Download Psychology of Music Learning

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
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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, musicbased 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 longterm 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