Chapter 10 Music perception

When we listen to music, as well as to other patterns of sound, many of the same principles of perception apply as in other domains like vision. We immediately encounter figure-ground relationships between the focal aspect of the pattern we are attending to, and the rest of the sounds that reach our ears. As an example, suppose we hear the piece shown in Fig. 10.1 , the slow movement from Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ sonata for violin and piano ( Sonata in F Major, op. 24 ). When the piano begins to play, it stands out as a figure in contrast to other sounds in the room. You follow the undulating accompaniment pattern in the left-hand piano part, but this recedes into the background, like wallpaper, when the melody starts in the upper voice. The dynamic shape of the melody dominates the auditory scene, and though you may notice the quiet entry of the violin in the second measure, your attention reverts quickly to the melodic shape. These are very simple observations, but already we encounter a distinct difference between audition and vision. At first our attention is drawn to the piano as a sound source , in contrast to all the other sound sources in the environment. But then the sound of the piano splits into two sound objects —the melody and the accompaniment—both coming from the same source. The piano as a sound source is located in physical space, along with the violin, the rattling of page turns, coughs in the audience, etc. The melody as a sound object is, in contrast, located in a kind of ‘virtual space’ of pitch and time, as is the background accompaniment. Melody and accompaniment have the same location in physical space, but different locations in pitch and time. Kubovy and Van Valkenburg ( 2001 ) provide a stimulating discussion of this contrast, pointing out that the closest auditory analog of shape perception in vision is the perception of melodic contours traced in pitch across time. When the melody shifts to the violin in measure 10, melody and accompaniment come from different locations in physical space as well as occupying different pitch ranges (and contrasting in timbre—their instrumental tone color). These contrasts help clarify the musical structure; being present at a concert changes what we hear and understand of the music. As Vines et al. ( 2006 ) have documented, the gestures of the musicians while playing communicate aspects of the musical message, as well as reinforce the differentiation of sound sources. (This could be especially important in listening to a string quartet, where all the instruments have similar timbres, to help differentiate what each instrument is doing, or a rock band in which the instruments tend to mask one another’s sound. The visual message helps us focus attention on a particular instrumental line as figure.) The contour of the melodic line has what Mari Jones has called ‘dynamic shape’ in emphasizing its motion in time through the pitch space (Jones, Summerell, and Marshburn, 1987 ). The dynamic motion of the melody conveys feelings of tension and relaxation. The first phrase is felt as very relaxed. Then very quietly the tension increases, reaching a peak in the third two-bar phrase. Then it recedes as the eight-measure melody comes to an end on the very stable tonic