Abstract: According to the resemblance theory, music owes its expressive character to its resemblance to human expressive behaviour. Discerning the expressive character of a work of music is a matter recognizing the resemblance between the music and expressive behaviour. For example, slow music is often experienced as sad and this is at least part since the speech of sad people is slow. Certain forms of expressive behaviour are found in many cultures. Consequently one would predict that members of one culture are able to discern the expressive character of music produced by members of other cultures. There is considerable empirical evidence that this is so. When listeners and makers of some music come from the same culture, the listeners are good at discerning the expressive character of the music. When the listeners and music makers come from different cultures, the listeners are not quite as good as in-group members at discerning the music's expressive character, but they are still quite good at making this determination. Part of the advantage enjoyed by listeners who belong to the music makers' culture is probably attributable to differences between languages. Sometimes the expressive character of music is attributable to its resemblance to a culture's vocal expression. This sort of expression varies dramatically from culture to culture.

Key words: musical expressiveness, philosophy of music, cross-cultural interpretation, resemblance theory