bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Role of Acoustic Signal Partitions in Listener Categorization of Musical Phrases
Authors: Kendall Roger A.
Published: September 2012

An experiment was designed to assess the relative contribution to listener categorization strategies of various temporal partitions of the acoustic signal for trumpet, clarinet, and violin. The role of context, whole phrase versus single note, was also evaluated. Analog recordings of three folk-song phrases performed on two clarinets, violins, and trumpets were digitized. A computer program was developed for digital signal editing. Signal edit conditions included normal, time-variant steady-state alone, transients alone, and static steady state with and without transients. Musicians and nonmusicians responded to a matching procedure in which unedited signals of one phrase were choice stimuli and edited signals for two different phrases served as models. Two replications of all possible combinations of instrument, phrase, and edit conditions were presented for a total of 72 items. Two additional groups of musicians and nonmusicians participated in an identical procedure in which the stimuli were single notes extracted from two phrases. Analyses revealed that, for the whole-phrase signals, there was no case in which the means obtained with the "normal" signal and the "time variant steady state alone" signal were statistically different; these means were always statistically higher than the "transients alone" mean. It was concluded that transients were neither sufficient nor necessary for the categorization of trumpet, clarinet, and violin in whole-phrase contexts. The time- variant quasi-steady state was sufficient and necessary for the categorization of trumpet and violin phrases, and it was sufficient but not necessary for the categorization of clarinet phrases. For the single- note stimuli, "transients alone" yielded means statistically equivalent to the "normal" and "time variant steady state alone" means. It was concluded that transients were sufficient, but not necessary, for instrument categorization in single-note contexts. The whole-phrase context yielded significantly higher means than the single-note context; music majors performed the task with greater accuracy than nonmusic majors.
How Are the Player's Ideas Conveyed to the Audience?
Authors: Senju Mariko , Ohgushi Kengo
Published: September 2012

Psychological experiments and analyses have been done to investigate quantitatively how the ideas of a musician are conveyed to the audience. The musician performed 1 minute of the beginning of the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with 10 different nuances: weak, powerful, bright, sad, sophisticated, beautiful, dreamy, fashionable, simple, and deep. Sixteen listeners, including the violinist, were asked to give their impressions of each of the 10 performances by the semantic differential method. The data obtained were analyzed by Kruskal's multidimensional scaling technique. The results revealed that, on the whole, the player's intention and the listener's impression, although there were individual discrepancies, were in general agreement.
The Tritone Paradox: Its Presence and Form of Distribution in a General Population
Authors: Deutsch Diana , Kuyper William L. , Fisher Yuval
Published: September 2012

The tritone paradox occurs when an ordered pair of tones is presented, with each tone consisting of a set of octave-related components, and the pitch classes of the tones separated by a half-octave. Such a pattern is heard as ascending in one key, but as descending in a different key. Further, the pattern in any one key is heard as ascending by some listeners but as descending by others. It was here found that this phenomenon occurs to a highly significant extent in a general population, and that it is distributed within the population in an orderly fashion. The findings also reveal a surprising ability within the general population to utilize absolute pitch.
The Perception of Large-Scale Tonal Closure
Authors: Cook Nicholas
Published: September 2012

Music of the tonal period generally begins and ends in the same key, although passing through other keys in the course of a movement. Theorists of music generally ascribe great significance to such large-scale tonal closure. In order to test the effect of such closure upon aesthetic response, listeners were required to evaluate a number of compositions in two versions, one of which was in each case tonally closed while the other was not. The results indicate that the direct influence of tonal closure on listeners' responses is relatively weak and is restricted to fairly short time spans—much shorter than the duration of most tonal compositions. Although large-scale tonal structure may not in itself be perceptible, it plays an important role as a means of compositional organization, and it is argued that the theory of tonal music is more usefully regarded as a means of understanding such organization than as a means of making empirically verifiable predictions regarding the effects of music upon listeners.
The Interplay of Set Content and Temporal Context in a Functional Theory of Tonality Perception
Authors: Brown Helen
Published: September 2012

