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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Does Formal Musical Structure Affect Perception of Musical Expressiveness?

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The aim of the study was to assess the effect of systematic modifications in global musical structures on perceived expressiveness. Recorded performances of piano pieces of Bach, Mozart and Schonberg were segmented into short chunks of six seconds in average. These chunks were linked either in a forward order (Original version) or in a backward order (Inverted version). In the inverted version, the formal global structure of the pieces was destroyed, but the superficial features and the local structures inside the chunks were unaltered. Forty non-musician subjects were required to rate the musical expressiveness of these pieces on 29 semantic scales. Half listened to the three original versions, the other half to the three inverted versions. For both groups there was a strong effect of omusical pieces on expressiveness. However, the effect of the version. i.e. forward or backward ordering of the chunks, was small and that was found for the Schonberg piece. For the Bach and the Mozart pieces, playing the chunks in a forward or backward order affected neither the expressiveness, nor the feeling of coherence. These findings suggest that short chunks contain enough information to define expressiveness for non-musician listeners. These results agree with previous ones reported by Gotlieb and Konecni(1985), Cook(1987), Karno and Konecni(1992), and raise the question of the psychological reality of global musial structures.