From: mclaren
Subject: Several more worthwhile papers
--
The journal "Music Perception" , Winter 1984, 2(2),
pp. 131-165, carried the article "Tonal Schemata
in the Perception of Music in Bali and in the West,"
It's an interesting paper, but not nearly as useful as
you'd imagine from the title--alas.
The authors confined themselves to extremely
low-level questions as: How well can Balinese
The authors confined themselves to extremely
low-level questions as: How well can Balinese
listeners identify the place of a missing western
pitch in a western scale as opposed to how well
a western listenre can identify the place of a
missing gamelan pitch in a gamelan scale?
The Balinese audience memebrs tested were
reportedly members of a remote village with
no previous exposure to western music. This
sounds unlikely on the face of it, and one is
inclined to question the study on that basis.
Nonetheless it's worth reading.
>From Music Perception, Winter 1984 , 2 (2),
pp. 245-264, the article "Studies in Musical
Cognition: Comments from a Music Theorist"
offer some enlightening criticisms of current
higher-level experiments designed to elucidate
elements of human melodic and harmonic
audition.
elements of human melodic and harmonic
audition.
"A great many of the difficulties in psychology
experiments have come from an ignorance of or
naivete wth regard to tonality. Four examples
will be given.
"First, length was assumed until recently to
be an important factor in both the `memorable-ness'
and the `tonal-ness' of tunes; longer tunes carried
more information than short ones. This has been
shown to be a false assumption."
You'd think this was obvious. Yet it seems to have
come as a revelation to music cognition researchers.
C'mon, guys! Obviously Mozart's 41st symphony 1st
movement theme, while *long*, is *easy* to remember,
whereas the much *shorter* theme of the first
movement of Webern's symphony is obviously vastly
*harder* to remember. Has anyone heard of the words
"implied harmonic cues" and "tonal landmarks"?
*harder* to remember. Has anyone heard of the words
"implied harmonic cues" and "tonal landmarks"?
Jeez.
"Second, so called `tonal' tunes have thus far for
the most part been defined simply as those
consisting of pitches drawn from some major-
mode diatonic collection, whereas `atonal' tunes
are obtained by drawing random pitches from the
12-tone chromatic collection. The notions that
tunes could be diatonic but only weakly tonal
or chromatic but also tonal have only begun to
be articulated and refined."
Yow.
You'd think this would be obvious.
Listening--that's the key, folks. Ya gotta *listen* to those
psychoacoustic test melodies before you use 'em...
"Third, in music the relationship between frequency
(pitch) distance and function distance is a
complex one..." Again, a very clearly obvious
(pitch) distance and function distance is a
complex one..." Again, a very clearly obvious
point--pitches a 12-TET semitone apart represent
opposing harmonies even though the notes are
melodically close, while pitches 7 12-TET semitones
apart represent harmonies close together even
though the notes are melodically distant.
Duh.
Yet researchers are only now catching onto this...?
"Fourth, tunes in the psychological literature,
whether tonal or atonal, are still all too often
characterized as sequences of signed note-to-note
intervals. Few notions of melodic structure
(certainly none based on a well-founded theory
of implicit harmonic structure) have emerged."
[Hantz, E., "Studies in Musical Cognition: Comments
from a Music Theorist," Music Perception, Winter
1984, 2(2), pp. 245-264.]
These objections seem to explain very clearly why
1984, 2(2), pp. 245-264.]
These objections seem to explain very clearly why
much of the current psychoacoustic and psychological
and music cognition research in microtonality has
failed so miserably to produce results as revelatory or
enlightening as simply LISTENING TO NON-12 MUSIC.
In study after study, otherwise reliable reserachers
like Carol Krumhansl come to obviously wacky
conclusions about such tunings as 48-TET, 19-TET,
36-TET, etc.
The reason for these obviously wrong concusions is
that the researchers assume [1] that melodies in
other tunings must exhibit the same melodic
structure as 12-TET; and [2] melodies in other
tunings msut exhibit the same implied harmonic
structure as 12-TET, with identical modes,
etc. etc.
Ivor Darreg pointed out long ago, as did Easley
Blackwood, that other tunings often turn the
Ivor Darreg pointed out long ago, as did Easley
Blackwood, that other tunings often turn the
rules of western harmony *upside-down.* Some
tunings require that major thirds be treated as
unstable dissonances which resolve DOWN until
major seconds (17-TET) or UP into perfect
fourths (Pythagorean ji). Some tunings require
that the fifth be treated as a dissonance (13-TET,
18-TET, 23-TET, many of Erv Wilson's higher-order CPSs),
while other tunings require that the fifth be treated
as a consonance (22-TET, standard-limit ji arrays).
In some tunings root progression by fifths produce
the most powerful and convincing cadences (19-TET,
7-limit ji) while in other tunings root progressions
by other intervals produce the most powerful and
convincing cadences (some of Erv Wilson's higher-
level CPSs, 15-TET, varius non-just non-equal
tunings like the metal tube scale or the free-free
metal bar scale).
tunings like the metal tube scale or the free-free
metal bar scale).
This explains why Krumhansl and other respected
researchers keep "discovering" that 12-TET is "the
best tuning" for melodies. When you measure everything
by a 12-TET yardstick, 12 looks best.
You'd think that none of this would be controversial
or astonishing, yet these ideas seem to wallop
the psychoacoustics community with the force of
divine revelation. These folks are only now
slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly awakening
to the idea that you can't usefully measure non-12
melodic or harmonic properties according to 12-TET
melodic and harmonic standards.
Wow.
What a surprise, eh?
Incidentally, these same considerations explain why
Markov-chain analysis produces junk when you use it
to analyze a piece of music and then compose an
algorithmic piece. Markov chains are blind to the
the melodic contour, the implied harmonies, the
sense of balance and unbalance, of parry and riposte
in a melody. In this regard Larry Polansky's morphological
metrics represent a major advance--so, naturally, no
psychoacoustical researcher has yet employed Larry's
breakthrough concept in any tests of microtonal melodic
perception.
--mclaren