The purpose of this study was to provide evidence for the perceptual component of an analysis of pitch relationships in tonal music that includes consideration of both formal analytic systems and musical listeners' responses to tonal relationships in musical contexts. It was hypothesized (1) that perception of tonal centers in music develops from listeners' interpretations of time-dependent contextual (functional) relationships among pitches, rather than primarily through knowledge of psychoacoustical or structural characteristics of the pitch content of sets or scales and (2) that critical perceptual cues to functional relationships among pitches are provided by the manner in which particular intervallic relationships are expressed in musical time. Excerpts of tonal music were chosen to represent familiar harmonic relationships across a spectrum of tonal ambiguity/specificity. The pitch-class sets derived from these excerpts were ordered: (1) to evoke the same tonic response as the corresponding musical excerpt, 2) to evoke another tonal center, and (3) to be tonally ambiguous. The effect of the intervallic contents of musical excerpts and strings of pitches in determining listeners' choices of tonic and the effect of contextual manipulations of tones in the strings in directing subjects' responses were measured and compared. Results showed that the musically trained listeners in the study were very sensitive to tonal implications of temporal orderings of pitches in determining tonal centers. Temporal manipulations of intervallic relationships in stimuli had significant effects on concurrences of tonic responses and on tonal clarity ratings reported by listeners. The interval rarest in the diatonic set, the tritone, was the interval most effective in guiding tonal choices. These data indicate that perception of tonality is too complex a phenomenon to be explained in the time-independent terms of psychoacoustics or pitch- class collections, that perceived tonal relationships are too flexible to be forced into static structural representations, and that a functional interpretation of rare intervals in optimal temporal orderings in musical contexts is a critical feature of tonal listening strategy.
Voice Denumerability in Polyphonic Music of Homogeneous Timbres
Authors: Huron David
Published: September 2012

An experiment was carried out to determine limitations in listeners' abilities to identify the number of concurrently sounding voices in polyphonic textures. As the number of concurrent voices in a musical texture increases, expert musicians are both slower to respond to the addition of new voices and more prone to identify incorrectly the number of voices present. For musical textures employing relatively homogeneous timbres, the accuracy of identifying the number of concurrent voices drops markedly at the point where a three-voice texture is augmented to four voices. Beyond three voices, confusions become commonplace; the most frequent type of confusion is underestimation of the number of voices present. Voice entries were found to be perceived more easily than voice exits, and entries of outer voices were found to be identified more easily than entries of inner voices. Compared with a nonmusician subject, musicians were found to be more accurate and consistent in denumerating concurrent voices—suggesting that an awareness of textural density may be a musically relevant skill.
Rate, Place, and Pitch with Tonebursts
Authors: Pierce John R.
Published: September 2012

For 4800-Hz tonebursts, different patterns of tonebursts tend to match on toneburst rate at rates up to around 300 tonebursts/sec and on fundamental frequency at rates of 600 tonebursts/sec or higher. In the range in which match is on toneburst rate, judgment by subjects with musical training can be grossly wrong as to musical interval and pitch. An interval of a major third can be perceived as near a semitone.
Coding of Musical Structure and the Trion Model of Cortex
Authors: Leng Xiaodan , Shaw Gordon L. , Wright Eric L.
Published: September 2012

Guided by the Mountcastle organizational principle for the column as the basic neuronal network in the cortex, we developed the trion model. An essential feature of the model is that it is highly structured in time and in spatial connections. Simulations of a network of trions have shown that large numbers of quasi-stable, periodic spatial-temporal firing patterns can be excited. These patterns can be readily enhanced by only a small change in connection strengths, and the patterns evolve in certain natural sequences from one to another. With only somewhat different parameters than those used for studying memory and pattern recognition, much more flowing and intriguing patterns emerged from the simulations. The results were striking when these probabilistic evolutions were mapped onto pitches and instrument timbres to produce music: For example, different simple mappings of the same evolution give music having the "flavor" of a minuet, a waltz, certain folk music, or styles of specific periods of Western art music. A theme can be learned so that evolutions have this theme and its variations recur. We suggest that we have found a viable cortical model for the coding of certain aspects of musical structure in human composition and perception. Further, we propose that the trion model is relevant for examining creativity in those higher cognitive functions of mathematics and chess that are similar to music.
The Psychological Structure of Music
Authors: Umemoto Takao
Published: September 2012

Music is rich in information that can be processed along different dimensions. Four types of musical dimensions that correspond to different levels of perception and cognition are discussed: (1) the dimension of sound, (2) the dimensions of melody, rhythm, and harmony, (3) the dimension of compositional structure, and (4) the dimension of compositional content. These psychological dimensions of music, and the psychological activities relevant to these dimensions, depend highly on context and on schema. Thus the four types of musical dimensions are not independent, but interact with each other. Some evidence from new research on the sense of pitch deviation, the sense of fitness of timbre to melody, and similarity and octave judgments referring to the problem of wording are discussed.
Perception of the Major/Minor Distinction: IV. Emotional Connotations in Young Children
Authors: Kastner Marianna Pinchot , Crowder Robert G.
Published: September 2012

Thirty-eight children between ages 3 and 12 listened to 12 short musical passages derived from a counterbalanced 2 × 2 arrangement of (1) major versus minor modes and (2) harmonized versus simple melodic realizations of these modes. For each passage, they pointed to one of four schematic faces chosen to symbolize happy, sad, angry, and contented facial expressions. The main result was that all children, even the youngest, showed a reliable positive-major/negative-minor connotation, thus conforming to the conventional stereotype. The possible contributions of native and experiential factors to this behavior are discussed.
Perceptual Analyses of Ravel's "Bolero"
Authors: Asada Miki , Ohgushi Kengo
Published: September 2012

