It has now been scientifically proven that sad music causes sadness. Finnish scientists did this; they conducted a study on how sad music affects mood. It turns out that this kind of music evokes genuine sadness and has a strong emotional response. Scientists have discussed this fact for decades, but they did not have sufficient evidence. The subjects listened to the music that they chose themselves and the instrumental music that they heard for the first time. The researchers measured participants' emotions as objectively as possible using indirect measures. And we found that all the participants felt sad while listening to familiar compositions. But true and complete sadness was experienced when listening to instrumental music that they heard for the first time, and only those with well-developed empathy. Jona Vuoskoski from the Finnish Center for Interdisciplinary Music Research explains: “Familiar sad music evokes sad and sad memories that are associated with a particular composition, but only particularly empathic people reacted to unfamiliar music, this indicates that these people can fully feel the emotions embedded in the composition and such music has a stronger influence on them than on others. Although some reported (when listening to the compositions that they themselves chose) that they experienced, albeit sad, but pleasant emotions. But sadness is a negative experience.” All this raises interesting questions that need to be clarified in further research, because it is not yet clear why some people experience joy when listening to sad compositions and even enjoy their sad state. Mikhail Ozhirinsky - psychoanalyst, group analyst.