http://hdl.handle.net/1811/30196 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:09:57 GMT 2013-06-20T06:09:57Z http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36003 Announcements Thompson, Bill Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36003 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Bill http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36002 Editor’s note Thompson, Bill overview of issue Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36002 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Bill http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35994 Review of Aniruddh D. Patel, Music, Language and the Brain Demorest, Steven M. Aniruddh D. Patel, Music, Language and the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-512375-3 (hardcover) 520 pages $62.95 Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35994 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Demorest, Steven M. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35993 Commentary on "Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases" by Lauren Collister and David Huron Sundberg, Johan; Ternström, Sten We note that the intelligibility of vowels is reduced at high pitches, and propose that decreased decoding of vowels may partially account for the reported findings. Analysis of performance as a function of pitch is recommended. We surmise that reverberation associated with the large microphone distance might have generated reverberation that interfered disproportionately with identification of consonants in sung stimuli, which usually have greater sound intensity than spoken stimuli. Finally, we note the potential relevance of vibrato for speech intelligibility. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35993 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Sundberg, Johan Ternström, Sten http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35992 Review of "Perception and production of linguistic and musical rhythm by Korean and English middle school students" by Lydia N. Slobodian Iversen, John R. Interest in possible cultural influences on basic rhythm perception and production has been growing, and the paper by Slobodian (2008) fits squarely in this trend, studying rhythm perception and production in a large number English and Korean native speakers. The findings were interpreted in terms of cross-cultural similarity, suggesting that preferences, e.g. for binary meter, are broadly shared across cultures. As is commonly encountered in cross-cultural research, however, there were several difficulties in offering a clear interpretation of the results, such as the large extent of Western music enculturation of the Korean participants. This commentary will review Slobodian’s findings, offering an alternative interpretation of one result, suggesting there may be a cultural difference in meter perception. It will also review other relevant research and integrate lessons learned from a recent study of rhythm perception in Korean, American and Japanese listeners. Throughout, it aims to offer suggestions of how to improve the chances of reaching the ultimate goal of understanding what aspect of culture shapes rhythm perception and production, and the mechanisms by which they do so. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35992 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Iversen, John R. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35991 Commentary on "Effects of Early Musical Experience on Auditory Sequence Memory" by Adam Tierney, Tonya Bergeson-Dana, and David Pisoni Schellenberg, E. Glenn Tierney, Bergeson-Dana, and Pisoni (2008) conclude that their results “provide additional converging evidence that early musical experience and activity-dependent learning may selectively affect verbal rehearsal processes and the allocation of attention in sequence memory tasks”. Closer inspection of their methods and results, the methods and results of previous studies that reported similar findings and the literature as a whole makes it clear that these conclusions are unfounded. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35991 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Schellenberg, E. Glenn http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35990 Perception and production of linguistic and musical rhythm by Korean and English middle school students Slobodian, Lydia N. I examine rhythmic tendencies of Korean and Western middle school students in linguistic and abstract musical contexts using a series of speaking and clapping experiments. Results indicate a preference in both groups for beat subdivisions in small integer ratios and simple binary metric interpretations. These preferences are consistently more exaggerated in native English speaking students than in Korean students. Tempo was a significant factor in all tasks. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35990 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Slobodian, Lydia N. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35989 Effects of Early Musical Experience on Auditory Sequence Memory Tierney, Adam T.; Bergeson, Tonya R.; Pisoni, David B. The present study investigated a possible link between musical training and immediate memory span by testing experienced musicians and three groups of musically inexperienced subjects (gymnasts, Psychology 101 students, and video game players) on sequence memory and word familiarity tasks. By including skilled gymnasts who began studying their craft by age six, video game players, and Psychology 101 students as comparison groups, we attempted to control for some of the ways skilled musicians may differ from participants drawn from the general population in terms of gross motor skills and intensive experience in a highly skilled domain from an early age. We found that musicians displayed longer immediate memory spans than the comparison groups on auditory presentation conditions of the sequence reproductive span task. No differences were observed between the four groups on the visual conditions of the sequence memory task. These results provide additional converging support to recent findings showing that early musical experience and activity-dependent learning may selectively affect verbal rehearsal processes and the allocation of attention in sequence memory tasks. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/35989 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z Tierney, Adam T. Bergeson, Tonya R. Pisoni, David B. