bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The neural basis of pitch and harmony in the auditory system
Authors: Langner Gerald , Ochse Michael
Published: March 2011

Background in psychophysics

Psychophysical experiments have shown that the human brain has a natural preference for harmonic sounds and relationships between musical tones. Even naïve listeners are able to distinguish harmonic from inharmonic musical intervals and, under many conditions, the pitches of octaves are confused even though their fundamental frequency differs by a factor of two. Our psychophysical investigations in Mongolian gerbils have shown that animals can also learn to differentiate musical intervals.

Background in neurophysiology

In order to understand pitch perception and the neuronal basis of harmonicity, we have to understand how neurons in the central auditory system process acoustic signals. It has been demonstrated that temporal processing mechanisms in the auditory brainstem are essential for these fundamental aspects of musical perception. Neurophysiological experiments have revealed that the periodicity of signal envelopes is crucial for the perception of pitch. Neuronal representations of envelope periods, which reflect the superposition of partials of harmonic sounds in the cochlea, are analysed by temporal correlation mechanisms in the central auditory system. These mechanisms also include processing of resolved partials.

Aims

In this paper we attempt to explain pitch perception and our preference for harmonic sounds on the basis of the temporal neuronal analysis and the spatial representation of pitch information in the brain.

Conclusions

As a result of cochlear analysis, frequency is mapped along a tonotopic axis in all auditory brain areas. Similarly, as a result of temporal analysis, periodicity is mapped from the midbrain to the auditory cortex. In each case, tonotopic and periodotopic axes are orthogonal to each other. One may say that spectral information, as an important aspect of timbre, is mapped along a first neural axis, periodicity (pitch) is mapped along the second neural axis of the auditory system. Finally, as a result of temporal analysis, neurons in the auditory midbrain show preferences for harmonically related sounds. The major function of the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (VNLL), which seems to have a structure reminiscent of the pitch helix of music psychology, appears to be to control and suppress these harmonic responses.
Understanding musical expressiveness using interactive multimedia platforms
Authors: Leman Marc , Camurri Antonio
Published: March 2011

Background in musicology

Understanding the gesture-based foundations of musical involvement opens a number of new perspectives for musicology, with the likely effect of a change in approach. Giving justice to the role of gesture in music calls for an integrated view of perception and action, which implies a shift from auditory-based cognition towards embodied cognition, an approach that includes the whole human body as mediator between mental processes and physical energy.

Background in computing

With the help of new measurement tools, new computational models of multi-modal interaction, and new interactive multimedia platforms, it becomes easier to study music from a multi-modal point of view, both in terms of scientific and artistic perspectives. Music also offers an appropriate domain for the testing and developing of interactive systems and computational models for handling non-verbal multi-modal communication.

Aims

In studying musical gesture, both musicology and engineering can profit from a joint collaboration. While technology provides new tools for the measurement and modelling of musical involvement, knowledge of its corporeal foundation may largely contribute to the development of technology that in turn contributes to measurement and modelling. Furthermore, this knowledge may be exploited in artistic applications. As such, the interaction between musicology and music engineering may lead to interesting developments in the domain of embodied cognition and interactive multimedia platforms.

Main contribution

An overview of recent work on the development of an interactive multimedia platform for the measurement and modelling of musical expressiveness is presented. The paper introduces the notion of corporeal imitation and mirroring behavior as a core concept fur understanding musical expressiveness.

Implications

The approach advocated in this paper implies a shift of paradigm in systematic musicology, away from an all too narrow focus on auditory perception and sound structure, towards a broader view that encompasses multi-modal musical involvement. This approach is grounded in multi-sensory integration, the coupling of perception and action, the study of motor imitation, and issues that relate to affect, emotions and subjectivity. The advantage of using a interactive multimedia platform for music research, rather than ad hoc solutions, pertains to the use of modular functionalities, which allow rapid prototyping of experimental setup, flexible modelling, and the subsequent use of results in artistic applications.
The vocal development of a girl who sings but does not speak
Authors: Mogharbel Christliebe El , Sommer Grit , Deutsch Werner , Wenglorz Markus , Laufs Ingo
Published: March 2011

Background in music psychology

The development of singing involves not only the acquisition of melodies and words but also precise attunement to the timing structure and melodic features given by the social environment, which leads to a considerable conventionalization of performance.

Background in linguistics

In the course of language development, children adapt their phonetic output to the sound patterns of the target language. In singing songs, the rendition of the lyrics naturally leans on these native language sound patterns, even if the semantic content of the lyrics plays little role.

