The Perception of Frozen Intervals in Anton Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24, Third Movement

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenine Brown
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Passive Exposure

Abstract Many have described twelve-tone music as difficult to aurally comprehend (e.g., Huron, 2006; Meyer, 1967). This study addresses such claims by investigating what listeners can implicitly learn when hearing a recording of a twelve-tone composition. Krumhansl (1990) has argued that listeners unfamiliar with a musical style attune to the distribution of pitch occurrences, with the most frequent pitch providing a reference point. However, in Anton Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24/iii, each pitch occurs nearly the same number of times. Because the distribution of pitches in this twelve-tone work is flat, this study investigates whether listeners instead perceive its recurring intervals. After passive exposure to the composition, musician participants (n = 12) with no formal training in non-tonal music theory demonstrated learning of the frequent intervals (and pairs of intervals) in both forced-choice and ratings tasks. Nonmusicians (n = 13) did not. I then use these empirical findings to inform an interval-based analytical approach to Webern’s compositions.

The Psychological Representation of Musical Intervals in a Twelve-Tone Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenine L. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Choice Test ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Passive Exposure

Previous studies of twelve-tone music suggest that participants can learn a twelve-tone row and identify it in a forced-choice test (Bigand, D’Adamo, & Poulin, 2003; Krumhansl, Sandell, & Sergeant, 1987). However, these findings invite speculation about the extent to which participants were attuning to intervals to complete the task. The present study builds upon these previous experiments by specifically investigating whether participants implicitly attune to repetitive interval patterns embedded in twelve-tone melodies. After passive exposure to a monophonic twelve-tone melody dominated by intervals 1 and 3 (in semitones), musician listeners with no formal training in nontonal music theory demonstrated learning of the frequent intervals (and directed interval pairs) in both forced-choice and ratings tasks. Experiment 2 tested a new group of participants with similar backgrounds, although this time the twelve-tone melody heard in familiarization was predominated with intervals 2 and 5. Participants showed learning of directed interval pairs, but not intervals (possibly due to the more tonal nature of interval successions within familiarization). These findings have pedagogical and analytical implications.

A Multidimensional Scaling Analysis of Musical Style

1992 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce O. Eastlund
Keyword(s):  
Multidimensional Scaling ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Scaling Analysis ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Dimensional Solution ◽  
Advanced Degrees ◽  
Similarity Ratings

This study was designed to define the dominant perceptual dimensions used by listeners in classification of music excerpts by style. In addition, similarity ratings of novice listeners, defined as those with limited training and expert listeners, defined as those with advanced degrees in music and at least 5 years of teaching experience, were compared. Subjects (N = 30) rated all possible pairings of fifteen 15-second excerpts drawn from European tonal music composed between 1762 and 1896. Analysis of data from each subgroup solution yielded a three- dimensional solution. When stimulus coordinates were compared, they were found to be significantly correlated. Therefore, the data were pooled. Multidimensional scaling techniques generated a three-dimensional stimulus configuration for the pooled data. Dominant dimensions for novice and expert musicians were interpreted as historical period, complexity or amount of information, and tempo.

scholarly journals Perceiving the Classical Cadence

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 397-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sears ◽  
William E. Caplin ◽  
Stephen McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Formal Context ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Classical Style ◽  
Keyboard Sonatas ◽  
Rhetorical Features ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

This study explores the underlying mechanisms responsible for the perception of cadential closure in Mozart’s keyboard sonatas. Previous investigations into the experience of closure have typically relied upon the use of abstract harmonic formulæ as stimuli. However, these formulæ often misrepresent the ways in which composers articulate phrase endings in tonal music. This study, on the contrary, examines a wide variety of cadential types typically found in the classical style, including evaded cadences, which have yet to be examined in an experimental setting. The present findings reveal that cadential categories play a pivotal role in the perception of closure, and for musicians especially, ratings of the cadential categories provide empirical support for a model of cadential strength proposed in music theory. A number of rhetorical features also affect participants' ratings of closure, such as formal context, the presence of a melodic dissonance at the cadential arrival, and the use of a trill within the penultimate dominant. Finally, the results indicate that expertise modulates attention, with musicians privileging bass-line motion and nonmusicians attending primarily to the soprano voice.

