A Perceptual Study of Scale-degree Qualia in Context

A perceptual study investigated the ability of scale degrees to evoke qualia, and the impact of harmonic context in shaping a scale degree’s qualia. In addition, the following questions were addressed: What role does music training have in shaping qualia? Are listeners consistent in their descriptions? Are experiences similar across participants, or are they individual and subjective? Listeners with or without music-theoretic training were asked to rate the qualia of scale degrees following various chord progressions, each ending with a different final harmony. Scale degrees were found to exhibit relatively consistent musical qualia; however, the local chord context was found to significantly influence qualia ratings. In general, both groups of listeners were found to be fairly consistent in their ratings of scale-degree qualia; however, as expected, musician listeners were more consistent than nonmusician listeners. Finally, a subset of the musical qualia ratings were compared against Krumhansl and Kessler’s (1982) scale-degree “profiles.” While profiles created from the present data, overall, were correlated with the K&K profiles, their claim that tonal stability accounts for the high ratings ascribed to tonic triad members was found to be better explained by the effect of the local chord context.

A Spectral Pitch Class Model of the Probe Tone Data and Scalic Tonality

In this paper, we introduce a small family of novel bottom-up (sensory) models of the Krumhansl and Kessler (1982) probe tone data. The models are based on the spectral pitch class similarities between all twelve pitch classes and the tonic degree and tonic triad. Cross-validation tests of a wide selection of models show ours to have amongst the highest fits to the data. We then extend one of our models to predict the tonics of a variety of different scales such as the harmonic minor, melodic minor, and harmonic major. The model produces sensible predictions for these scales. Furthermore, we also predict the tonics of a small selection of microtonal scales—scales that do not form part of any musical culture. These latter predictions may be tested when suitable empirical data have been collected.

Major-Minor Tonality, Schenkerian Prolongation, and Emotion: A commentary on Huron and Davis (2012)

<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">On average, melodies in minor keys have smaller intervals between successive tones than melodies in major keys - consistent with the emotional difference between major and minor (Huron, 2008). Huron and Davis (2012) additionally showed that a part of this difference is inherent in the structure of major and minor scales, in combination with typical patterns of transition between scale steps: If one takes a typical major melody and lowers scale steps 3 and 6 by a semitone, the average interval size is optimally reduced. I present an alternative theory of the origin of major and minor scales/keys and their emotional connotations. Huron&rsquo;s (2006) data on scale-step transitions in typical melodies is consistent with Schenker&rsquo;s (1922, 1935) idea that a piece of tonal music can be interpreted as a prolongation of its tonic triad (mediated by the <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ursatz</em>). The emotional difference between major and minor may ultimately and primarily depend on the third of the tonic triad in the psychological background. Major music may tend toward positive valence simply because emotionally positive music is more common than emotionally negative music, and major triads and keys are more common than minor. Minor music may tend toward negative valence simply because scale degrees 3 and 6 sound lower than expected, consistent with emotional cues in speech (Huron, 2008). </span>

The Tonic as Triad: Key Profiles as Pitch Salience Profiles of Tonic Triads

Major and minor triads emerged in western music in the 13th to 15th centuries. From the 15th to the 17th centuries, they increasingly appeared as final sonorities. In the 17th century, music-theoretical concepts of sonority, root, and inversion emerged. I propose that since then, the primary perceptual reference in tonal music has been the tonic triad sonority (not the tonic tone or chroma) in an experiential (not physical or notational) representation. This thesis is consistent with the correlation between the key profiles of Krumhansl and Kessler (1982; here called chroma stability profiles) and the chroma salience profiles of tonic triads (after Parncutt, 1988). Chroma stability profiles also correlate with chroma prevalence profiles (of notes in the score), suggesting an implication-realization relationship between the chroma prevalence profile of a passage and the chroma salience profile of its tonic triad. Convergent evidence from psychoacoustics, music psychology, the history of composition, and the history of music theory suggests that the chroma salience profile of the tonic triad guided the historical emergence of major-minor tonality and continues to influence its perception today.

Mode, Harmony, and Dissonance Treatment in American Folk and Popular Music, c. 1920–1945

In American folk and popular music, dissonance frequently functions in ways that cannot be explained by conventional tonal theory. Two types of dissonance—the dropping and hanging thirds—function outside of classical norms, and within the framework of a mode built around the tonic triad that either transposes or remains in place with changes of harmony. The interaction between the mode and harmony influences the large-scale structure of a strophe or other section and the perception of its tension and resolution.

The Third-Act Prelude of WagnerÕs Parsifal: Genesis, Form, and Dramatic Meaning

The Prelude to the third act of Parsifal is one of Wagner's most advanced essays in expanded tonality. One author has described it as "set[ting] foot in atonal territory as it re-explores the melancholy, disjointed polytonal idiom of the introduction to the third act of Tristan," and a noted analyst has suggested that it is motion around the diminished-seventh chord including Bb rather than the tonic triad of Bb minor that defines the background structure of the Prelude. This music also raises issues of form and expressive meaning that have yet to be thoroughly addressed. A valuable means of approaching the Prelude is through Wagner's surviving compositional documents, particularly the individual sketches for the Prelude that preceded the writing-out of his first continuous draft for the third act (the Kompositionsskizze [Composition Draft]). These manuscripts are held in the Wagner-Archiv at Bayreuth. When these sketches are transcribed and compared with the detailed record contained in Cosima Wagner's diary entries, insight can be gained into the way that Wagner composed the Prelude, during late October 1878. This article shows in detail how the Prelude was composed on the basis of sketch sources that are virtually complete. It is supported by several facsimiles of Wagner's sketches, transcriptions, analytical graphs, and music examples. The study indicates that the "melancholy, disjointed polytonal" idiom of the Prelude is coordinated with a framework of associated tonalities reaching across vast stretches of musical time. These include not only the Bb-minor idiom of Titurel's burial, but also the associated tonality of Parsifal's Prophecy motive. The structural background of the Prelude to act III of Parsifal is not simply a diminished-seventh prolongation, but a tensional framework of motivic combinations and rotational cycles that effectively convey the bleak wandering and promise of deliverance that lie at the core of the drama.

Recognition of Tone Series Containing Tonic Triads

Two experiments concerning the recognition of tone series with a triad on the tonic located either at the beginning, the center, or the end of the series are reported. In Experiment 1, the series consisted of nine tones and comprised three subgroups of either diatonic or nondiatonic tones. Experiment 2 focused on series of 9,11, and 13 tones. The results of Experiment 1 showed that recognition was most accurate for series with the tonic triad located in the center. In Experiment 2, the same effect of location of the tonic triad was found for series of 9 tones, but no significant effect of location of the triad was found for series of 11 or 13 tones. It appears that the location of a tonic triad influences the recognition of short tone series only, and the tonic triad has the greatest impact when it is located in the center of such a series.

Response-Time Measures as a Means of Exploring Tonal Hierarchies

We explore the possibility of studying music perception with responsetime measures. Subjects heard either a chord (tonic triad) or scale prime, followed by a single note, and indicated whether the note did or did not belong in the primed key. Overall, the data resemble the tonal hierarchy previously demonstrated with other methods, thus establishing the validity of the response-time measure. In addition, the scale primes superimpose a recency effect on the standard hierarchy, as would be expected from a serially presented stimulus. We discuss what this implies about tonal hierarchies, and the use of response-time measures to study the online processes of music listening. We also report data for nondiatonic tones.