Aims

We report a long-term study of a child with infantile autism and severe mental handicap who sings songs but has no language. The only aspect of speech she produces is the phonetic realization of the songs she sings. This exceptional case in which musical development is dissociated from language development bears relevance to the question of the interrelationship of singing and speaking.

Method

The material consists of two hours of audio data or 269 reproductions of familiar songs extracted from a long-term video documentation of the single case covering the period from age 3–15. Based on phonetic and musical transcriptions, the girl's musical abilities were qualitatively assessed by expert rating. Her phonetic repertoire was quantitatively assessed. Her vocal production (phonetic and musical) was examined longitudinally with respect to its approximation to the original songs.

Results

At three years the autistic girl displays precocious musical competence in singing, which, however, does not grow further from this initial level. Musical creativity and expressiveness grow to a peak in middle childhood and then decline again in adolescence. The girl's phonetic inventory of sounds is highly restricted and shows no progression, but her articulation grows more and more deliberate and, within her bounds, nearer to the original words. The non-verbal girl apparently has a mental representation of the lyrics.

Conclusion

Musical competence, creativity and expressiveness in singing can reach a high level even in the total absence of language, and by singing, some residual language-like capacity like articulatory control may be enhanced.
Perception and performance of aksak metres
Authors: Moelants Dirk
Published: March 2011

In this paper different aspects of the fast odd metres found in the Balkan ( aksak) are studied. Comparing their temporal characteristics with thresholds of rhythm perception, it is shown that the basic regular unit is too fast to serve as the pulse. Thus the pulse moves to the (unequal) units of 2, 3 or 4 beats. This gives aksak metres a special position within an overall typology of asymmetric metre. Two sets of data will be analysed to give more details on the actual timing in performance: a set of traditional Bulgarian tunes and performances of Bartók piano pieces by four different players. Despite the similarity of global tempo and metre, differences in the treatment of tempo were found between both sets, which can be explained by the different performance contexts. In both sets, specific patterns of metric microstructure were found that can give us more information about the actual metric interpretation and clear effects of the musical structure on both the tempo and the metric microstructure are shown. All together, it seems that aksak metres are closer to regular metres than commonly thought.
The use of experience-sampling methods to monitor musical imagery in everyday life
Authors: Bailes Freya A.
Published: March 2011

Little is known about the prevalence or nature of the everyday experience of imagining music in the “mind's ear”. An obstacle has been the reliance on indirect, retrospective reporting. Musical imagery research to date has been limited to the experimenter-centred environment of laboratory studies. This paper considers the use of Experience-Sampling Methods (ESM) to explore musical imagery as it occurs in everyday life. A pilot study applied ESM to determine when musical imagery might occur and how it is experienced. Eleven music students were cued to fill out an experience-sampling form (ESF) at random times throughout a seven-day period. Likert scale items probed the strength of imagery for different musical dimensions, while more general questions explored respondents' current activities, interaction with others and mood.

Participants reported hearing externally sounded music for 47% of these episodes and imagining music for 35%. A high rate of return and the depth of information provided by respondents suggest that ESM techniques are an effective way of exploring musical imagery in ecologically valid conditions. It is argued that this method could be used to explore mental imagery for music in a wider population. Refined sampling techniques may offer a way to test specific hypotheses concerning characteristics of everyday imagery for music. Exploring auditory imagery in naturalistic as well as laboratory settings may lead to a clearer understanding of the influence of context on our mental imagery of music.
Audience responses to a live orchestral concert
Authors: Thompson Sam
Published: March 2011

A sample of concertgoers attending a concert of orchestral music was asked to give ratings of the performance during the interval. Analysis of the data suggested that listeners with higher levels of formal musical training gave lower ratings than those without such training, but that otherwise the pattern of ratings was essentially similar. Liking for the piece itself was correlated with enjoyment of the performance; however, no relationship was observed between prior familiarity with the piece and enjoyment of the performance. Affective response to the performance was shown to be a markedly better predictor of enjoyment than the perceived quality of the performance, and it was suggested that most listeners were, on the whole, able to separate their judgements of the quality of the performance from their affective responses to it. Non-musical variables (such as satisfaction with the concert hall itself) were shown to make a small but statistically significant contribution to listeners' overall enjoyment of the concert. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research, and suggestions made for future investigations of naturalistic, “real world” performance evaluation.
Contagious heterophony: A new theory about the origins of music
Authors: Brown Steven
Published: March 2011

