Psychology of Music Learning

Miksza

PERCEPTION

R & B – Rhythm’s Function

• A fundamental organizing component of music (Cooper & Meyer)– Perhaps more so than pitch information– May encompass cross cultural univerals

• Gabrielsson– Performance – Sound Sequences – Response

(experiential, behavioral, physiological)

• “…anything pertaining to the temporal quality of a musical sound (Apel).”

R & B – Rhythmic Structure 1

• Mursell– Underlying beat, phrase rhythm

• Cooper & Meyer– Pulse, meter, rhythm

• Gordon– Macrobeats, microbeats, rhythm patterns

• Creston– Meter, pace, accent, pattern

• Gabriellson– Meter, accent on 1st beat, basic pattern, prominence of basic

pattern, uniformity-variation or simplicity-complexity• Confound

– Descriptions of ‘perceived structure’… …is it psychological or acoustical phenomenon that defines rhythmic structure?

R & B – Rhythmic Structure 2

• Clark – heirarchical structure of symbolic and abstract rhythmic events– Notation - tempo, duration events/silences, groupings, meter– Also grouping – pitch, timbre, dynamic– Also metrical – tension and release– Also interpretive – notated duration vs. resulting duration

after articulation style is applied• Clark – problems with psychological investigation of

rhythm– Assuming that formal structure and perceptual properties

function in same way– Subjective variability of psychological processes– Tendency to confuse cultural norms with perceptual norms

R & B – Rhythmic Structure 3

• Beat vs. Meter problems…– Discrepancy between time signature vs. actual

unit receiving beat• True beat, takt, tactus, metric beat

– Typically defined by bar line and emphasis, but all music is not that mechanical

– More than one metric level operating in most music

• More perception than structure• Hypermeter – beats as bars/measures• Dalcroze notation of ‘bottom’ in time signature

R & B – Rhythmic Structure 4

• Tempo – the speed at which beats recur (Creston)

• Accents (Creston)– Dynamic, agogic, metric, harmonic, weight, pitch,

pattern, embellished• Accents (Lerdahl & Jackendoff)

– Metric – reinforcing groupings vs. others• Accents (Kramer)

– Stress, rhythmic, metric – all others just factors that cause these

R & B – Movement, Perception, Performance

• “Competing” theories– Internal clocks, mental time-keepers (cognitive)– Dynamic systems – mental and motor interactions

(behavioral, neural, neuromuscular)

• Types of sensory feedback– Exteroceptive – events external to the body– Proprioceptive – created by body movements

• Studies of stimuli travelling to the brain suggest that proprioceptive feedback may be linked to higher mental processes

R & B – Movement, Perception, Performance

• Movement and Rhythm– Moog – children w/movement limitations scored

lower than children without on rhythmic tasks– Internal time-keeper

• Temporal codes stored in motor programs– Dynamic systems

• From organizing processes in the neuromotor system itself

– Methodological approach• Tapping with steady beat

• Boils down to ‘cognitive/central control’ vs. ‘proprioceptive’ explanations

R & B – Cognitive Perspectives on Rhythmic Behavior

• Beat/Tempo– Dowling & Harwood - beat serves as a cognitive

framework for understanding rhythm– Fraisse - tempo defines beat also, based on

Gestalt law of proximity– Methods

• Tapping• Judging changes• Factors that influence beat perception

R & B – Cognitive Perspectives on Rhythmic Behavior

• Beat/Tempo findings…– Spontaneous tempo adults:100-120, musicians:60-

120 (Fraisse), 4 and 6 yr olds:150 (Drake et al.)• Probably both perceptual (attention to detail) and motor

factors

– Musicians perceive decreases in tempo quicker than non-musicians (Kuhn)

– Decreases in tempo easier to perceive than increases in general (Geringer et al.)