Ravel's "Bolero" consists of 18 pieces. In "Bolero", only two melodies are each repeated nine times, with changing instruments in the orchestration. In our experiment, 13 listeners rated their perceptual impressions of each of the pieces on 25 semantic scales, such as bright—dark, strong—weak, and expressive—simple. The experimental data were analyzed by Kruskal's multidimensional scaling program and a multiple regression analysis program. Analysis of the data showed that each of the 18 pieces could be arranged on a two-dimensional perceptual space and that the first and second dimensions corresponded to feelings of powerfulness (quietness) and such expressive feelings as comic (serious), sticky (flowing), and coquettish (reserved). Relationships between the perceptual impressions and the orchestration were discussed.
A New Illusion of Time Perception
Authors: Nakajima Yoshitaka , Hoopen Gert Ten , Van Der Wilk René
Published: September 2012

When two very short time intervals are presented serially by sound markers (in such a way that they share a common marker) the subject's duration judgments of the second time interval can be affected by the duration of the first interval. Such a conspicuous effect has not been reported in the literature. Standard empty time intervals of 120, 240, 480, and 720 msec were preceded by a neighboring empty time interval of various physical durations, and subjects adjusted a comparison empty time interval to the same subjective duration as these standards. We found clear underestimations of the standard duration when its physical duration was 120 msec. For example, when the preceding duration was 45 msec, the relative underestimation was about 40%. Because such a stable and remarkable underestimation appeared in a very simple situation, this phenomenon may be called a new illusion. Such an illusion did not appear when the time interval to be judged was succeeded by another time interval. At present we cannot explain the illusion, but in the general discussion we attempt to relate it to some findings in rhythm perception.
Effects of Musical Training and Absolute Pitch on the Neural Processing of Melodic Intervals: A P3 Event-Related Potential Study
Authors: Hantz Edwin C. , Crummer Garry C. , Wayman John W. , Walton Joseph P. , Frisina Robert D.
Published: September 2012

During perceptual tasks involving the discrimination of musical intervals, event-related potentials, specifically the P3, were measured for three subject groups: musicians without absolute pitch, musicians with absolute pitch, and nonmusicians. The two interval-discrimination tasks were a simple two-note contour task and a difficult interval-size discrimination task. Clear effects on the neural waveforms were found for both training and the presence of the absolute pitch ability. In general, training increases the amplitude and shortens the latency of the P3, while the absolute pitch ability reduces the amplitude and shortens the latency, or eliminates the P3 altogether. The absolute pitch effect may be due to the use of a long-term memory strategy involved in the correct performance of the discrimination task rather than performing the task by updating working memory each time a target occurs. Finally, these data are contrasted with those from studies involving sine tones and timbrediscrimination tasks.
Timbre Discrimination of Musical Instruments in a Concert Hall
Authors: Goad Pamela J. , Keefe Douglas H.
Published: September 2012

The effects of musical context and musical instrument characteristics on timbre discrimination in a concert hall were examined. Isolated tones and six-tone melodies were recorded in two different locations of a concert hall using five musical instruments. Each trial consisted of either a pair of tones, or a pair of melodies, which had been recorded simultaneously at the two locations on the same instrument. No significant differences were found between responses for isolated tones and responses for melodies. Musical instrument characteristics did prove to be significant, with listeners best able to discriminate flute tones, followed in order by clarinet, trumpet, viola, and marimba. In a follow-up analysis, five physical attributes of each instrument were tested for their contribution to the predictability of the discrimination scores. Variance with respect to the mean power level of the sustained portion of a tone was found to be the dominant contributor of the total variance of subjective responses, and this implicates differences in the early reflection sequence of the room impulse response as a contributor to timbral discrimination.
The Ramp Archetype and the Maintenance of Passive Auditory Attention
Authors: Huron David
Published: September 2012

Research on physiological aspects of attention has shown an asymmetry in neurological arousal with respect to the direction of stimulus change. Increases of stimulus intensity level are more effective than equivalent decreases in evoking listeners' attention. Where musical resources limit a continual escalation of intensity level over the course of a work, it is theoretically possible to maintain attention by structuring the work as a sequence of stimulus "ramps"—where intensity increases are small and incremental, but stimulus decreases are large and abrupt. Scorebased studies of dynamics in homophonic music and voice entries and exits in polyphonic music show such an asymmetry. It would appear that for a large body of works of western art music, compositional practices are consistent with a theoretical strategy for maintaining passive auditory attention.
Perceived Key Movement in Four-Voice Harmony and Single Voices
Authors: Thompson William F. , Cuddy Lola L.
Published: September 2012