Two of the most salient features of music are the blending of pitch and the matching of time. I propose here a possible evolutionary precursor of human music based on a process I call “contagious heterophony”. Heterophony is a form of pitch blending in which individuals generate similar musical lines but in which these lines are poorly synchronized. A wonderful example can be found in the howling of wolves. Each wolf makes a similar call but the resultant chorus is poorly blended in time. The other major feature of the current hypothesis is contagion. Once one animal starts calling, other members of the group join in through a spreading process. While this type of heterophonic calling is well-represented in nature, synchronized polyphony is not. In this article, I discuss evolutionary scenarios by which the human capacity to integrate musical parts in pitch-space and in time may have emerged in music. In doing so, I make mention of neuroimaging findings that shed light on the neural mechanisms of vocal imitation and metric entrainment in humans, two key processes underlying musical integration.
Observing entrainment in music performance: Video-based observational analysis of Indian musicians' tanpura playing and beat marking
Authors: Clayton Martin R. L.
Published: March 2011

Entrainment has been suggested as an important phenomenon underlying aspects of musical behaviour, and is attracting increasing attention in music psychology (see e.g. Large and Jones, 1999; Large, 2000), and in ethnomusicology (Clayton, Sager and Will, 2005). Approaches to its study in ethnomusicology must address a significant methodological problem: how to study entrainment phenomena in an ecologically valid manner, and to integrate this process into a programme of ethnographic research. Video recordings contain important data regarding the physical movements of participants in musical events (as well as their audible results), and through the application of observational analysis software these recordings can form the basis of studies of entrainment between different quasi- periodic musical processes as manifested in movement patterns. For the present study a short video clip of an Indian raga performance was selected (taken from a performance of Shree Rag by the singer Veena Sahasrabuddhe). Observational analysis was carried out using The Observer Video-Pro software, configured to record the plucking of tanpura strings and performers’ beat markers (hand or finger taps). Time series data thus generated were analysed using calculations of phase relationships, revealing several instances of both self- and interpersonal entrainment (the stated intention of the performers is, on the contrary, that the tanpura rhythms should each proceed independently). Entrainment between these behaviours points to a complex, but unintended form of emergent order. This unexpected result demonstrates the usefulness of this method in revealing otherwise unnoticed phenomena in musical performance, and raises important questions for future research.
Similarity relations in listening to music: How do they come into play?
Authors: Deliège Irène
Published: March 2011

In this essay, similarity relations in the perception of music are studied on the basis of two different standpoints. The first is said to be external and studies comparisons between distinct and autonomous musical entities, i.e. different works or different interpretations. The second is internal and looks at similarity relations, which the listener identifies in the same work or part of a work, and in the same interpretation. This last procedure is developed in different directions. We show the importance of the similarity factor: (i) in the actual composition process as the composer seeks unity and coherence in his or her piece; (ii) in folk music; (iii) as an essential element for the listener who strives to understand the piece as he listens to it in real time. This last point is of fundamental importance for the study of cognition in general i.e. the implicit or explicit role of similarity in perception processes.

Concrete examples of the main theoretical points described here can be identified in the course of the different phases of the cue extraction model that I developed recently, i.e. segmentation, categorization, schematization, imprint formation (Deliège, 1989, 1991). The SIMILARITY/DIFFERENCE axis is a central element in the structure of the model. The empirical approaches used in experimenting with the different phases of the model are analyzed in this two-fold perspective. From the very beginning, this was the aim of a series of procedures that aimed at showing the implicit or explicit aspects of the processes that musician and non-musician participants use during the experimental listening process. An overall view of the results obtained confirms that the assumptions were correct.
Computer-based composition in the primary school: An investigation of children's “creative” responses using the CD Rom Dance eJay
Authors: Mellor Liz
Published: March 2011

The aim of this study was to investigate computer-based music composition using the CD Rom Dance eJay. The research questions addressed the extent to which participants adopted different strategies during the composition process, how the strategies were potentially different due to prior experience of formal instrumental music tuition (FIMT), and how the process data showed evidence of creative thinking skills in music. The design subscribed to a within-methods approach within a qualitative research paradigm which was undertaken as a small scale exploratory study with children in the primary age of schooling (aged 10–11 years). The methodology is developed from Richardson and Whitaker (1996), Hickey (1997), Seddon and O'Neill (2001, 2003) and Burnard (2000), to include critical incident charting, the digital recording of ‘onscreen manipulations’ and retrospective verbal protocols. The results report that within the one identified vertical composing strategy which all the participants used, creativity occurred within all the composing responses regardless of the participants’ musical backgrounds and their prior experience of FIMT An evaluation of the research tool demonstrates its efficacy to identify not only when and how creative thinking skills occur in the process of composition, but also what informed the decision making process. Creativity is defined in terms of divergent thinking skills and problem solving skills and the extent to which each participant generated their own problems and “creative” solutions. The implications for music education are discussed.
Intensity changes and perceived similarity: Inter-parametric analogies
Authors: Eitan Zohar , Granot Roni Y.
Published: March 2011

