A Constraint on the Expressive Timing of a Melodic Gesture: Evidence from Performance and Aesthetic Judgment

1992 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno H. Repp
Keyword(s):  
Music Performance ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Temporal Shape ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Timing Function ◽  
Artistic Freedom ◽  
The Aesthetic

Discussions of music performance often stress diversity and artistic freedom, yet there is general agreement that interpretation is not arbitrary and that there are standards that performances can be judged by. However, there have been few objective demonstrations of any extant constraints on music performance and judgment, particularly at the level of expressive microstructure. This study illustrates such a constraint in one specific case: the expressive timing of a melodic gesture that occurs repeatedly in Robert Schumann's famous piano piece, "Traumerei." Tone onset timing measurements in 28 recorded performances by famous pianists suggest that the most common " temporal shape" of this (nominally isochronous) musical gesture is parabolic and that individual variations can be described largely by varying a single degree of freedom of the parabolic timing function. The aesthetic validity of this apparent constraint on local performance timing was investigated in a perceptual experiment. Listeners judged a variety of timing patterns (original parabolic, shifted parabolic, and nonparabolic) imposed on the same melodic gesture, produced on an electronic piano under control of a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). The original parabolic patterns received the highest ratings from musically trained listeners. (Musically untrained listeners were unable to give consistent judgments.) The results support the hypothesis that there are classes of optimal temporal shapes for melodic gestures in music performance and that musically acculturated listeners know and expect these shapes. Being classes of shapes, they represent flexible constraints within which artistic freedom and individual preference can manifest themselves.

The Effect of Verbal Instruction and Artistic Background on the Aesthetic Judgment of Rectangles

1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Hekkert ◽  
C. (Lieke) E. Peper ◽  
Piet C. W. Van Wieringen
Keyword(s):  
Golden Section ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Objective Condition ◽  
Verbal Instructions ◽  
School Subjects ◽  
Preference Functions ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Types Of Instruction

A review of studies on the judgment of rectangle proportions pointed out that individual differences in preference might be partly due to differences in verbal instructions given to the subjects. In the present experiment two types of instruction were used and their effects on both naive and experienced (art school) subjects were assessed. Following a subjective instruction, emphasizing personal preference, mean ratings of naive subjects revealed a preference peak around the Golden Section, whereas mean ratings of experienced viewers peaked at the square. In the objective condition, involving judgment of the goodness of proportion regardless of personal liking, the mean preferences of both groups clearly tended toward the square. Individual preference functions partly confirmed these mean patterns, but demonstrated large intersubject variability. Moreover, the naive viewers were significantly more consistent in their ratings than the experienced ones.

Quantitative Effects of Global Tempo on Expressive Timing in Music Performance: Some Perceptual Evidence

1995 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno H. Repp
Keyword(s):  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Modulation Depth ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Performance Measurements ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Relative Variation ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Temporal Dimensions

This study examines whether global tempo and expressive timing microstructure are independent in the aesthetic judgment of music performance. Measurements of tone interonset intervals in pianists' performances of pieces by Schumann ("Traumerei") and Debussy ("La fille aux cheveux de lin") at three different tempi show a tendency toward reduced relative variation in expressive timing at both faster and slower tempi, relative to the pianist's original tempo. However, this could reflect merely the pianists' discomfort when playing at an unfamiliar tempo. Therefore, a perceptual approach was taken here. Experimental stimuli were created artificially by independently manipulating global tempo (three levels) and "relative modulation depth" of expressive timing (RMD, five levels) in MIDI-recorded complete performances of the Schumann and Debussy pieces. Skilled pianists rated the quality of the resulting two sets of 15 performances on a 10-point scale. The question was whether the same RMD would receive the highest rating at all three tempi, or whether an interaction would emerge, such that different RMDs are preferred at different tempi. A small but significant interaction was obtained for both pieces, indicating that the listeners preferred a reduced RMD when the tempo was increased, but the same or a larger RMD when the tempo was decreased. Thus, they associated an increase in tempo with a decrease in (relative) expressive timing variation, which, in general agreement with the performance data, suggests that the two temporal dimensions are not independent.

scholarly journals Form and Freedom: The Kantian Ethos of Musical Formalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (40-41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Appelqvist
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Music Criticism ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Artistic Freedom ◽  
Main Representative ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Musical Formalism

Musical formalism is often portrayed as the enemy of artistic freedom. Its main representative, Eduard Hanslick, is seen as a purist who, by emphasizing musical rules, aims at restricting music criticism and even musical practices themselves. It may also seem that formalism is depriving music of its ability to have moral significance, as the semantic connection to the extramusical is denied by the formalistic view. In my paper, I defend formalism by placing Hanslick’s argument in a Kantian framework. It is not hard to find Kantian elements in Hanslick’s work, such as his emphasis on the contemplative and disinterested nature of the aesthetic judgment, the nonconceptuality of music’s content, and his insistence that “beauty has no purpose.” I argue further that Hanslick’s formalism is in fact motivated by and manifests the Kantian conception of freedom as self-legislation. Thus understood, the kind of moral significance music may have rests upon its own autonomous rules.