Listeners with a moderate amount of musical training rated the distance between the first and final key of short chorale excerpts under one of four presentation conditions. The distance between keys, or modulation distance, was either zero, one, or two steps in either the clockwise or counterclockwise direction on the cycle of fifths. Presentation conditions were four-voice harmonic sequences excerpted from the complete set of Bach chorales, single voices of the latter sequences, four-voice harmonic sequences simplified to block chords, and single voices of the latter sequences. Consistent with earlier findings (Thompson & Cuddy, 1989), judgments for both four- voice harmonic presentations and single-voice presentations revealed a close correspondence between modulation distance and judged distance. Ratings for harmonic sequences within a given key distance, however, showed influences of direction of modulation and of harmonic progression that were not reflected in ratings for single voices. The findings suggest that harmony and melody follow somewhat different principles in the process of identifying key change.
Pitch versus Brightness of Timbre: Detecting Combined Shifts in Fundamental and Formant Frequency
Authors: Demany Laurent , Semal Catherine
Published: September 2012

The pitch of a periodic tone depends on its fundamental frequency (F0), and the brightness of its timbre depends on the centroid of its power spectrum (Fc). The goal of the present study was to determine whether small shifts in F0 and in Fc are detected independently of each other. The standard tone used had an F0 of 400 Hz, five harmonics (400-2000 Hz), and a triangular spectral envelope peaking at an Fc of 1000 Hz. With a forced-choice adaptive procedure, detection thresholds were measured for (1) shifts in F0 alone (Fc being fixed), (2) shifts in Fc alone (F0 being fixed), and (3) combined shifts in F0 and Fc. The two components of the combined shifts were chosen to have the same level of detectability when presented alone. Overall, as expected from the independence model, the combined shifts were not better detected when their two components had the same direction (F0 and Fc both increase, or both decrease) than when they had opposite directions. However, substantial differences between subjects were observed with respect to the perceptual integration of shifts in F0 and in Fc.
Critical Bands and the Spelling of Vertical Sonorities
Authors: Huron David , Sellmer Peter
Published: September 2012

In the notation of vertical sonorities, it is well-known that composers space chordal tones using wider interval sizes in the bass region. A classic study by Plomp and Levelt (1965) argued that the organization of vertical sonorities in music is related to the phenomenon of critical bands. A replication of Plomp and Levelt's work shows that their demonstration was confounded by an unfortunate artifact and that their results did not support the conclusions drawn. Using a different method, a comparison of actual music with a control sample of "random" music shows that musical practice is consistent with the compositional pursuit of a greater uniformity of spelling with respect to critical bands. Although these results are consistent with conclusions given in Plomp and Levelt, the methods used here avoid the difficulties evident in the earlier study.
Force Dynamics of Tempo Change in Music
Authors: Feldman Jacob , Epstein David , Richards Whitman
Published: September 2012

This paper reports a study of the quantitative shape of ideally executed tempo decrease and increase (ritardando and accelerando) in music. Five expertly performed samples of real music (two ritards and two accelerandos from European classical music, and one sample of Venezuelan [Yanomami] Indian barter chant) are analyzed, and each is found to be a polynomial of degree at least two, and in some cases probably three—not simply linear as had been previously reported, or exponential, as is sometimes suspected. We formally develop a simple force model of musical "motion," in which the progression of music over time is conceived of as being controlled by a mental analog of a mechanical force. Each of the five observed tempo profiles is shown to be well accounted for as the result of one of just two types of force event: (1) a linear force, which produces a quadratic ritardando (or accelerando), and (2) a parabolic force, which produces a spline-shaped cubic tempo profile, a ritardando that joins smoothly at both ends to adjoining regions of constant tempo.
EEG Coherence and Musical Thinking
Authors: Petsche Hellmuth , Richter Peter , Von Stein Astrid , Etlinger Susan C. , Filz Oliver
Published: September 2012