Music theorists and psychologists have described diverse musical processes in terms of changes (increase or decrease) in “intensity”. This paper examines the hypothesis that analogous intensity changes in different musical parameters can be perceived as similar, and discusses implications of such perception for music analysis. In the experiment reported, participants rated the degree to which members of pairs of musical stimuli were similar in character to a “standard” — a crescendo on a repeated tone. One member of each pair presented an “increase” in a specific musical parameter, while the other presented a “decrease” (e.g., pitch ascent vs. descent). Parameters investigated included melodic direction and attack rate and their combinations, pitch interval size, motivic pace, and harmonic tension. For most parameters, the intensifying figure was rated as closer to the standard (itself intensifying) than its abating counterpart. Perceived similarity was strongest between figures presenting intensification in dynamics (crescendo) and pitch direction (ascent), while similarity between intensification in dynamics and tempo (accelerando) was weaker, and perceived mainly by musically-trained subjects. Similarity between dynamic change and harmonic progression was perceived only when the latter involved manipulation of dissonance, and dynamic intensification and increase in pitch interval size were perceived as similar only for ascending intervals. Importantly, the combined effect of melodic direction and attack rate on similarity perception was additive, rather than interactive, though the effect of melodic direction was significantly stronger. This result supports models of “integrated intensity contours” (Berry, 1976; Todd, 1994), but suggests different weighting for different musical parameters.

In sum, results indicate that listeners can perceive intensity contours in different parameters as analogous, and thus suggest that intensity contours may serve as musical “gestures”, regardless of the specific parameters depicting them. The implications of these results to music analysis are discussed with regard to motivic structure, thematic prototypicality, and structural functions of intensity contours.
Motivic matching strategies for automated pattern extraction
Authors: Lartillot Olivier , Toiviainen Petri
Published: March 2011

This article proposes an approach to the problem of automated extraction of motivic patterns in monodies. Different musical dimensions, restricted in current approaches to the most prominent melodic and rhythmic features at the surface level, are defined. The proposed strategy of detection of repeated patterns consists of an exact matching of the successive parameters forming the motives. We suggest a generalization of the multiple-viewpoint approach that allows a variability of the types of parameters (melodic, rhythmic, etc.) defining each successive extension of these motives. This enables us to take into account a more general class of motives, called heterogeneous motives, which includes interesting motives beyond the scope of previous approaches. Besides, this heterogeneous representation of motives may offer more refined explanations concerning the impact of gross contour representation in motivic analysis. This article also shows that the main problem aroused by the pattern extraction task is related to the control of the combinatorial redundancy of musical structures. Two main strategies are presented, that ensure an adaptive filtering of the redundant structures, and which are based on the notions of closed and cyclic patterns. The method is illustrated with the analysis of two pieces: a medieval Geisslerlied and a Bach Invention.
Models of musical similarity
Authors: Wiggins Geraint A.
Published: March 2011

I attempt to align and compare the various papers in this Discussion Forum and to draw some general conclusions from them. Because the range of papers is so broad, it is not possible to compare them in detail, and so the comparison is made at the meta-level, comparing the nature of the models and techniques proposed, and the results produced, and discussing how these important papers combine to contribute to our understanding of music cognition. In conclusion, I propose a viewpoint based on memory and learning, to which, I claim, all the work ultimately points.
Establishing an empirical profile of self-defined “tone deafness”: Perception, singing performance and self-assessment
Authors: Wise Karen J. , Sloboda John A.
Published: March 2011

Research has suggested that around 17% of Western adults self-define as “tone deaf” (Cuddy, Balkwill, Peretz & Holden, 2005). But questions remain about the exact nature of tone deafness. One candidate for a formal definition is “congenital amusia” (Peretz et al., 2003), characterised by a dense music-specific perceptual deficit. However, most people self-defining as tone deaf are not congenially amusic (Cuddy et al., 2005). According to Sloboda, Wise and Peretz (2005), the general population defines tone deafness as perceived poor singing ability, suggesting the need to extend investigations to production abilities and self-perceptions. The present research aims to discover if self-defined tone deaf people show any pattern of musical difficulties relative to controls, and to offer possible explanations for them ( e.g. perceptual, cognitive, productive, motivational). 13 self-reporting “tone deaf” (TD) and 17 self-reporting “not tone deaf” (NTD) participants were assessed on a range of measures for musical perception, cognition, memory, production and self-ratings of performance. This paper reports on four measures to assess perception (Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia), vocal production (songs and pitch-matching) and self-report. Results showed that the TD group performed significantly less well than the NTD group in all measures, but did not demonstrate the dense deficits characteristic of “congenital amusics”. Singing performance was influenced by context, with both groups performing better when accompanied than unaccompanied. The TD group self-rated the accuracy of their singing significantly lower than the NTD group, but not disproportionately so, and were less confident in their vocal quality. The TD participants are not facing an insurmountable difficulty, but are likely to improve with targeted intervention.
The musical art of infant conversation: Narrating in the time of sympathetic experience, without rational interpretation, before words
Authors: Trevarthen Colwyn
Published: March 2011

