Relative salience of chord-type and chord-voicing changes: A two-oddball paradigm

Our research project investigated the effect of background and stimuli factors on the relative salience of chord-type and chord-voicing changes. Earlier studies have shown that surface features tend to be easier to perceive than deeper features and that musical training attenuates this general tendency. For further studying how deeper-level and surface-level musical features are perceived, we used a two-oddball paradigm. Each item consisted of a succession of five same-root chords: one chord-type oddball (deeper feature), one voicing oddball (surface feature), and three standards. Participants chose the chord that sounded most different to them. All chord-type pairings formed of major, minor, dominant seventh, major seventh, and minor seventh chords were tested. Chord-type oddball and voicing oddball were chosen equally often, together forming the majority of the responses. Musical training and conceptual knowledge of chords affected the chord-type oddball responses, but not the voicing-oddball responses. However, chord-type oddballs were chosen regardless of the musical training. Chord-type responses were easiest for pairs consisting of a major-based and a minor-based chord and for pairs involving two pitch-class changes. Our results suggest that musical training and conceptual knowledge about chords is not the only factor influencing the relative salience of chord-type changes over voicing changes.

Effects of Chord Inversion and Bass Patterns on Harmonic Expectancy in Musicians

This study tests the respective roles of pitch-class content and bass patterns within harmonic expectation using a mix of behavioral and computational experiments. In our first two experiments, participants heard a paradigmatic chord progression derived from music theory textbooks and were asked to rate how well different target endings completed that progression. The completion included the progression’s paradigmatic target, different inversions of that chord (i.e., different members of the harmony were heard in the lowest voice), and a “mismatched” target, a triad that shared its lowest pitch with the paradigmatic ending but altered other pitch-class content. Participants generally rated the paradigmatic target most highly, followed by other inversions of that chord, with lowest ratings generally elicited by the mismatched target. This suggests that listeners’ harmonic expectations are sensitive to both bass patterns and pitch-class content. However, these results did not hold in all cases. A final computational experiment was run to determine whether variations in behavioral responses could be explained by corpus statistics. To this end, n-gram chord-transition models and frequency measurements were compiled for each progression. Our findings suggest that listeners rate highly and have stronger expectations about chord progressions that occur frequently and behave consistently within tonal corpora.

A Universal Nomenclature for Pitch and Rhythm Motives

Chapter 4 proposes a universal nomenclature for pitch (and pitch-class) and rhythm motives. The system eschews nicknames and abstract letter variables in favor of more objective labels. In the domain of pitch and pitch-class, motives are characterized according to their interval content and their length in terms of “number of notes” (as opposed to their duration in time). These symbols may be supplemented by reference to certain iconic pitch shapes, such as “arpeggiation” and “neighbor” gestures. Altered typescripts are used to indicate pitch ascent versus descent, leaping or “gapped” motives, and chromatically filled motives. Two kinds of addition signs, signaling simple and elided addition, are prescribed for naming composite motives. In the domain of rhythm, a motive is first labeled according to its durations, which are assessed locally in relative terms as long (L), short (S), and medium (M). Sounding (note) events must always be accounted for; rest (silent) durations may be specified by parentheses or disregarded as the analyst sees fit. Extensions to the nomenclature exist to handle cases of subdivided rhythms and composite motives. Demonstrations of proper application of the nomenclature are provided throughout the chapter.

Exemplars of Basic Motivic Analysis

Chapter 6 demonstrates the BMA method from start to finish by applying it to two complete sonata movements by Beethoven. The first section presents a pitch/pitch-class motivic analysis, and the second a rhythm motive analysis. The results of investigation across these two pieces shed light on a remarkable, shared trait. Both works pose a prime motive at the start and telegraph a set of expectations of how that motive will combine with itself. Paired fifth pitch-class motives chase each other over the course of Beethoven’s First Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 2, no. 1 (I). Paired six-note rhythmic motives do the same over the course of his Fifth Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1 (III). The pairs are always in flux, redefining their interrelations across their respective movements.

ANALYSIS OF GYORGY LIGETI’S MUSICA RICERCATA: MOVEMENT I

Musica Ricercata is a piano piece written by György Sandor Ligeti, the composer of the 20th century. He composed this piece during his Hungarian period, which is considered to be Ligeti’s early period. Under the shadow of the censorship and pressure imposed on artists by cultural policies in Hungary, he tries to develop an innovative perspective. During this period Ligeti reimagining the main elements of music, such as sound, interval, melody and rhythm and composed the Musica Ricercata. The work consists of eleven movements and pitch class used in this work increases exponentially in each successive movement. In Movement I only one pitch class was used, except for the last four meassure, and the movement was shaped by the use of this pitch class in different ways. This study explores how the diversity in the Movement I of Musica Ricercata is achieved. To investigate this aim, after literature research and data collection, Movement I has been analyzed harmonically and technically; motivic and rhythmic studies are shown on the sheets. While doing this analysis, it was based on the pitch class and post-tonal theory terminology. Ligeti’s research on motive, register, articulation and rhythm, in order to eliminate the monotony, were examined. In addition to being limited and sequential, the structures created with certain materials were shown; and the primitive forms of the techniques such as rhythmic crescendo and static structures that the composer created in his later periods were determined. Keywords: György Sandor Ligeti, Musica Ricercata, contemporary piano music, pitch class

Evaluating Human-Computer Co-creative Processes in Music: A Case Study on the CHAMELEON Melodic Harmonizer

CHAMELEON is a computational melodic harmonization assistant. It can harmonize a given melody according to a number of independent harmonic idioms or blends between idioms based on principles of conceptual blending theory. Thus, the system is capable of offering a wealth of possible solutions and viewpoints for melodic harmonization. This study investigates how human creativity may be influenced by the use of CHAMELEON in a melodic harmonization task. Professional and novice music composers participated in an experiment where they were asked to harmonize two similar melodies under two different conditions: one with and one without computational support. A control group harmonized both melodies without computational assistance. The influence of the system was examined both behaviorally, by comparing metrics of user-experience, and in terms of the properties of the artifacts (i.e., pitch class distribution and number of chord types characterizing each harmonization) that were created between the two experimental conditions. Results suggest that appreciation of the system was expertise-dependent (i.e., novices appreciated the computational support more than professionals). At the same time, users seemed to adopt more explorative strategies as a result of interaction with CHAMELEON based on the fact that the harmonizations created this way were more complex, diverse, and unexpected in comparison to the ones of the control group.

Voice Leading Among Pitch-Class Sets: Revisiting Allen Forte’s Genera

The theory of PC-set class genera by Allen Forte was an important contribution to the understanding of similarity relations among PC sets within the tempered system. The growing interaction between the universes of PC-sets and transformational theories has been explored the space between sets of the same or distinct cardinality, by means of voice-leading procedures. This paper intends to demonstrate Forte’s method along with proposals by other authors like Morris, Parks, Straus, Cohn, and Coelho de Souza. Some analysis demonstrates such operations in passages picked from Heitor Villa-Lobos’s works, like the Seventh String Quartet and the First Symphony.