Search results for "melodic perception"

Hierarchical perception of melody

2009

Two experiments were designed to investigate the hierarchical perception of melodies. The hierarchical structure of tonal melodies is formally described in Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM). The experiments were designed to assess different aspects of GTTM time span reduction quantitatively. Subjects were presented with pairs of melodies in a same-different task. A short novel and a longer original tonal melody could differ within the harmonic context at single tones on one of four time span reduction levels. It was found that detection rate of the melodic deviances correlated strongly with time span level. The same method was employed on an atonal and a poorl…