scholarly journals Partitional Harmony: The Partitioning of Pitch Spaces

2020 ◽  
Vol IV (2) ◽  
pp. 01-27
Author(s):  
Marco Feitosa
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Preliminary Work ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

In this preliminary work, we seek to present a brief historical review of the use of partitions in music, to provide a concise introduction to the theory of partitions, and lastly, through an extensive bibliographic revision and a thoughtful theoretical reflection, to lay the foundations of what we call partitional harmony - a comprehensive harmonic conception which relates the theory of partitions to several fields of post-tonal music theory. At the end, some basic operations (pitch, transposition, inversion, and multiplication) are defined and an illustrative musical application is provided, followed by our research prospects.

scholarly journals Analisis Schenkerian Pada Komposisi L’Armonia Opus 148.5 Gitar Klasik Karya Mauro Giuliani

PROMUSIKA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-89
Author(s):  
Adityo Legowo
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
Classical Guitar ◽  
Schenkerian Analysis ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Tonal Structure ◽  
Final Project ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Repeated Structure ◽  
Made In

Ada beragam jenis cara analisis musik namun yang selama ini lebih dikenal dan dipelajari di lingkungan penulis, adalah analisis bentuk musik. Ada cara lain dalam bidang analisis, salah satunya adalah analisis schenkerian. Melalui cara analisis tersebut maka akan didapatkan struktur tonal yang terdalam dari sebuah sistem musik tonal. Cara ini sama sekali belum umum di Indonesia untuk saat ini. Maka dari itu penulis ingin mempelajari lebih dalam mengenahi cara analisis schenkerian. Untuk materi pembahasan akan dibatasi pada karya Mauro Giuliani komposisi L’Armonia opus 148. 5 untuk gitar klasik. Adapun pertimbangan mengenahi objek pembahasan tersebut karena era keemasan musik tonal adalah jaman klasik. Karya tersebut dibuat pada waktu jaman klasik dan diciptakan oleh seorang komposer arus utama untuk musik instrumen gitar. Selain itu karya tersebut dimainkan dalam resital tugas akhir yang dilakukan oleh penulis. Sehingga harapan penulis dengan analisis karya Mauro Giuliani dapat melihat gambaran komponis gitar lainya pada era tersebut. Dgn menggunakan metode kualitatif desriptif dengan pendekatan musikologis, khususnya teori musik dapat disimpulkan bahwa bentuk background komposisi L’Armonia karya Mauro Giuliani adalah bentuk kedalaman yang merupakan hasil reduksi dari bentuk-bentuk sebelumnya. Di dalam bentuk ini terdapat interruption yang berfungsi sebagai penyela dan dikembalikan lagi ke kopfton 3 yang disebabkan oleh adanya struktur yang diulang. Bentuk tersebut dapat dilihat pada pembahasan background.There are various types of music analysis, but what has been better known and studied in the writer's environment, is the analysis of musical forms. There are other ways in the field of analysis, one of which is Schenkerian analysis. Through this method of analysis we will get the deepest tonal structure of a tonal music system. This method is not yet common in Indonesia at this time. Therefore the writer wants to learn more about the schenkerian analysis. For discussion material will be limited to the work of Mauro Giuliani the composition of L 'Armonia opus 148. 5 for classical guitar. The consideration of the object of discussion is because the golden era of tonal music is the classical era. The work was made in classical times and was created by a mainstream composer for guitar instrument music. In addition, the work is played in a final project recital carried out by the author. So the hope of the writer with the analysis of the work of Mauro Giuliani can see the picture of other guitar composers in that era. Using qualitative descriptive methods with a musicological approach, especially music theory, it can be concluded that the form of the background of L'AAmonia's composition by Mauro Giuliani is a form of depth that is the result of reduction from previous forms. In this form there is an interruption that functions as an interrupter and is returned again to Kopfton 3 caused by a repeated structure. This form can be seen in the background discussion.Keywords: schenkerian analysis; L'Oronia opus 148. 5.