This study was performed to test the usefulness of the EEG as a research instrument for music psychology in individuals. Measuring the degree of functional interrelatedness of brain areas by coherence estimates has turned out to be more efficient than amplitude mapping. Therefore, the method, based on the analysis of EEG periods of at least 1 min, has been expanded to estimate all possible coherence values between the 19 electrodes (i.e., 171 values) and to observe any significant changes in those values caused by different musical tasks. This report concerns observations in a total of 49 healthy subjects (29 male and 20 female). The main goal of this study was to determine the degree of engagement of either hemisphere in the processing of music. Two items were shown to indicate hemispheric involvement: (1) the topographic distribution of "focal points of coherence" (brain areas participating in coherence changes with respect to a great number of other brain areas) and (2) the number of intrahemispheric coherence increases. In most cases, both items seem to focus on the same hemisphere. Taking these as parameters for hemispheric engagement, the following principal observations were made: the beta bands (and particularly their uppermost ranges) seem to play a major role in the processing of music; the hemispheric engagement, however, need not be the same for each frequency band. No hemisphere seems to be preferred. When listening to music is shifted between different styles, laterality may change. When the same tasks are repeated at several weeks' intervals, a fairly large degree of consistency is found. Imagining music and composing clearly differs from listening by activating many more coherence increases in the beta band and by an increasing percentage of hemispheric interaction. This kind of analysis may also provide some clues as to how a piece of music is processed by an individual. The coherence changes observed may represent events taking place in a system of differential attention that selects and orders the sensory inputs before the musical material is further processed at higher order hierarchical levels.
The Role of the Perception of Rhythmic Grouping in Musical Performance: Evidence from Motor-Skill Development in Piano Playing
Authors: Halsband Ulrike , Binkofski Ferdinand , Camp Max
Published: September 2012

Grouping plays a crucial role in the perception of metrically organized music, and it has been referred to as a key concept in increasing a subject's efficiency in sequential motor tasks that require a precise organization of movements in the time domain. But very little attention has been given to the crucial question of what kind of role perception of rhythmic grouping plays in the acquisition of motor skills. In the present investigation, we examined whether the perception of the rhythmic grouping organization of music notation has a direct effect on the formation of motor patterns in piano playing. Pianists were asked to sightread a piece with and without grouping instructions. Movement recordings were made within a three-dimensional trajectory by using light-emitting diodes and infrared camera systems combined with Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology. Findings indicate that there was a marked change in motor performance when subjects were instructed to perceive the notation in a particular mode of metered pulse-beat grouping. It was concluded that how one perceives a music score—by single notes, articulated motivic patterns, or by the metered pulse-beat grouping—is reflected in the organization of motor patterns.
Timbre and Auditory Streaming
Authors: Gregory Andrew H.
Published: September 2012

Listeners rated the subjective difference between pairs of different synthesized orchestral instrumental timbres. They then reported their perception of variations on crossing ascending and descending musical scales played in different timbres. With little or no timbre difference between the scales, auditory streaming by pitch led to the perception of separate high and low halfscales. Increasing timbre difference led to the perception of the complete scales played by each instrument, particularly if the two scales were in distant keys or temporally interleaved rather than simultaneous. If the notes of each scale alternated between two instruments, then perceptual separation by timbre would result in the perception of the "jumping" sequence of notes played by each instrument. This sequence was perceived only if the scales were discordant or temporally interleaved. Multidimensional scaling of the difference ratings led to three dimensions, which were correlated with acoustic parameters resulting from spectral analysis of the sounds. The most important aspects of timbre for perceptual separation were the proportion of energy in the lower partials and, for discordant scales, the duration of the decay. Auditory streaming by timbre thus depends on particular dimensions of timbre and on musical factors such as harmonic relation, simultaneity, and continuity.
The Duration Required to Identify the Instrument, the Octave, or the Pitch Chroma of a Musical Note
Authors: Robinson Ken , Patterson Roy D.
Published: September 2012

This paper investigates the role of pitch in the extraction of timbre information by measuring listeners' ability to identify the timbre, the octave, and the pitch chroma of musical notes, as a function of the duration of the notes. The stimuli were produced by one of four instrument types ( brass, flute, harpsichord, or strings) in one of four octaves (centered at C₁, C₂, C₃, or C₄) on one of four notes (C, D, E, or F). The stimulus duration ranged from 1 to 64 cycles of the note. In any given session of the experiment, listeners were played all 64 notes associated with one duration in a random order and asked to identify the instrument, or the octave, or the note of each stimulus as it occurred. The results show that the timbre of the notes can be identified when the durations are too short to support pitch-chroma judgments, and so it is unlikely that pitch plays a key role in timbre identification at short durations. At these same durations, octave identification was better than pitch-chroma identification but worse than instrument identification.
Harmonic Resolution, Neural Resonance, and Positive Affect
Authors: Katz Bruce F.
Published: September 2012

