39. major chord | ScienceGate

Guitar distortion used in rock music modifies a chord so that new frequencies appear in its harmonic structure. A distorted dyad (power chord) has a special role in heavy metal music due to its harmonics that create a major third interval, making it similar to a major chord. We investigated how distortion affects cortical auditory processing of chords in musicians and nonmusicians. Electric guitar chords with or without distortion and with or without the interval of the major third (i.e., triads or dyads) were presented in an oddball design where one of them served as a repeating standard stimulus and others served as occasional deviants. This enabled the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) related to deviance processing (the mismatch negativity MMN and the attention-related P3a component) in an ignore condition. MMN and P3a responses were elicited in most paradigms. Distorted chords in a nondistorted context only elicited early P3a responses. However, the power chord did not demonstrate a special role in the level of the ERPs. Earlier and larger MMN and P3a responses were elicited when distortion was modified compared to when only harmony (triad vs. dyad) was modified between standards and deviants. The MMN responses were largest when distortion and harmony deviated simultaneously. Musicians demonstrated larger P3a responses than nonmusicians. The results suggest mostly independent cortical auditory processing of distortion and harmony in Western individuals, and facilitated chord change processing in musicians compared to nonmusicians. While distortion has been used in heavy rock music for decades, this study is among the first ones to shed light on its cortical basis.

Download Full-text

Canons and Contestable Cadences in Brahms's Op. 118 No. 4

Music Theory and Analysis (MTA) ◽

10.11116/mta.8.1.7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 143-152

Author(s):

Caleb Mutch

Keyword(s):

Compositional Technique ◽

Root Position ◽

Major Chord

Brahms's F minor Intermezzo, Op. 118 No. 4 prominently employs the fusty compositional technique of strict canon at the octave. Yet Brahms embeds this canon in music that is anything but fusty: as I demonstrate, unexpected features abound in the textures, dissonance treatment, modulatory schemes, and motives with which Brahms girds the canon. The movement's approach to cadences is also remarkable. The presence of a continuous canon automatically precludes all voices coming to rest simultaneously, but Brahms further attenuates the piece's cadences. Most notably, in this movement Brahms avoids traditional authentic-cadence closure entirely, writing not a single cadential progression from a root-position C major chord to a root-position F chord. Instead, I argue that Brahms effects tonal closure by using the augmented sixth chord, which supplants the dominant's usual function. He does this most obviously by repeating the augmented sixth sonority in prominent positions within the ternary form's final A section. I also show that Brahms artfully foreshadows this chord's importance in the initial A section, where he successively tonicizes each member of that harmony.

Download Full-text

Affective experiences to chords are modulated by mode, meter, tempo, and subjective entrainment

Psychology of Music ◽

10.1177/0305735620906887 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 030573562090688

Author(s):

Carolina Labbé ◽

Wiebke Trost ◽

Didier Grandjean

Keyword(s):

Positive Emotions ◽

Emotional Valence ◽

Afferent Feedback ◽

Music Listening ◽

Feedback Mechanisms ◽

High Arousal ◽

Emotion Elicitation ◽

Fast Tempo ◽

Major Chord ◽

Affective Experiences

Mode and tempo are known to influence affective experiences during music listening. While mode (major/minor) is associated with emotional valence (positive/negative), tempo (slow/fast) is associated with emotional arousal (calm/excited). Heart rate (HR) and respiration rate (RR) are also thought to adapt (entrain) to the tempo, leading to emotion elicitation via afferent feedback mechanisms. Here, we tested the influence of mode, tempo, and entrainment on affective experiences by recording HR, RR, and self-reported subjective entrainment and affect measures while participants ( N = 20) listened to major and minor chords embedded in slow and fast isochronous, metrical, and random sequences. Though there was no effect of tempo on HR or RR, both were faster during major and metrically random chord sequences, respectively. Slower HR positively predicted visceral entrainment (VE) ratings, the extent to which one feels one’s internal rhythms changing, and fast tempo positively predicted motor entrainment (ME) ratings, the extent to which one feels like moving. Compared to minor chords, fast major chord sequences induced more feelings of vitality (positive, high arousal), while minor sequences induced more feelings of unease (negative, high, and low arousal). Both ME and VE positively predicted pleasantness ratings and positive emotions, and negatively predicted negative emotions.

Download Full-text

A Note on the Four Chords in act II of A Midsummer Night's Dream

Tempo ◽

10.1017/s0040298200036354 ◽

1963 ◽

pp. 36-37

Author(s):

Eric Roseberry

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

Midsummer Night's Dream ◽

A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽

Major Chord ◽

The One

We know from the composer's own account that work on A Midsummer Night's Dream was by no means always easy going. Therefore when I accidentally stumbled (aurally, be it noted) upon the remarkable fact that the four chords used in Act II of the Dream were almost identical with those used in the setting of Keats's ‘Sonnet to Sleep’ in the Serenade I fully expected to learn that the composer had consciously borrowed from the earlier work, reversing the order of the first two chords (adding a B to the D major chord) and magically re-spacing and re-scoring them. As the poetic element in each piece is concerned with the properties of sleep (inducing a healing forgetfulness on the one hand, a fantastic change of identities on the other) the conscious re-working of those earlier chords of the Serenade would have seemed by no means inapt.

Download Full-text

Speech Companions: Evaluating the Effects of Musically Modulated Auditory Feedback on the Voice

Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD 2019) ◽

10.21785/icad2019.035 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Rébecca Kleinberger ◽

George Stefanakis ◽

Sebastian Franjou

Keyword(s):

Auditory Feedback ◽

Semantic Content ◽

The Other ◽

Pitch Contour ◽

Vocal Qualities ◽

Major Chord ◽

Minor Chord ◽

A Minor ◽

The Voice ◽

Musical Accompaniment

Changing the way one hears one’s own voice, for instance by adding delay or shifting the pitch in real-time, can alter vocal qualities such as speed, pitch contour, or articulation. We created new types of auditory feedback called Speech Companions that generate live musical accompaniment to the spoken voice. Our system generates harmonized chorus effects layered on top of the speaker’s voice that change chord at each pseudo-beat detected in the spoken voice. The harmonization variations follow predeter-mined chord progressions. For the purpose of this study we generated two versions: one following a major chord progression and the other one following a minor chord progression. We conducted an evaluation of the effects of the feedback on speakers and we present initial ﬁndings assessing how different musical modulations might potentially affect the emotions and mental state of the speaker as well as semantic content of speech, and musical vocal parameters.

Download Full-text