Blues music theory and the songs of Robert Johnson: ladder, level and chromatic cycle

Popular Music ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Curry
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Analytical Methods ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
General Consideration ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Blues Music ◽  
Spatially Oriented ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms

AbstractThe blues is a complex and subtle musical language that warrants careful analysis and sustained debate. There are legitimate concerns with the application of music-theoretical paradigms to blues music, but we should not allow such concerns to undermine all attempts to address the blues as a serious and coherently structured music. This paper explores the notions of ladder, level and chromatic cycle as an insightful set of theoretical tools in analysing the music of Robert Johnson. Key sources in developing this analytical approach are the scholarship of Gerhard Kubik and the spatially oriented analytical methods of neo-Riemannian theory. The notions of ladder, level and chromatic cycle are explored with close reference to Johnson's ‘Kindhearted Woman’ and through a more general consideration of the scale-degree content of his vocal parts.

scholarly journals The Strategy of “Controlled Reception” in Witold Lutosławski’s Commentaries on his own Works

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-89
Author(s):  
Marcin Krajewski
Keyword(s):  
Human Judgment ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Witold Gombrowicz ◽  
General Note ◽  
Inside Out

Abstract Witold Lutosławski’s commentaries on his own music are often defective in many regards. These defects could be explained as resulting from a strategy according to which the aim of a commentary is not to provide a truthful description of musical phenomena but to form a desired image of a composition or a musical style in the minds of the listeners. This idea of ‘controlled reception’ was clearly outlined by the famous Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz (whose writings Lutosławski knew and highly appreciated) and is especially noticeable in the composer’s remarks on “controlled aleatoricism”, “thin textures” and the connections between his music and the twelve-tone technique. The view of reception of art common to Gombrowicz and Lutosławski could be characterised in the writer’s own words: A style that cannot defend itself before human judgment, that surrenders its creator to the ill will of any old imbecile, does not fulfil its most important assignment. [...] the idiot’s opinion is also significant. It also creates us, shapes us from inside out, and has far-reaching practical and vital consequences. [...] Literature [art in general - note by M.K.] has a dual significance and a dual root: it is born of pure artistic contemplation [...], but it is also an author’s personal settling of accounts with people, an instrument in the battle waged for a spiritual existence.

scholarly journals "Chinese Harmony" and Contemporary Non-Tonal Music Theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Rahn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Chromatic Harmony

Twentieth-century Chinese theorists and composers have developed a distinctively indigenous approach to harmony, based in part on earlier pentatonic traditions. Mixed as it is with conventions of diatonic and chromatic harmony imported from Europe and North America, the resulting "Chinese harmony" poses music-theoretical problems of coordinating diatonic and pentatonic scales, and tertial and quartal chords. A survey of Chinese harmony as expounded by Kang Ou shows these difficulties to be theoretically intractable within solely Chinese or Euro-American frameworks, but soluble through recent formulations in atonal—or more appropriately, non-tonal-theory, as advanced by such writers as John Clough.

WILLIAM ALWYN (1905–1985)Mirages (1970)

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
Jane Manning
Keyword(s):  
Musical Style ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
Standard Notation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Fine Control ◽  
Opening And Closing ◽  
Dramatic Voice

This chapter looks at William Alwyn’s cycle Mirages. It argues that Alwyn’s concert music should not be overlooked in light of his prolific career. After all, almost every one of the six settings of this cycle is a tour de force for both singer and pianist. Substantial opening and closing movements frame briefer, contrasting songs. The piece suits a dramatic voice capable of a wide range of timbres, and with fine control of vibrato and dynamics. A compelling stage presence will become vital in the performance of this piece. The chapter shows how this musical style is a modernist ‘take’ on romanticism, with standard notation employed. Furthermore, Alwyn used a personal compositional discipline as an alternative to twelve-tone serialism, and was not averse to dissonance.

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