A connectionist model of harmonic resolution, based on affective principles, is proposed. The connectionist model consists of a note-recognition layer; and a chord-recognition layer; the chord- recognition layer feeds back to the note-recognition layer to produce a resonance loop. Affect is measured by the degree of mutual maintenance of competing units. This measure is derived from the aesthetic principle of unity in diversity. The affective measure permits the rules of harmony to be understood on aesthetic grounds, rather than as a loose collection of observed regularities. It is also shown how the model is broadly consistent with the rules of common harmonic practice and, in addition, is capable of making predictions about dynamic and adaptive effects. Simulations are performed on two types of resolution: the resolution of a nonharmonic note and cadential resolution. The former set of simulations includes the anchoring of nonharmonic notes, the asymmetry of nonharmonic resolution, and the nonharmonic support mechanisms of emphasis and the suspension. The last set includes voice leading in the cadence, the dominant seventh, the French sixth, and a longer cadence. The paper concludes with a discussion of how some expectation-based effects could be included in a modified model that retains the same affective measure.
Perceptual Judgments of Triads and Dyads: Assessment of a Psychoacoustic Model
Authors: Thompson William Forde , Parncutt Richard
Published: September 2012

In two experiments, goodness-of-fit ratings of pairs of musical elements (triads, dyads, and octave-complex tones) were examined in view of a psychoacoustic model. The model, referred to as the pitch commonality model, evaluates the sharing of fundamental frequencies, overtones, and subharmonic tone sensations between sequential elements and also considers the effects of auditory masking within each element. Two other models were also assessed: a reduced model that considers the sharing of fundamental frequencies alone and the cycle-of-fifths model of key and chord relatedness. In Experiment 1, listeners rated the goodness of fit of 12 octave-complex tones following a major triad, major-third dyad, and perfect-fifth dyad. Multiple regression revealed that pitch commonality provided predictive power beyond that of the reduced model. A regression model based on pitch commonality and the cycle of fifths had a multiple R of .92. In Experiment 2, listeners rated how well a triad or dyad followed another triad or dyad. All pairings of the major triad, major-third dyad, and perfect-fifth dyad (pair types) were presented at various transpositions with respect to one another. Multiple regression revealed that pitch commonality again provided predictive power beyond that of the reduced model. A regression model based on pitch commonality, the cycle of fifths, and a preference for trials ending with a triad had a multiple R of .84. We discuss the role of psychoacoustic factors and knowledge of chord and key relationships in shaping the perception of harmonic material.
Factors in the Recognition of Transposed Melodies: A Comment on Takeuchi & Hulse
Authors: Van Egmond René , Povel Dirk-Jan
Published: September 2012

In an analysis of the melodies used in the experiments reported by Takeuchi and Hulse (1992), it is shown that in different experiments a different number of melodies occur that are conceivable as tonal transpositions. Based on this analysis, an alternative explanation of the reported results is proposed in which both tonal transposition and key-distance play a role.
The Tritone Paradox: Effects of Pitch Class and Position of the Spectral Envelope
Authors: Giangrande Janice
Published: September 2012

The tritone paradox reveals compelling individual differences in the orientation of the pitch class circle derived from judgments of tritone pairs. Some subjects perceive tones in one half of the pitch class circle as higher than tones in the opposite half, whereas other subjects produce the converse pattern. Because geographical differences in perception of the tritone paradox have been found, an interesting issue concerns how subjects in additional regions of the United States may perceive the tritone paradox. A second issue of interest concerns the extent to which the position of the spectral envelope affects how the pattern is perceived. These issues are here addressed in a study of the tritone paradox in a group of subjects from South Florida. With respect to the first issue, the overall histogram of peak pitch classes produced by the subjects from South Florida was similar to the histogram found among Californian subjects. To address the second issue, tone pairs were generated under four spectral envelopes spaced at half-octave intervals. The majority of subjects evidenced differences in peak pitch class of no more than 2 semitones when judgments under each of the four spectral envelopes were compared.
Musical Coherence, Motive, and Categorization
Authors: Zbikowski Lawrence M.
Published: September 2012

Arnold Schoenberg's theory of musical coherence is used as a point of departure to explore how aspects of a musical motive can be explained by recent research into categorization. Categorization can account for the coherence produced by repeated statements of a motive, for the role of motive as a starting place for higher level cognitive processes, and for relationships among diverse motive forms. The first section of the essay reviews recent research into categorization, with applications to music. The second section presents an analysis of a principal motive from Mozart's String Quartet K. 465. This analysis demonstrates how the structure of a motivic category is realized over the course of an entire movement.
Motion in Music: A Neurobiological Perspective
Authors: Todd Neil P. McAngus
Published: September 2012

The topic of musical motion has generated a considerable amount of controversy in the past few years (P. Desain, H. Honing, H. van Thienen, & L. Windsor, 1998). In this essay it is argued that motion is central to our understanding of many aspects of music, particularly to our understanding of rhythm, and that an adequate account of motion in music requires a neurobiological perspective. Two possible mechanisms are discussed that may form a neurobiological basis for the association of motion in music: a vestibulomotor mechanism and an audio-visuo-motor mechanism. These two mechanisms in turn may mediate two distinct kinds of musical motion: gesture and locomotion.
Tonality Induction: A Statistical Approach Applied Cross-Culturally
Authors: Krumhansl Carol L.
Published: September 2012