Infants, like adults and many animals, move with rhythmic gestures that express motive states and changes of emotion and mood. But the communications of babies have a special creativity and message power. Infants are ready at birth to take turns in a “dialogue” of movements with a loving parent. They are attracted to extended engagement with human gestures, and sympathetic to many emotions — resonating to the impulses and qualities of movement; imitating, seeking to play an active part in proto-conversations or playful duets of agency (Trevarthen, 1999). When the expressive forms are examined in detail, infant and partner are found to be sharing a subtle “musicality” of communication (Malloch, 1999). Very soon the early musical games become the habits or conventions of a mini-culture, improvised creations of meaning for each pair, of the kind that Maya Gratier calls a “proto-habitus” (Gratier, 2007). They become treasured memories of a special relationship.
Phrasing and fragmented time in “pathological” mother-infant vocal interaction
Authors: Delavenne Anne , Gratier Maya , Devouche Emmanuel , Apter Gisèle
Published: March 2011

This paper presents the results of an ecological perturbation study of mother-infant vocal interaction. We compared the temporal organisation of spontaneous interactions between 3–month-old infants and mothers who suffered from “borderline personality disorder” and control mothers and infants. Previous studies of vocal interaction have shown that they present a hierarchical temporal organisation. This study focused specifically on “phrasal” units in the flow of expressive sounds produced by mothers and infants that can be segmented according to rules similar to those used by music performers, composers and listeners. Phrases in interaction are perceived and shaped by features such as final lengthening, pausing or lowered pitch and intensity. Acoustic analyses of audio recordings of 34 mother-infant dyads were performed. Results showed that the interactions of mothers with “borderline personality disorder” contained fewer “phrases” with longer phrase final pauses than those of control dyads. These findings suggest that the temporal organisation and quality of vocalisation, rather than the degree of maternal involvement, has a fundamental effect on the infant's motivation to partake in lively interaction.
Grounding in musical interaction: Evidence from jazz performances
Authors: Gratier Maya
Published: March 2011

This study explores the issue of mutual understanding between musicians in improvised performance. It attempts to describe how improvising musicians indicate to each other that they have grasped each other's expressive intentions in order to collaboratively negotiate common expressive trajectories. The process of moment-to-moment monitoring of shared understanding is referred to as “grounding”. Shared knowledge, beliefs and assumptions provide an important basis for grounding and grounding in turn reinforces a “common ground” of shared representation. Based on research on “grounding” in conversational exchange and on studies of nonverbal mother-infant interaction, some possible indices of “grounding” in musical interaction are discussed. Grounding in conversational exchange is attained through acknowledgement, relevance and sustained attention. It is proposed here that displays of mutual understanding between musicians are rooted in a collaboratively negotiated embodied phrasing through which repetition, mirroring and matching, punctuation, and completion and synchronisation might constitute the musical basis for grounding.
Relationships between expressed and felt emotions in music
Authors: Evans Paul , Schubert Emery
Published: March 2011

This study examines empirically the possible relationships between the emotional quality one can attribute to musical stimuli (expressed emotion, or external locus of emotion) and the subjective emotional response one can have as a result of listening to music (felt emotion, or internal locus). The relationship between the two loci of emotion is often assumed to be positive, that is, when listening to music, one feels the emotion that the music expresses. Gabrielsson has suggested, however, that this assumption is simplistic, and has proposed a model that describes other possible relationships. The present study quantitatively investigates Gabrielsson's proposal. Forty-five participants responded to questions about both expressed emotion and felt emotion for two familiar experimenter-selected pieces (Pachelbel's Canon and Advance Australia Fair, the Australian national anthem) and one or two pieces of their own selection. Participants were asked to “imagine” their self-selected pieces in the absence of recordings or a live performance. An experimenter-selected piece was both sounded and imagined, and no significant difference was observed in responses between the two conditions. Quantitative criteria were generated in order to compare the loci (internal and external) of each piece in geometric space. Results showed that the positive relationship, where the internal and external locus emotions are the same, occurred in 61% of cases. In general, these pieces were preferred more than those exhibiting non-positive relationships. Implications for practices that tacitly assume a 100% positive relationship, or are not specific about the locus of emotion, are discussed.
The singing lesson. Phenomenology of the non-verbal dynamics appearing in studying the Instrument-voix
Authors: Vitale Alessia Rita
Published: March 2011

