This commentary addresses Huron and Davis's question of whether "The Harmonic Minor Provides an Optimum Way of Reducing Average Melodic Interval Size, Consistent with Sad Affect Cues" within any non-Western musical cultures. The harmonic minor scale and other semitone-heavy scales, such as Bhairav raga and Hicaz makam, are featured widely in the musical cultures of North India and the Middle East. Do melodies from these genres also have a preponderance of semitone intervals and low incidence of the augmented second interval, as in Huron and Davis's sample? Does the presence of more semitone intervals in a melody affect its emotional connotations in different cultural settings? Are all semitone intervals equal in their effect? My own ethnographic research within these cultures reveals comparable connotations in melodies that linger on semitone intervals, centered on concepts of tension and metaphors of falling. However, across different musical cultures there may also be neutral or lively interpretations of these same pitch sets, dependent on context, manner of performance, and tradition. Small pitch movement may also be associated with social functions such as prayer or lullabies, and may not be described as "sad." "Sad," moreover may not connote the same affect cross-culturally. HURON and Davis's article states that major scale melodies, on having their third and sixth degrees flattened, contain smaller intervals on average, and that if small pitch movement connotes "sadness," then altering a standard major melody to the harmonic minor is "among the very best pitch-related transformations that can be done to modify a major-mode melody in order to render a sad affect" (p. 105, 114). I look forward to the testing of this hypothesis, playing these pieces to "major-scale enculturated" listeners to find out their opinions.Although Huron and Davis's study is focused on the Western-enculturated listener, I am addressing their interest in extending this study to cross-cultural situations (p. 103, 114). Empirical Musicology Review has an established history of interdisciplinary discussion between music psychology and ethnomusicology, as in vol. 2, no. 4 where Martin Clayton and John Baily discuss how the beginnings of Ethnomusicology's predecessor, Comparative Musicology, were in the Institute of Psychology in Berlin. Clayton argues that both disciplines are "inherently interdisciplinary" (Clayton, 2009, p. 75); while Baily states that he has used what he knows of psychology to "understand more about processes of music cognition" within his work in Afghanistan-also suggesting that music psychologists might "change the parameters slightly" to include cross-cultural samples (Baily, 2009, p. 86).Cognitive psychology studies are generally conducted within a Western setting, and Huron and Davis are at pains to point out that in some cultures there are no particularly "sad" associations to the harmonic minor scale (p. 104). People who have not been "Western-enculturated" in their listening habits as children may hav...

Heavy Metal music has made extensive and deliberate use of the ‘medieval modes’, particularly those starting with a semitone. Historically the second note of these modes, the Phrygian second, was deemed ‘weak’ and ‘feminine’, a far cry from the machismo of Heavy Metal. This paper describes the journey of the Phrygian mode and its semitone second note, from ancient Greek times to the present, detailing changing connotations and the consequences of these on present day Heavy Metal music. The paper will include particular discussion of how the Phrygian second supports machismo through Metal music in film, and the subgenre of Oriental Metal that can challenge the Othering of the Phrygian second. It can be argued that within Metal the Phrygian second is significant and central to its aggressive power, and that Metal has given the Phrygian second unique and innovative masculine significations that contribute new expressive aspects to the contemporary musical palette.

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