Sensitivity to tone distributions has been proposed as a mechanism underlying tonality induction. This sensitivity is considered in a cross-cultural context using two styles of music, Finnish spiritual folk hymns and North Sami yoiks. Previous research on melodic continuation judgments showed strong correlations with the statistics of the musical style, specifically, the tone distributions and two- and three-tone transitions. This article develops models using these three kinds of statistics to categorize short initial segments as coming from one style or the other. The model using tone distributions was found to make numerous categorization errors, which can be understood because the tone distributions for these styles are similar. However, categorization was better for the models that used two- and three-tone transitions. The major differences between the transitional probabilities in the styles were analyzed, and these differences were used to account for the cases that the models found difficult. These results point to listeners' sensitivity to higher order transition information and its utility for style identification.
The Top-down and Bottom-up Systems of Musical Implication: Building on Meyer's Theory of Emotional Syntax
Authors: Narmour Eugene
Published: September 2012

The implication-realization model hypothesizes that emotional syntax in music is a product of two expectation systems—one top down, the other bottom up. Syntactic mismatch or conflict in realizations can occur either within each system or between them. The theory argues that interruption or suppression of parametric expectations generated separately by the two systems explains certain types of recurrent aesthetic strategies in melodic composition and accounts for the most common kinds of musical forms (AAA, AAB, ABB, ABC, and ABA).
Threshold and Preference Quantities of Rules for Music Performance
Authors: Sundberg J. , Friberg A. , Fryden L.
Published: September 2012

In an analysis- by-synthesis investigation of music performance, rules have been developed that describe when and how expressive deviations are made from the nominal music notation in the score. Two experiments that consider the magnitudes of such deviations are described. In Experiment 1, the musicians' and nonmusicians' sensitivities to expressive deviations generated by seven performance rules are compared. The musicians showed a clearly greater sensitivity. In Experiment 2, professional musicians adjusted to their satisfaction the quantity by which six rules affected the performance. For most rules, there was a reasonable agreement between the musicians regarding preference. The preferred quantities seemed close to the threshold of perceptibility.
Anatomy of a Performance: Sources of Musical Expression
Authors: Palmer Caroline
Published: September 2012

Research on music performance often assumes that a performer's intention to emphasize musical structure as specified in a score accounts for most musical expression. Relatively unstudied sources of expression in performance include notational variants of compositional scores, performer-specific aspects, and the cultural norms of a particular idiom, including both stylistic patterns that exist across musical works and expectations that arise from a particular musical context. A case study of an expert performance of a Mozart piano sonata is presented in which influences of historical interpretations of scores, performer-specific treatments of ornamentation and pedaling, and music- theoretic notions of melodic expectancy and tension-relaxation are revealed. Patterns of organization internal to the performance expression transcended the coarsegrained information given in scores, suggesting that performance is a better starting point than a musical score for testing theories of many musical behaviors.
Commentary
Authors: Meyer Leonard B.
Published: September 2012

The preceding papers about the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in B Major (K. 282) raise a number of interesting questions. These are considered in a series of relatively independent sections on hierarchic structures; experience and explanation; implication; methodology; performance, scores, and traditions; primary versus secondary parameters; classification; and form, process, and style.
Musical Abilities in Individuals with Williams Syndrome
Authors: Levitin Daniel J. , Bellugi Ursula
Published: September 2012

We report evidence for relatively preserved musical rhythm processing in individuals with Williams syndrome, supporting the theory that musical ability constitutes an independent intelligence. Williams syndrome occurs in 1 out of 20,000 births and is associated with a defect in elastin production, impaired cognitive function, and poor spatial, quantitative, and reasoning abilities, coupled with excellent face processing and relatively strong language abilities in adolescents and adults. Previously, informal qualitative observations have revealed an unusual degree of musicality and engagement with musical stimuli in many individuals with Williams syndrome. In the present study, rhythm production was assessed for eight subjects with Williams syndrome and eight subjects in a comparison group by using an echo clapping task. Despite serious deficits in other cognitive domains and generally poor coordination, the subjects with Williams syndrome achieved accuracy scores equivalent to those of subjects in the comparison group and demonstrated equivalent abilities in meter change and beat maintenance. Most interestingly, when the subjects with Williams syndrome made errors in rhythm production, their errors were far more likely than comparison subjects' errors to form rhythmically compatible musical elaborations to the test items; that is, responses of subjects with Williams syndrome, when incorrect, tended to be creative extensions of the reference rhythm.
La política obrera del Estado Mexicano: De Díaz a Madero El caso de los trabajadores textiles
Authors: Ramos-Escandón Carmen
Published: September 2012