The novelty of this approach lies in studying singing from the point of view the multifunctionality and polyvalence of the voice in all the typically plural dimensions that contribute to making it a unique instrument, the only instrument embodied/ incarnated in its interpreter, both material and transcendent. An “object” both external and internal, both the most intersubjective and the most personal — to the point of requiring “someone other than oneself” to help one take one's distance from it to study it — the voice has the faculty of bringing together simultaneously the polar opposites of Being.

With a methodology at the crossroads of the human sciences, this study forms part of a broader systematic investigation I engaged in concerning the detailed analysis of the singing lesson and the comparison of its specific psycho-dynamic processes with those involved in the learning of other musical instruments.

I deal with the role and influence that non-verbal/non-vocal languages assume in the teaching and learning about the voice in its singing dimension when it is used with the value of a musical instrument. This is what I refer to as the “instrument-voix”. The notion of gesture is of pivotal importance in non-verbal language, and this notion is twofold in nature: it involves the problematic of Time, which (itself) necessarily involves that of Memories. Dealt with here will be the influence of nonverbal languages upon mnesic activities.
Psychoacoustical correlates of musically induced chills
Authors: Nagel Frederik , Kopiez Reinhard , Grewe Oliver , Altenmüller Eckart
Published: March 2011

Music listening is often accompanied by the experience of emotions, sometimes even by so-called “strong experiences of music” (SEMs). SEMs can include such pleasurable reactions as shivers down the spine or goose pimples, which are referred to as “chills”. In the present study, the role of psychoacoustical features was investigated with respect to the experience of chills. Psychoacoustical parameters of short musical segments (total duration: 20 s), characterized as chill- inducing, were analyzed and compared with musical excerpts which did not induce chill responses. A significant increase of loudness in the frequency range between 8 and 18 Bark (920–4400 Hz) was found in those excerpts for which chills were reported. Frequency-dependent changes of loudness seem to play an important role in the induction of chills.
Narrative, splintered temporalities and the unconscious in 20th century music
Authors: Imberty Michel
Published: March 2011

Narrative structures the human experience of time, but does it also organise our musical experience? Behind this question lies another one, which concerns the narrative process itself: does it belong solely to the time of consciousness or does it manifest itself through other forms of temporal organisation in the unconscious mind? Psychologists have identified a structure of the experience of time that precedes narrative itself, which can be called “proto-narrative form” and which organises the coherence and unfolding of narrative, as it does perhaps the unfolding of musical form. It may be characterised by its linearity and a strong directionality, implying a clearly perceptible and temporally oriented line of dramatic tension. However, during the 20th century, directionality and linearity have progressively given way to a-directional or poly-directional fragmented forms, implying discontinuities of the temporal flux and the superimposition of multiple lines of dramatic tension that have neither the same progressions nor the same endings. What sense can we give to these new splintered forms of time? We attempt to answer this question from a psychoanalytic perspective.
Music, musicality, “musilanguage”
Authors: Baroni Mario
Published: March 2011

The aims of this article are to select, to summarise, and to critically discuss the principal topics presented in the papers of this special issue. Two main themes have been developed: the first makes reference to the origins of music, with a comparison of anthropological conceptions (the origins of mankind) with psychological conceptions (the musical development of infants). Particular attention is given to the “musilanguage” theory proposed by Steven Brown in 2000. The second main theme is related to the impact of theories of “origins” on what musicology today thinks of as the nature and sense of music. In order to provide concrete arguments pertaining to these topics, a section of the article is devoted to the main relationships between primordial proto-musical behaviours and adult musical activity. The presence of pre-verbal, “multimodal”, affective, interactive and ritual aspects of proto-musical behaviour, thought of as the more important characteristics of musical phenomena, has been considered as common both to anthropological and psychological theories and to their impact on today's conceptions of music. Three specific topics are discussed: proto-narrativity, musicality, and the relationships between musical structures and temporal dynamics.
How similar is similar?
Authors: Cambouropoulos Emilios
Published: March 2011