• Sheldon - contrary findings…

– Even vs. uneven rhythms, style, initial tempo affect perception of tempo change (Wang & Salzburg)

R & B – Cognitive Perspectives on Rhythmic Behavior

• Meter– It’s important to consider differences

between notated and perceived meter– Tempo seems to be the biggest factor to

consider– Dynamic placement and musical

experience are also important factors

R & B – Cognitive Perspectives on Rhythmic Behavior

• Rhythm groups– Isochronous = equal– Sloboda - rhythms are perceived categorically as patterns,

like basic speech phenomes…– Lerhdal & Jackendoff - model of rhythmic understanding

based on grammar and psycholinguistics• Lack of empirical evidence, heavy emphasis of musical

structure-formalist

– Drake - segmentation in groups vs. hierarchical segmentation

• Process oriented model• Found similar rhythmic errors results across age groups• Change in hierarchical segmentation as piece is learned

R & B – Cognitive Perspectives on Rhythmic Behavior

• Rhythm groups (cont.)– Auditory stream segregation - separating pairs of

sound sequences• Interaction of speed of presentation and distance

(proximity) between frequencies• Frequency vs. noise may also result in stream

segregation (similarity)• Context also affects rhythmic perception (e.g., melodic

vs. non-melodic)

– Sink - tempo, meter, rhythmic pattern, melodic patterns - four dimensions of structural perception

– Gabrielsson - tempo primary grouping dimension

R & B - Expressive Timing

• Bengtsson & Gabrielsson - professional musicians systematically vary performances from mechanical norm– Changing time ratios between notated values– Placing notes before or after underlying metric beats– Elongating phrase endings

• Vienesse waltz…

– Onsets of jazz rhythm sections (Rose)– Phrase lengthening of harmonic and melodic tension in

Beethoven (Repp)– Ritard lengths (Sundberg & Verillo)– Judgments of appropriate related to training

R & B - Melodic and Harmonic Foundations

• Cognitive emphases, cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, music theory

• Horizontal dimension: pitch sequences, melody– Selecting tones from a pitch continuum and

placing them in temporal sequence– Attributes: pitch, rhythm, tempo, contour, timbre,

loudness, spatial location, environmental reverberation

– Recognition is also a function of expectancy

R & B - Melody Structure

• Melodic contour: pattern of ascending and descending pitches

• Pitch height: octave location• Chroma: specific chromatic pitch• Lundin

– Propinquity - nearness, prominence of smaller successive intervals vs. larger intervals

– Repetition - certain tones repeat with great frequency, 1, 3, 4

– Finality - cadence, final tones

R & B - Melody Structure

• Perceptual organization: psychological factors influence apprehension of tonal sequence as a melody

• Gestalt Laws• Proximity: close in time and auditory space as a melodic unit• Similarity: repeated tones as a unit• Common direction: moving in a common direction towards

completion• Simplicity: organize in its simplest form

– However, not rationalist or innate… …changes with experience/training

• Schema - knowledge structures developed from experience, culture

R & B - Harmony

• Vertical dimension: simultaneous pitch structures, harmony– Monophonic - melody alone– Polyphonic - two or more simultaneous melodies– Homophonic - melody with tertian accompaniment

• A cultural phenomenon (Lundin, Farnsworth)– Tonality, harmonic movement, finality

• Context dependent principles (Krumhansl et al.)– Identity, Distance, Asymmetry

• Tonality– Tonal strength equation based on sung responses (Taylor)

R & B - Harmony

• Psychological processes– Three influences

• Reductionist - atomistic look at auditory elements (Seashore, Helmholtz)

• Gestalt - perceptual organization (Wertheimer, Koffka)

• Music theorists - tonality, terminology, music-based accounts

– Models are descriptions of inferred psychological events

R & B - Harmony

• Hierarchical perceptual structures– Krumhansl

• Paired-similarity ratings– Triad, diatonic, chromatic

• Matching exercise with interference tones– Diatonic interference tones easier to overcome than

chromatic interference tones

• Multidimensional scaling on similarity ratings– Tonal hierarchy cone - triad, diatonic, chromatic

– Butler• Rare intervals determine tonal context

– Minor seconds, tritones - represent cadences

R & B - Melodic and Harmonic Memory and Processing

• Dowling & Harwood– Contour important for short-term memory of melody– Interval size and pitch chroma important for long-

term melody

• Information theory– Relation of redundancy and uncertainty is inverse– Redundancy = expectancy– Perceptual redundancy = structural and cultural

redundancy• Lack of redundancy may be a problem with contemporary

music