This paper analyzes the politics of the governments of Porfirio Díaz and Francisco I. Madero with respect to the problem of labor through a study of the cotton textile workers.
The Dilemmas of a Communist Artist: Diego Rivera in Moscow, 1927-1928
Authors: Richardson William
Published: September 2012

Diego Rivera fue activo en los debates soviéticos artísticos y culturales durante su estadía en la Unión Soviética en 1927-28 pero se desilusionó con el creciente autoritarismo en asuntos culturales del Estado y los grupos artísticos conservadores. Rompió con aquellos marxistas mexicanos afiliados con el comunismo soviético.
The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses
Authors: Reynolds Christopher A.
Published: September 2012

This study examines the likelihood that the contrapuntal voices of fifteenth-century Masses quoted or alluded to chansons unrelated to the chanson cited in the tenor. Often these melodic quotations or allusions in turn alluded to the unsung chanson text, in order to offer modern interpretive commentary on the sung Mass text or an elaboration of the textual idea expressed in the tenor. Examples come from works of Dufay, Ockeghem, Busnois, Caron, and others. The relationship of this technique to the rhetorical practices of the time is examined. A comparison to earlier musical and rhetorical techniques suggests that northern composers were aware of the rhetorical theories and practices of Italian humanists.
On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century
Authors: Blackburn Bonnie J.
Published: September 2012

The change from "successive composition" to "simultaneous conception" is one of the great turning points in the history of music. The latter term, derived from Pietro Aaron's allusion to the method of composition used by modern composers, does not correctly convey Aaron's meaning. He said that modern composers "take all the parts into consideration at once," disposing them in different ranges and thus allowing the avoidance of awkward clashes between the inner voices. This more harmonic orientation finds confirmation in the writings of Giovanni Spataro, whose theory of harmony, later developed by Zarlino, contradicts a current view of fifteenth-century music as purely intervallic counterpoint founded on a superius-tenor framework in which the bass is nonstructural and nonessential. The theory is grounded in the functional role of dissonance, adumbrated a century earlier in the treatise by Goscalcus. Discussion of the new compositional process can already be found fifty years earlier in the writings of Johannes Tinctoris. That this has not been recognized is due to persistent confusion over the term res facta. The key to comprehending this term lies in a correct understanding of what Tinctoris meant by counterpoint: it is not what we today call counterpoint but successive composition. Res facta differs from counterpoint in that each voice must be related to every other voice so that no improper dissonances appear between them. This method, "harmonic composition," could be quasi-simultaneous or successive; the criterion is the ultimate result-the finished work of art. Res facta is both a method of composition and a term that denotes a work composed in this manner, analogous to Listenius's opus perfectum et absolutum. The musica poetica of the sixteenth century is the legacy of res facta, and the two terms are indirectly connected. The new process of composition is the foundation for Tinctoris's delineation of an ars nova beginning about 1437, a date that may have been chosen in recognition of its first great representation in Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores.
Historical Interdependency of Music: A Case Study of the Chinese Seven-String Zither
Authors: Yung Bell
Published: September 2012

In any continually evolving musical tradition employing some form of written notation, old music inevitably influences the new. Less obvious is that the new also affects the old. Temporal influence flows not only forward through time, but also backward. This is "historical interdependency." Through the process of da pu, the creative reinterpretation of older works, the musical tradition of the Chinese seven-string zither offers an example of this phenomenon.
Evidence for the Traditional View of the Transmission of Gregorian Chant
Authors: Hughes David G.
Published: September 2012

The numerous musical variants in the manuscripts of classical Gregorian chant are mostly trivial, having little effect on the melodies. They are more readily understood as mishearings than as misreadings. The few substantive variants are always regional. Many variants involving the replacement of E or B by F or C, or using special neumes such as the salicus or trigon suggest that at one time microtones were used in the chant-a hypothesis supported by some theoretical evidence. The variants taken together show that the chant was fully fixed with respect to pitch before its dissemination throughout the Carolingian Empire and beyond, and hence that any period of improvisational or recreative performance must have occurred prior to that time.
The Theatre Guild Production of Porgy and Bess
Authors: Hamm Charles
Published: September 2012

Recent performances of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess have been based on the uncut score as published by the Gershwin Publishing Corporation, on the assumption that the composer intended it to be played in this "complete" form. Gershwin sent his score to the publisher some months before the New York premiere, mounted by the Theatre Guild on 10 October 1935 after a tryout performance in Boston. Extensive cuts and other changes were made during rehearsals and after Boston, all initiated or approved by Gershwin, who was intimately involved in the production; none of this is reflected in the published score, which was never revised. Five scores used in the Theatre Guild production enable us to reconstruct the opera as it was staged for the first time, in the form in which the composer "intended it to be played" on this occasion, and it is argued that consideration should be given to performing it this way today.