Week 10 pt.2 : Music perception Flashcards
1
Q
Music is…
A
- Ordered sound made and perceived by human beings, created in meaningful patterns
- Perhaps richest stimulus in our environment, comprising complex relationships, hierarchically structured timings & a multitude of timbres, which create a wide variety of styles and sounds
2
Q
Music listening, experts vs non-experts:
A
- Neuro-imaging results show brain regions that are selectively active during music listening in both musicians and non-musicians
- higher activity in musician, suggesting an effective experience
- The same areas are active in both groups which means that the network of areas that react to music are present in the brain, even in the absence of any formal training
3
Q
Musical range
A
- music is played in the range of 5,000Hz - 27.5Hz (frequency = pitch)
- human singing 1,300Hz - 75Hz
- the fundamental frequency of musical notes does not exceed 5,000Hz but harmonics range higher than this
- These higher harmonics contribute to the experience of timbre
- keyboard lays this out well
4
Q
octave…
A
- Octave = the interval between one note and a note with either double the frequency, or half the frequency of that note
- E.g. frequency of 220Hz has octaves of 100Hz below it and 400Hz above it
- we hear similarities between these doubled or halved frequencies… we refer to them by the same note name, but at different octaves
- notes at 200Hz ad 220Hz are more similar in pitch but we hear notes at 200Hz and 400Hz as being alike
- Notes that are one octave apart are said to be of the same chroma… this similarity of chroma from one octave to the next is represented by the pitch helix…
5
Q
Pitch chroma
A
- research suggests that musicians perceive pitch along 2 separable dimensions…
1. tone height = represents the differences between sound frequencies that allow the listener to separate instruments playing in different frequency ranges (e.g. cello and flute) into different perceptual streams
2. Tone chroma = based on the structure of western scale and provides basis for presenting melodies that dont depend on the particular instrument… what allows you to recognize a tune as twinkle twinkle little star across the same two instruments - These 2 dimensions are often depicted using a helix structure… attempts to depict both the change in absolute frequency as you move from top to bottom… but also the fact that tones that are separated by an octave (such as 2 c sharp keys on a piano are chromatically similar)
6
Q
Semitone
A
- When we add the sharps and flats, we have 12 notes in an octave
- Each adjacent note is called a semitone
- there are 12 semitones in an octave in Western music
- when every note, including the sharps and flats, is played between one octave and the next (every semitone), this is called the chromatic scale
7
Q
equal-temperment scale…
A
- means that every adjacent note has an identical frequency ratio
- we perceive the difference between each successive semitone as equivalent in terms of difference in pitch to the one before it
- demonstrates Weber’s law (what matters in perception is the ratio, not the absolute difference)
- advantage is that any melody can be played starting on any particular note
8
Q
Harmony, consonance & dissonance
A
- Harmony = which pitches sound nice when played together
- Consonance = the perception of pleasantness in harmony when 2+ notes are played (notes fit with each other)
- Dissonance = the perception of unpleasantness or disharmony when 2+ notes do not fit together
- Musical context & culture plays a role in our perception of consonance and dissonance
9
Q
Dynamics…
A
- relative loudness (amplitude) & how loudness changes cross a composition (decibels)
- can create emotion
10
Q
Rhythm
A
refers to the temporal patterning of the music including…
1. tempo = speed
2. meter = temporal pattern of sound across time (how many beats per measure)
3. beat = spaced pulses that indicate if a piece is fast or slow (4/4 3/4)
11
Q
Timbre
A
- complex sounds created by harmonics
- e.g. violin and a flute may be playing a note with the same pitch, but it sounds different on each instrument
- attack = beginning buildup of a note
- decay = how long fundamental frequency & harmonics remain at peak loudness
12
Q
pitch sensitive cortex
A
- computations that give rise to representation of pitch arise from an area just beyond the primary auditory cortex
- right hemisphere more active
- This area has been shown to be pitch sensitive, not frequency sensitive
13
Q
measuring the effect of musical training - ERP’s
A
- One of the ways in which event related potentials (ERPs) can be used to study auditory processing involves an odd-ball paradigm
- In which, one stimulus called standard is played over and over again, and on occasion a different stimulus called an odd-ball is played
- idea is that if brain activity elicited by the odd-ball stimulus is different from the pattern of brain activity elicited by the standard, than we can assume that the underlying brain regions that produce those waveforms were ale to tell difference between the 2 stimuli
- This difference is illustrated by subtracting one waveform from the other, producing a mismatched response/mismatch negativity
14
Q
Some changes are musical training specific…
A
- researchers able to show that the brains of musicians are better able to discriminate very small pitch changes than non-musicians
- also able to show the training related benefits that appear to be specific to a musicians instrument
15
Q
music & memory
A
- study had people come into lab and ask them to sing their favourite song from memory
- Despite receiving no instruction to do so, the majority of ppl sang the song in almost exact pitch in which it was recorded
- Suggesting they were not only encoding and remembering the relative changes in pitch (melody) but also the absolute pitch of the song (actual pitches by recording artists)
- Connections between music and memory can persist despite significant impairment to these cognitive mechanisms