The missing fundamentals of harmonic theory: Chord roots and their ambiguity in arrangements of jazz standards

2021 ◽  
pp. 102986492110629
Author(s):  
Richard Parncutt ◽  
Lazar Radovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Jazz Pedagogy ◽  
Virtual Pitch ◽  
Musical Chords ◽  
Original Songs ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Psychological Experiments

Since Lippius and Rameau, chords have roots that are often voiced in the bass, doubled, and used as labels. Psychological experiments and analyses of databases of Western classical music have not produced clear evidence for the psychological reality of chord roots. We analyzed a symbolic database of 100 arrangements of jazz standards (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] files from midkar.com and thejazzpage.de ). Selection criteria were representativeness and quality.The original songs had been composed in the 1930s and 1950s, and each file had a beat track. Files were converted to chord progressions by identifying tone onsets near beat locations (±10% of beat duration). Chords were classified as triads (major, minor, diminished, suspended) or seventh chords (major–minor, minor, major, half-diminished, diminished, and suspended) plus extra tones. Roots that were theoretically less ambiguous were more often in the bass or (to a lesser extent) doubled. The root of the minor triad was ambiguous, as predicted (conventional root or third). Of the sevenths, the major–minor had the clearest root. The diminished triad was often part of a major–minor seventh chord; the half-diminished seventh, of a dominant ninth. Added notes (“tensions”) tended to minimize dissonance (roughness or inharmonicity). In arrangements of songs from the 1950s, diminished triads and sevenths were less common, and suspended triads more common, relative to the 1930s. Results confirm the psychological reality of chord roots and their specific ambiguities. Results are consistent with Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory and the idea that musical chords emerge gradually from cultural and historic processes. The approach can enrich music theory (including pitch-class set analysis) and jazz pedagogy.

Hearing the Contradictions: Aesthetic Experience, Music and Digitization

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-302
Author(s):  
Nancy Weiss Hanrahan
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
The Aesthetic

If, as Susan Buck-Morss (2003) suggests, aesthetic experience is an occasion for “making critical judgments about not only cultural forms but social forms of our being-in-the-world,” or if it is linked, in David Hesmondhalgh’s (2013) account, to the possibilities of collective flourishing, potential changes in the nature of that experience merit critical attention. This article reflects on the ways in which these social or ethical dimensions of the aesthetic experience of music are affected by digitization. It moves from a discussion of aesthetic experience as a form of encounter that refers to a common world, to consideration of recent work in music sociology that engages themes that emerge from that discussion: aesthetic judgment, and the question of difference and commonality. With illustrations from focus group interviews, I suggest that the quantization associated with digital environments is altering the cultural form of aesthetic judgment, just as personalization is changing the meaning of “difference” in this context. The essay is intended as a disclosive critique that takes as its primary object not the world observable through thick description or hermeneutic interpretation of actual cultural practice, but a world evoked through critical reflection on its actual and potential constellations of meaning.

Feminist Aesthetics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Eaton
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Canon Formation ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Female Nude ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Feminist Aesthetics

This chapter summarizes central issues and themes in feminist philosophical aesthetics in the analytic tradition, although some continental figures are discussed. After introducing the interdisciplinary, intersectional and trans* inclusive approach that feminist aesthetics is starting to take, this essay discusses situatedness, artistic canon formation, humanism vs. gynocentrism, rewriting the philosophical canon, overcoming artworld biases, and the role of the aesthetic in systemic oppression. Specific topics to be discussed include the male gaze, the female nude, the concept of artistic genius, women’s artistic production, the purported universality of correct aesthetic judgment, the sex/gender distinction as it pertains to aesthetics and the arts, and body aesthetics.

scholarly journals Automatic Melody Composition Using Enhanced GAN

Mathematics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuyu Li ◽  
Sejun Jang ◽  
Yunsick Sung
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Traditional Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Generative Adversarial Network ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
The Real ◽  
Adversarial Network ◽  
Creative Experience ◽  
Special Knowledge

In traditional music composition, the composer has a special knowledge of music and combines emotion and creative experience to create music. As computer technology has evolved, various music-related technologies have been developed. To create new music, a considerable amount of time is required. Therefore, a system is required that can automatically compose music from input music. This study proposes a novel melody composition method that enhanced the original generative adversarial network (GAN) model based on individual bars. Two discriminators were used to form the enhanced GAN model: one was a long short-term memory (LSTM) model that was used to ensure correlation between the bars, and the other was a convolutional neural network (CNN) model that was used to ensure rationality of the bar structure. Experiments were conducted using bar encoding and the enhanced GAN model to compose a new melody and evaluate the quality of the composition melody. In the evaluation method, the TFIDF algorithm was also used to calculate the structural differences between four types of musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) file (i.e., randomly composed melody, melody composed by the original GAN, melody composed by the proposed method, and the real melody). Using the TFIDF algorithm, the structures of the melody composed were compared by the proposed method with the real melody and the structure of the traditional melody was compared with the structure of the real melody. The experimental results showed that the melody composed by the proposed method had more similarity with real melody structure with a difference of only 8% than that of the traditional melody structure.

scholarly journals The neural mechanism of aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes: an fMRI study

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueru Zhao ◽  
Junjing Wang ◽  
Jinhui Li ◽  
Guang Luo ◽  
Ting Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Occipital Lobe ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Dynamic Stimuli ◽  
Dynamic Landscapes ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aesthetic Judgments

AbstractMost previous neuroaesthetics research has been limited to considering the aesthetic judgment of static stimuli, with few studies examining the aesthetic judgment of dynamic stimuli. The present study explored the neural mechanisms underlying aesthetic judgment of dynamic landscapes, and compared the neural mechanisms between the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes and static ones. Participants were scanned while they performed aesthetic judgments on dynamic landscapes and matched static ones. The results revealed regions of occipital lobe, frontal lobe, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex and insula were commonly activated both in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic and static landscapes. Furthermore, compared to static landscapes, stronger activations of middle temporal gyrus (MT/V5), and hippocampus were found in the aesthetic judgments of dynamic landscapes. This study provided neural evidence that visual processing related regions, emotion-related regions were more active when viewing dynamic landscapes than static ones, which also indicated that dynamic stimuli were more beautiful than static ones.

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