Pitch-Class Distribution and the Identification of Key

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Temperley ◽  
Elizabeth West Marvin
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Class Distribution ◽  
Better Than

THIS STUDY EXAMINES THE DISTRIBUTIONAL VIEW OF key-finding, which holds that listeners identify key by monitoring the distribution of pitch-classes in a piece and comparing this to an ideal distribution for each key. In our experiment, participants judged the key of melodies generated randomly from pitch-class distributions characteristic of tonal music. Slightly more than half of listeners' judgments matched the generating keys, on both the untimed and the timed conditions. While this performance is much better than chance, it also indicates that the distributional view is far from a complete explanation of human key identification. No difference was found between participants with regard to absolute pitch ability, either in the speed or accuracy of their key judgments. Several key-finding models were tested on the melodies to see which yielded the best match to participants' responses.

Implicit Absolute Pitch Representation Affects Basic Tonal Perception

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 569-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohar Eitan ◽  
Moshe Shay Ben-Haim ◽  
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Occurrence Frequency ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Harmonic Progression ◽  
Relative Pitch ◽  
Preceding Context ◽  
Tonal Hierarchy ◽  
Tonal Perception ◽  
Tonal Context

It is undisputed that the cognition of tonal music is primarily established by pitch relationships set within a tonal scheme such as a major or minor key. The corresponding notion—that absolute pitch and absolute key are largely inconsequential for tonal cognition—thus seems inevitable. Here, we challenge the latter notion, presenting data suggesting that absolute pitch and absolute key significantly modify listeners’ judgments of tonal fit and tonal tension. In two experiments extending the probe tone technique (as applied in Krumhansl & Kessler, 1982) participants heard a brief tonal context (a major triad in Experiment 1, a harmonic progression in Experiment 2) followed by individual probe tones, and rated how well each probe fitted the preceding context, as well as the musical tension conveyed by each probe. Two maximally distant key contexts, G major and D♭ major, were used in both experiments and in both tasks. Ratings revealed significant absolute pitch effects in both tasks, though in different ways. In the tonal fit task, diatonic pitches in G major were rated higher than those in D♭ major; in contrast, chromatic pitches were rated higher in D♭ major, compared to G. In the tension task, overall ratings were significantly higher for D♭ major contexts than for G major context (Experiment 1). Importantly, these effects reflect the occurrence frequency of pitch classes and keys in the tonal repertory: frequent pitch classes were rated as better fits than rarer ones, and a rarer key (D♭) rated tenser than a frequently-occurring key (G). Absolute pitch effects were most strongly manifested by participants without formal training, for whom the relative pitch effects of the tonal hierarchy were weak, and were stronger when tonal context was weaker (Experiment 1 as compared to Experiment 2). Results suggest that implicit absolute pitch perception, reflecting key and pitch class occurrence frequency, significantly affects tonal music processing; such absolute pitch effects may be activated principally when tonal perception or tonal cues are lacking.

An Algorithm for Harmonic Analysis

1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Temperley
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Analysis ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Pitch Class

An algorithm is proposed for performing harmonic analysis of tonal music. The algorithm begins with a representation of a piece as pitches and durations; it generates a representation in which the piece is divided into segments labeled with roots. This is a project of psychological interest, because much evidence exists that harmonic analysis is performed by trained and untrained listeners during listening; however, the perspective of the current project is computational rather than psychological, simply examining what has to be done computationally to produce "correct" analyses for pieces. One of the major innovations of the project is that pitches and chords are both represented on a spatial representation known as the "line of fifths"; this is similar to the circle of fifths except that distinctions are made between different spellings of the same pitch class. The algorithm uses preference rules to evaluate different possible interpretations, selecting the interpretation that most satisfies the preference rules. The algorithm has been computationally implemented; examples of the program's output are given and discussed.

scholarly journals Absolute Pitch in Oral Transmission of Folk Tunes as Constrained Random Walks

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Klaus Frieler
Keyword(s):  
Random Walks ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Oral Transmission

In this commentary, I would like to add a few of our own, still unpublished, empirical observations concerning the possible role of absolute pitch memory (APM) in the oral transmission of folksongs. This empirical data poses some questions on the likelihood of the observed inter-recording tonic pitch consistency of Olthof, Janssen & Honing (2015) and how these could come about. Based on simulations of absolute pitch class of tonics during oral transmission of folk songs, I argue that the interplay of melodic range and vocal range might actually be the main reason for the observed non-uniformity, in contrast to the conclusions presented in Olthof et al. (2015). However, this does not invalidate the therein presented evidence, but makes the case more puzzling, consequently calling for more empirical research on the interaction of melodic and vocal range and latent APM as well as for more detailed modeling of oral transmission of folk songs.

