What is a Leading Tone?

In the literature, a leading tone or striving tone is described as a tone which, due to its striving, is coupled with the expectation or desire to continue a melody in a certain way. By transferring such descriptions to extra-musical situations, it will be shown that a experience of striving in the conventional sense is impossible. Instead, in this paper a different conception of the leading tone experience should be shown, which is compatible with the laws of nature: a leading tone experience is the identification with the will to keep the leading tone in question unchanged. Furthermore, it will be shown that the conception of the leading tone experience presented here makes it possible to explain the emotional effect of musical harmonies.