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National anthems are more than music for ceremonies—they reflect the unique cultural and geographical characteristics of nations. A new study in Scientific Reports has analyzed the emotional characteristics of 176 national anthems using machine learning and music information retrieval (MIR).

The research team, led by Petri Toiviainen at the University of Jyväskylä, explored how the musical features of anthems predict perceived emotional qualities such as happiness, sadness, fear, and arousal, and how these qualities vary across geographical and cultural dimensions.

By training statistical models created earlier to rate the emotional content of film music, the team predicted the emotional profile of each anthem and identified clear global patterns. Anthems from countries closer to the equator tended to exhibit higher levels of energetic arousal, while those farther from the equator tended to be sadder.

Emotional tone also differed between continents: for example, anthems from the Americas were generally more tense and less positive than those from other regions.

The study also found links between cultural dimensions and emotions associated with the anthem: hierarchical (high power distance) cultures had more energetic anthems, while individualistic cultures had anthems that were more tender and less tense.

"These findings suggest that national anthems reflect both geographic and cultural characteristics of nations in their musical expression," says Toiviainen. "They highlight how computational tools can help us study the emotional signals embedded in symbolic music at a global scale.

"This also offers a new way of looking at national identity through music," he says. "Mapping emotional profiles in this way can increase our understanding of the collective emotional heritage that is rooted in us.

"Next, it would be interesting to study how people experience their own national anthem or how the time of its composition affects its emotional content."