The effects of timbre on absolute pitch judgment

2020 ◽  
pp. 030573561989343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaonuo Li
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Test Study ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Very High

This article reports the high prevalence of Absolute Pitch (AP) among students at Shanghai Conservatory of Music and explores the effects of timbre on AP judgment through a large-scale direct-test study. This study used two types of timbres (piano timbre and string timbre) to explore the correlation between the different types of timbre and note-naming accuracy. The participants included 71 undergraduate students majoring in piano and string at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who had begun musical training at an age ⩽ 9 and focused on Western tonal music. The main results showed that the overall performance levels were very high and that the students scored 73% correct without semitone errors and 80% with semitone errors. All groups exhibited higher performance in judging pitches in piano timbre than string timbre. In addition, after listening to piano timbre, the accuracy in judging pitches in string timbre was significantly increased, and after listening to string timbre, the accuracy in judging pitches in piano timbre decreased but not significantly.

The Interplay of Set Content and Temporal Context in a Functional Theory of Tonality Perception

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Brown
Keyword(s):  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Critical Feature ◽  
Functional Interpretation ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Functional Relationships ◽  
Musical Excerpt ◽  
Musical Excerpts ◽  
Pitch Class Sets

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.

Diatonic Connotations of Pitch-Class Sets

1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Van Egmond ◽  
David Butler
Keyword(s):  
Set Theory ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Tonal Pitch ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Pitch Class Sets

This is a music-theoretical study of the relationship of two-, three-, four-, five-, and six-member subsets of the major (pure minor), harmonic minor, and melodic (ascending) minor reference collections, using pitchclass set analytic techniques. These three collections will be referred to as the diatonic sets. Several new terms are introduced to facilitate the application of pitch-class set theory to descriptions of tonal pitch relations and to retain characteristic intervallic relationships in tonal music typically not found in discussions of atonal pitch-class relations. The description comprises three parts. First, pitch sets are converted to pitchclass sets. Second, the pitch- class sets are categorized by transpositional types. Third, the relations of these transpositional types are described in terms of their key center and modal references to the three diatonic sets. Further, it is suggested that the probability of a specific key interpretation by a listener may depend on the scale-degree functions of the tones.

Absolute pitch is not necessary for pitch class-color synesthesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 169-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosuke Itoh ◽  
Tsutomu Nakada
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Pitch Class

Messiaen's Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color and Sound Structure in His Music

1986 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan W. Bernard
Keyword(s):  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Sound Structure ◽  
Modes Of Limited Transposition ◽  
Vertical Spacing ◽  
High Degree

Olivier Messiaen's published descriptions of his works and the color labels that appear in certain of his scores show that he is affected by colored-hearing synaesthesia. Because Messiaen's color responses, like those of other synaesthetes, exhibit a high degree of internal consistency, the analyst may tabulate the available correlations between sound and color and use them to explore the various factors, objectively considered, that govern Messiaen's color associations. The importance of absolute pitch and of the modes of limited transposition is studied, as are the conditions under which vertical spacing and pitch-class-set identity may assume primary significance in color delineation. The conclusions reached offer a key to more general matters of structure in Messiaen's music. Examples are drawn from several of Messiaen's works, dating from 1929 to 1974.

Perception of Musical Intervals by Absolute Pitch Possessors

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken'ichi Miyazaki
Keyword(s):  
Strong Dependence ◽  
Absolute Pitch ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Pitch Processing ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Relative Pitch ◽  
Musical Pitch ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Musical Context ◽  
The Sacrifice

Previous studies have demonstrated that absolute pitch (AP) possessors can directly perceive the musical pitch quality (pitch class) of a tone presented in isolation. However, an isolated tone without musical context has no relevance to music, and AP ability should be examined in musically meaningful situations. In this study, AP possessors tried to identify the musical intervals between pairs of successive tones. The first tone (a reference) was either in-tune C according to the conventional pitch standard or out-of-tune C (a quarter-tone higher than standard C). The identification performance was less accurate and slower in the out-of-tune reference condition than in the in-tune condition. In contrast, AP nonpossessors showed no significant difference in performance in the two conditions, as predicted by the principle of equality under transposition. These results suggest that AP subjects tend to adhere to AP in relative pitch tasks, and that at least some AP listeners may have developed a strong dependence on AP at the sacrifice of relative pitch. AP may not have any advantage in music, in which relative pitch, not AP, is essential. Rather, AP may conflict with relative pitch and, in some cases, harm musical pitch processing.

scholarly journals Pitch-class distribution modulates the statistical learning of atonal chord sequences

2016 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatsuya Daikoku ◽  
Yutaka Yatomi ◽  
Masato Yumoto
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Pitch Class ◽  
Class Distribution
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