Psychology of Music

One answer to the question "How is such and such a piece of music heard?" is to describe the experience of that piece, with a set of rules for determining what aspects of that experience arise out of what constituents of sound input. Models which do this may be termed "input-output" models. Another answer is to describe the mental processes which give rise to musical percepts. This paper considers the input-output approach to modelling music perception and indicates how a general modelling system could be produced using "frames" linked to the time domain. It then discusses limitations in the input-output approach and outlines features of a system for modelling music-perceptual processes in terms of specialised encoding mechanisms combined with associative memory. Both input- output and process approaches have a part to play in modelling music perception.

The objective of the paper is to study complexity in the music of Mozart. A scheme of modelling the cognitive representation of music is proposed, based on the theories of Schenker and Komar. The hierarchical structures of these theories are expressed as networks of elaborations. Such networks are produced for each phrase of the exposition of the allegro moderato of Mozart's quintet K.452. The number of elaborations in each network is found to be constrained to a limited range, and when plotted against the number of notes in each phrase a weak negative correlation is found. This is taken as evidence that the cognitive demand on the listener is maintained at a more or less constant level throughout the movement. Complications concerning recurrent material and different tempi are discussed.

Studies of expressive performance have generally focussed on the analysis of spontaneously generated expressive features. The prevailing model to emerge from this research considers expression to be generated from musical structure at the time of performance. The studies reported in this paper require performers to imitate the rubato of short musical phrases in which the relationship between structure and expression is varied. Performers are able to imitate the rubato they hear with some success, though their attempts to do so are less accurate and stable when structure and expression conflict than when they are consistent with one another. This demonstrates that although expressive timing may have a generative origin in spontaneous performance, performers have some ability to encode and reproduce rubato even when it is not structurally anchored. However the greater instability of structurally arbitrary rubato suggests that convincing expressive performances can only be reliably achieved when the underlying musical structure has been understood and assimilated.

Sensitivity to various constraints present in simple strings of notes was investigated in a 7-year-old musical savant using a short-term memory task. Analysis of the subject's renditions of strings suggested particular attention was paid to the general complexity, key signature, and repeated configurations within a string. Implications of these results for concepts of savant behavior are discussed.

Subjects heard a musical interval defined by a sequence of two notes and then attempted to sing it. Those who had previously received consistent practice on another single interval performed better than those who had earlier received variable practice on a number of different intervals. This difference was as evident when the practice involved just listening as it was when the practice involved singing. The learning that took place during practice occurred without provision of knowledge of results from an experimenter. The relevance of these effects to the pedagogy of singing is considered and they are discussed in relation to various psychological models of the cognitive processes underlying development of the skill.