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34111 Announcements Thompson, William Forde notices, calls for papers and conference announcements Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34111 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, William Forde http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34110 Review of Fourth Meeting of Neurosciences and Music, Montreal, 2008 McDermott, Josh review of Fourth Meeting of Neurosciences and Music, Montreal, 2008 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34110 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z McDermott, Josh http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34109 Review of "Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance" Geeves, Andrew; Christensen, Wayne; Sutton, John; McIlwain, Doris review of Roger Chaffin, Gabriela Imreh & Mary Crawford, Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance. New York: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. ISBN 0-80-582610-6 (hardcover) $180.00. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34109 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Geeves, Andrew Christensen, Wayne Sutton, John McIlwain, Doris http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34107 The internal validity of web-based studies Lacherez, Philippe Honing and Ladinig (2008) make the assertion that while the internal validity of web-based studies may be reduced, this is offset by an increase in external validity possible when experimenters can sample a wider range of participants and experimental settings. In this paper, the issue of internal validity is more closely examined, and it is agued that there is no necessary reason why internal validity of a web-based study should be worse than that of a lab-based one. Errors of measurement or inconsistencies of manipulation will typically balance across conditions of the experiment, and thus need not necessarily threaten the validity of a study’s findings. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34107 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Lacherez, Philippe http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34106 Commentary on “Comparative Analysis of Music Recordings from Western and Non-Western traditions by Automatic Tonal Feature Extraction” by Emilia Gómez, and Perfecto Herrera Lartillot, Oliver; Toiviainen, Petri; Eerola, Tuomas The article by Gómez and Herrera presents an original methodology, audaciously situated on a challenging junction between computer science, cognitive science and ethnomusicology. We hope expert ethnomusicologists will understand the experimental aspect of such a cross-disciplinary undertaking, and will pardon the potential imperfection in this computational attempt toward cross-cultural understanding. Despite the few shortcomings discussed in this commentary, we think the general methodology described in this paper is of high interest. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34106 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Lartillot, Oliver Toiviainen, Petri Eerola, Tuomas http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34105 Comparative Analysis of Music Recordings from Western and Non-Western traditions by Automatic Tonal Feature Extraction Gómez, Emilia; Herrera, Perfecto The automatic analysis of large musical corpora by means of computational models overcomes some limitations of manual analysis, and the unavailability of scores for most existing music makes necessary to work with audio recordings. Until now, research on this area has focused on music from the Western tradition. Nevertheless, we might ask if the available methods are suitable when analyzing music from other cultures. We present an empirical approach to the comparative analysis of audio recordings, focusing on tonal features and data mining techniques. Tonal features are related to the pitch class distribution, pitch range and employed scale, gamut and tuning system. We provide our initial but promising results obtained when trying to automatically distinguish music from Western and non- Western traditions; we analyze which descriptors are most relevant and study their distribution over 1500 pieces from different traditions and styles. As a result, some feature distributions differ for Western and non-Western music, and the obtained classification accuracy is higher than 80% for different classification algorithms and an independent test set. These results show that automatic description of audio signals together with data mining techniques provide means to characterize huge music collections from different traditions and complement musicological manual analyses. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34105 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Gómez, Emilia Herrera, Perfecto http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34104 Commentary on "The Happy Xylophone: Acoustics Affordances Restrict An Emotional Palate" by Michael Schutz, David Huron, Kristopher Keeton, & Greg Loewer Eitan, Zohar In this commentary, I raise several issues of method and presentation and suggest a number of follow-up experiments associated with some of these issues. Broad suggestions are also made (or rather preached): the need to deal empirically with musical emotions subtler than the oft-investigated basic emotions, and the role that interactions between musical variables may play in shaping subtle musical expression, as exemplified by some well-known xylophone soli from the orchestral repertory. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34104 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Eitan, Zohar http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34103 The Happy Xylophone: Acoustics Affordances Restrict An Emotional Palate Schutz, Michael; Huron, David; Keeton, Kristopher; Loewer, Gred In many ways, the structure of music resembles that of language, including the acoustic cues used to communicate emotion. In speech, sadness is imparted through a combination of low fundamental frequency, dark timbre, and a slow rate of articulation. As the acoustic properties of the xylophone are not conducive to mimicking these cues, it seems to follow that composers would avoid attempts to write “sad” music for it. We investigated this idea by comparing the repertoire of the xylophone with that of the marimba – a similar instrument whose acoustic structure permits a greater variety of timbres, pitch heights, and tone durations. An analysis of repertoire drawn from the Percussive Arts Society database of recital programs reveals that 60% of the tonal marimba examples surveyed were written in minor (nominally “sad”) keys. In contrast, a parallel analysis of xylophone literature found minor keys used in only 6% of the examples surveyed. Further investigation revealed that the only examples of minor-key xylophone compositions included in this survey are in fact typically performed on the marimba. The avoidance of minor-key works on xylophone by both composers and performers is consistent with the idea that instruments restricted to producing tones with short durations, bright timbres, and high pitch heights are unable to mimic the speech cues used to convey sadness and/or depression. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34103 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Schutz, Michael Huron, David Keeton, Kristopher Loewer, Gred http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34102 Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases Collister, Lauren B.; Huron, David Twenty listeners were exposed to spoken and sung passages in English produced by three trained vocalists. Passages included representative words extracted from a large database of vocal lyrics, including both popular and classical repertoires. Target words were set within spoken or sung carrier phrases. Sung carrier phrases were selected from classical vocal melodies. Roughly a quarter of all words sung by an unaccompanied soloist were misheard. Sung passages showed a seven-fold decrease in intelligibility compared with their spoken counterparts. The perceptual mistakes occurring with vowels replicate previous studies showing the centralization of vowels. Significant confusions are also evident for consonants, especially voiced stops and nasals. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34102 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Collister, Lauren B. Huron, David http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34098 Seeing Music? What musicians need to know about vision Schutz, Michael Music is inherently an auditory art form, rooted in sound, and generally analyzed in terms of its acoustic properties. However, as the process of hearing is affected by seeing, visual information does in fact play an important role in the musical experience. Vision influences many aspects of music – from evaluations of performance quality and audience interest to the perception of loudness, timbre, and note duration. Moreover, it can be used to achieve musical goals that are in fact acoustically impossible. As such, understanding the benefits of embracing (and the costs of ignoring) vision’s role is essential for all musicians. Furthermore, since music represents a pervasive and ubiquitous human practice, this topic serves as an ideal case study for understanding how auditory and visual information are integrated. Given that some musically-based studies have challenged and even contributed to updating psychological theories of sensory integration, this topic represents a rich area of research, relevant to musicians and psychologists alike. Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34098 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Schutz, Michael http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34089 Editor's note Thompson, Bill Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/34089 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Bill http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31947 Announcements Thompson, William Forde Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31947 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, William Forde http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31946 Manolete Mora, Myth, Mimesis and Magic in the Music of the T’boli, Philippines. Manila: Atenuo Press, 2005. ISBN 971-550-493-0 (paperback). McNeil, Adrian review of "Myth, Mimesis and Magic in the Music of the T’boli, Philippines", by Manolete Mora, Manila: Ateneo Press, 2005. ISBN 971-550-493-0 (paperback) $31.00 Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31946 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z McNeil, Adrian http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31943 Web-based versus Lab-based Studies:A Response to Kendall (2008) Honing, Henkjan; Reips, Ulf-Dietrich While in an earlier commentary (Honing & Ladinig, 2008) we stressed the potential of Web-delivered experiments for music perception research, the ongoing discussion on Web-based versus lab-based studies seems to circle around issues of method and control (Mehler, 1999; Kendall, 2008). We agree with the importance of these issues from a methodological point of view. However, we continue to stress that these issues are not essentially different for Web-based as compared to lab-based studies. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31943 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Honing, Henkjan Reips, Ulf-Dietrich http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31942 Commentary on “Asynchronous Preparation of Tonally Fused Intervals in Polyphonic Music” by David Huron Wright, James In his most recent contribution to an important and well-framed series of papers on auditory grouping and the perception of polyphonic music, David Huron seeks further evidence for his working hypothesis that J.S. Bach controls the employment of perfect consonances by desynchronizing their onsets, thereby inhibiting the perceptual fusion of polyphonic voices. However the more novel contribution of the present study would seem to be its demonstration that Bach also regulates the employment of dissonant tones by consistently desynchronizing their onsets. This finding provides the first concrete evidence for Wright and Bregman’s otherwise untested hypothesis that the control and salience of dissonance in polyphonic music are closely related to principles of auditory stream segregation (Wright, 1986; Wright & Bregman, 1987). Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31942 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Wright, James http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31941 A Comparison of Dynamics in Major- and Minor-key Works Turner, Ben; Huron, David An analysis of dynamic markings in 24 paired preludes in major and minor keys shows that the minor mode is associated with a generally lower dynamic level than the major mode. The results are consistent with observations in speech prosody, where sad or depressed speakers show reduced acoustic energy compared with normal or happy speakers. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31941 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Turner, Ben Huron, David http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31940 A Comparison of Average Pitch Height and Interval Size in Major- and Minor-key Themes: Evidence Consistent with Affect-related Pitch Prosody Huron, David An analysis of 9,788 instrumental themes shows that minor-key themes are, on average, slightly lower in pitch than major-key themes. The lower pitch is not merely an artifact of structural differences in the scales. In addition, instrumental themes in minor keys show a weak though significant tendency to use smaller pitch intervals. Both results are consistent with observations in speech prosody, where sad speakers exhibit a lower F0 and narrower pitch fluctuation compared with normal or happy speakers. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31940 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Huron, David http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31939 Commentary on “The Perception and Cognition of Time in Balinese Music” by Andrew Clay McGraw Cross, Ian; Gill, Satinder; Knight, Sarah; Nash, Chris; Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen; Slobodian, Lydia; Spiro, Neta; Woodruff, Ghofur; Woolhouse, Matthew We review the paper by Andrew Clay McGraw, noting that it represents an interesting and valuable contribution to the study of music in cognition in its informed exploration of non-western musical perceptions. We raise a number of concerns about the methods used, and make suggestions as to how the issues that were empirically addressed in the paper might have been tackled in ways that would have enhanced the interpretability of its findings. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31939 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Cross, Ian Gill, Satinder Knight, Sarah Nash, Chris Rabinowitch, Tal-Chen Slobodian, Lydia Spiro, Neta Woodruff, Ghofur Woolhouse, Matthew http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31938 The Perception and Cognition of Time in Balinese Music McGraw, Andrew Clay This article describes experiments designed to determine the perception and cognition of time-in-music among Balinese gamelan musicians. Three topics are discussed. First, the proposed connections between cultural/religious concepts of time and the construction of (time in) gamelan music are explored. Here a novel and experimental use of the Implicit Association Test is incorporated to explore potential implicit (unconscious) connections between concepts of time-in-music and time-in-general. Only weak associations are found. Second, the author explores music’s influence in subjects’ ability to gauge objective durations. Other than a tendency for Balinese subjects to consistently underestimate actual timings, and the potential for tempo changes to influence response patterns in specific ways, few strong patterns are found. Third, previously proposed models for the performance of tempo changes (here, rallentandos) are explored in the context of gamelan music. Results from perceptual tasks and an analysis of performance suggests that previous idealized models are too simplistic to describe the Balinese case. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31938 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z McGraw, Andrew Clay http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31698 Announcements Thompson, Bill Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31698 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Bill http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31697 Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body Avorgbedor, Daniel Review of Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005 (hardcover), 2006 (paperback). ISBN13: 9780297643173 (hardcover) £20.00. ISBN13: 9-780753820513 (paperback) £9.99. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31697 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Avorgbedor, Daniel http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31695 Asynchronous Preparation of Tonally Fused Intervals in Polyphonic Music Huron, David An analysis of a sample of polyphonic keyboard works by J.S. Bach shows that synchronous note onsets are avoided for those harmonic intervals that most promote tonal fusion (such as unison, fifths and octaves). This pattern is consistent with perceptual research showing an interaction between onset synchrony and tonal fusion in the formation of auditory streams (e.g., Vos, 1995). The results provide further support for the notion that polyphonic music is organized so as to facilitate the perceptual independence of the concurrent parts. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31695 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Huron, David http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31693 Commentary on “The Potential of the Internet for Music Perception Research: A Comment on Lab-Based Versus Web-Based Studies” by Honing & Ladinig Kendall, Roger A. The use of web-based data collection raises fundamental issues impinging on reliability and validity of test results, as well as important ethical (and potentially legal) issues such as informed consent. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31693 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Kendall, Roger A. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31692 The Potential of the Internet for Music Perception Research: A Comment on Lab-Based Versus Web-Based Studies Honing, Henkjan; Ladinig, Olivia While the discussion on the integrity of data obtained from Web- delivered experiments is mainly about issues of method and control (Mehler, 1999; McGraw et al., 2000; Auditory, 2007), this comment stresses the potential that Web- based experiments might have for studies in music perception. It is argued that, due to some important advances in technology, Web-based experiments have become a reliable source for empirical research. Next to becoming a serious alternative to a certain class of lab-based experiments, Web-based experiments can potentially reach a much larger, more varied and intrinsically motivated participant pool. Nevertheless, an important challenge to Web-based experiments is to control for attention and to make sure that participants act as instructed; Interestingly, this is not essentially different from experiments that are performed in the laboratory. Some practical solutions to this challenge are proposed. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31692 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Honing, Henkjan Ladinig, Olivia http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31691 Leonard B. Meyer Gjerdingen, Robert O. tribute to Leonard B. Meyer Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31691 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Gjerdingen, Robert O. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31690 Editor's Note Thompson, Bill Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1811/31690 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Thompson, Bill