In the first part of the paper a theoretical discussion is presented regarding the fundamental concept of similarity and its relation to cue abstraction and categorisation. It is maintained that similarity is by definition context-dependent and strongly Interrelated to cue abstraction and categorisation. Emphasis is given to determining the “musical surface” that can act as a musically pertinent lowest level of abstraction on which similarity between musical entities can be measured. Then, each of these concepts is examined in more detail with respect to a number of research studies presented in the recent special issue of Musicæ Scientiæ on musical similarity (Discussion Forum 4A, 2007). Views claiming that a geometric piano-roll-like representation is the most appropriate choice for polyphonic pattern matching, or that musical repetition is structurally significant if at least fifty percent of a pattern is equivalent (i.e. if it is more similar than dissimilar), or that “dramatic disparities” between musical similarities and corresponding categories can be found In empirical studies, are critically re-examined with a view to clarifying the fundamental concept of similarity.
Taxonomic categorisation of motivic patterns
Authors: Lartillot Olivier
Published: March 2011

The issue of pattern description in computational models for motivic analysis is closely related to the cognitive debate on categorisation, in which are traditionally opposed “well-defined” and “ill-defined” categorisations. The ill-defined conceptualisation has been considered as a suitable framework for the formalisation of musical categorisation as it takes into account motivic variations. It seems that computational models rely rather on well-defined categorisation, due to its better controllability. The computational model we previously presented (Lartillot & Toiviainen, 2007) strikes a balance by developing a new flexible framework allowing the taking into account of unrestricted variability, but in the same time ensuring a precise description of whole categories, including their underlying variations. For that purpose, categories are not described by one single prototype, but on the contrary by a taxonomy of subcategories forming a multi-levelled hierarchy. The proposed computational model forms a complex system of interdependencies: its behaviour cannot be predicted but can only be observed through a computational running on actual musical examples. The behaviour emerging from the model offers hence a possible explanation of listeners’ cognitive capabilities and might indicate necessary conditions for cognitively relevant modelling.
Similarity perception as a cognitive tool for musical sense-making: Deictic and ecological claims
Authors: Reybrouck Mark
Published: March 2011

This is a programmatic paper. It elaborates on the concept of similarity as a cognitive tool for sense-making in music. Taking as a starting point the definition of similarity as a relational concept, it tries to provide a description in terms of standard and goal that can be applied to the delimitation of elements as well as to the comparison of these elements with each other. As such it focusses on three major topics: (i) the delimitation of elements, (ii) the comparison of these elements to themselves (self-reference) and to each other, and (iii) an operational framework for the delimitation of these elements. The latter is considered from the position of deixis and ecological perception, relying on the “deictic” act of mental pointing to elements that are eligible for deliberate attention as well as on the “ecological” principles of event perception and cognitive economy. It is possible, further, to conceive of pointing as an internal construction of an external operation, and to consider pointing as a predication process which can be applied to focal points as well as to events with at least some extension through time.
A different kind of similarity: The recognition of style in listening
Authors: Baroni Mario
Published: March 2011

Recognising a musical style implies managing a number of similarities. However, the nature of such similarities and their organisation within a piece of music are radically different from those discussed in Forum A4, where themes, patterns or melodies were compared. The perception of a style involves the totality of the structural features present in a given piece or set of pieces. According to the theory put forward in the present article, the arrangement of these features is governed by a hierarchy of rules, whose lowest level organises minimal features such as pitches, scale degrees, metrical accents, durations and so on, each of them enjoying a relative independence from the others. Each rule is repeatedly used, resulting in a series of variously connected minimal features which are distributed in different places throughout the piece. When listening to a style it is not possible to manage such kinds of similarity analytically: one simply perceives a certain feeling of familiarity. This effect is particularly enhanced by comparisons between slightly different but not identical styles. Familiarity is not merely the perception of the objective presence of diffuse similarities, but also of the internal coherence among the expressive intentions.
Primary versus secondary musical parameters and the classification of melodic motives
Authors: Eitan Zohar , Granot Roni Y.
Published: March 2011

