make us believe that emotion is there when it might not necessarily be. Or at least wasn't there before the performance.
I would say it is not deception to rekindle and reawaken emotions — they have to be there, lurking, to tap into. But they themselves are not always the source of moving and emotional work.