Music theorists often maintain that motivic categorization in music is determined by “primary” musical parameters — music-specific aspects of pitch and temporal structure, like pitch intervals or metric hierarchies, serving as bases for musical syntax. In contrast, “secondary” parameters, including important aspects of extra-musical auditory perception like loudness, pitch register and timbre, do not establish motivic categories. We examined systematically the effects of contrasts in primary vis-à-vis secondary musical parameters on listeners’ melodic classification. Matrices of melodic patterns, each presenting 8 motives, were created by all interactions of two contrasting conditions in three musical features. In Experiment 1, four matrices manipulated pitch contour, pitch-interval class, and a compound feature involving the secondary parameters of dynamics, pitch register and articulation. In Experiment 2, four different matrices manipulated rhythmic structure (metrical and durational accent), pitch intervals, and the compound feature used in Exp1. Participants (95 participants, 27 musically trained, in Exp. 1; 88 participants, 23 musically trained, in Exp. 2) classified stimuli in each matrix into two equal-numbered (4–4) groups of motives “belonging together.” In both experiments, most participants used contrast in secondary parameters as a basis for classification, while few classifications relied on differences in pitch interval (Exp. 2) or interval class (Exp. 1). Classifications by musically trained participants also applied melodic contour and rhythm. Results suggest a hierarchy of musical parameters that challenges those suggested by most music theorists. We discuss the ramifications of the results for notions of perceived thematic-motivic structure in music, and consequentially for cognitively-informed music analysis.
Some vantage indexing approaches for rhythmic and melodic search
Authors: Typke R. , Walczak-Typke A. C.
Published: March 2011

In this paper, we discuss several improvements and approaches to musical content-based search that utilize the vantage indexing technique. We show how one can build an optimum vantage index for a variant of the Earth Mover's Distance that is appropriate for searching rhythmic patterns. We discuss a genetic algorithm approach for finding good vantage objects for arbitrary distance measures that obey the triangle inequality. Finally, we discuss a method which utilizes vantage indexing for searching prametric spaces — spaces in which the distance measure does not obey the triangle inequality and where distinct points may have distance 0.
A content-based music retrieval engine: JMIR-Mozart
Authors: Ala-Härkönen Väinö , Brunberg Jussi , Lemström Kjell , Mikkilä Niko
Published: March 2011

The rapid increase of storage capacity has brought along large-scale multimedia databases. To access such databases, content-based retrieval methods are needed in order to avoid the burden of handcraft involved in building a query system working on metadata. The burgeoning demand for such methods can be seen, for instance, in the number of researchers working on developing tools and algorithms to this end. In this paper, we present a prototypic, client-server query engine for content-based music retrieval (CBAAR). Our main aim is to help researchers working in the field so that they could have a retrieval platform where to embed and test their novel tools and algorithms without the burden of building a whole system from scratch. We give an overview to the platform: the architectural solutions, the communication protocols and user interface design. As for an example, we have embedded in this platform some music similarity and transcription algorithms developed in the C-BRAHMS research group, and thus achieved a complete retrieval system that can be queried on our website. We describe these algorithms in brief and discuss the performance of the retrieval system.

The platform is released to public under the GNU General Public License, allowing anyone interested to freely use and modify the software.
What's your music? Subjective theories of music-creating artists
Authors: Holtz Peter
Published: March 2011

In an interview study with 17 music-creating artists (composers of contemporary “classical” music, electronic music, musicals, movie scores, and jazz musicians) from Southern Germany, three types of music-creating artists could be discerned: the avant-gardists, the neo-romantics, and the self-disclosing artists. These types represent social groups that are prone to typical intergroup conflicts.

The different types of music-creating artists adhere to different aesthetic ideals: the avant-gardists emphasize the abstract beauty of musical structures and try to develop their music from within the music itself, the neo-romantics view music as the true language of the heart and try to express something through their music, and the self-disclosing artists feel the drive to express their feelings and sensations by means of music. As a consequence, different dimensions of musical communication are pivotal: formal aspects, the relationship between the musician and the listener, and self-disclosure. The three types of music-creating artists resemble the types of composers analyzed by Julius Bahle in the 1930s ( e.g. Bahle, 1930).

Regarding their modus operandi, the musicians differ on a continuum between a purely rational creative work and the creation of music in an unconscious outburst of inspiration. Nevertheless, most musicians experience an alternation between phases of intuitive inspiration and phases of deliberate rational construction during the creative process. Therefore, a typology of musicians based on their modus operandi seems unhelpful.
The origins of the aesthetic enjoyment of music — A review of the literature
Authors: Brattico Elvira , Brattico Pauli , Jacobsen Thomas
Published: March 2011

Listeners attribute a positive or negative value to music. This aesthetic experience is known to be observable over the individuals’ entire life span, from early childhood to old age, and in every culture. It is then often concluded that such an aesthetic experience constitutes part of the human nature, having an important biological foundation. This assumption leads to the question of how aesthetic experience of music originated in the biological evolution. In this paper, we will explore this question in the light of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and systems neuroscience. After reviewing the existing proposals, we conclude that the explanation of the origin of aesthetic experience in music is likely to involve a more heterogeneous set of biological mechanisms than what is often assumed.