An interactive experimental method for the determination of musical scales in oral cultures

Arom, Simha; Fürniss, Susanne

doi:10.1080/07494469300640301

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…In the literature, Western scholars often discuss variation in intonation in societies that lack mathematical musical theory as being an intentional form of expression [64,68,[138][139][140][141], whereas studies of classical musics typically investigate to which theoretical tuning system the musicians conform [13,123,126,127]. Ultimately, it is difficult to intuit the differences between societies, since there are only a few cross-cultural studies of interval discrimination [142,143]. Here, we performed a preliminary study on intonation variability (S15, S16 Figs in S1 File), finding comparable levels of variation (with the possible exception of the pelog scale) in Gamelan orchestras, Thai xylophones, Turkish ney [91], Georgian singing [89], and a Belgian carillon [144].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

McBride,

Passmore,

Tlusty

2023

PLoS ONE

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Scales, sets of discrete pitches that form the basis of melodies, are thought to be one of the most universal hallmarks of music. But we know relatively little about cross-cultural diversity of scales or how they evolved. To remedy this, we assemble a cross-cultural database (Database of Musical Scales: DaMuSc) of scale data, collected over the past century by various ethnomusicologists. Statistical analyses of the data highlight that certain intervals (e.g., the octave, fifth, second) are used frequently across cultures. Despite some diversity among scales, it is the similarities across societies which are most striking: step intervals are restricted to 100-400 cents; most scales are found close to equidistant 5- and 7-note scales. We discuss potential mechanisms of variation and selection in the evolution of scales, and how the assembled data may be used to examine the root causes of convergent evolution.

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Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

McBride,

Passmore,

Tlusty

2023

PLoS ONE

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“…Vida Chenoweth describes a music system of Gadsup people of New Guinea, in which pitches are all relative, whereas the intervals between them are constant (Chenoweth, 1966). Simha Arom reports of degree-based tonal organization in music of Aka Pygmies of Central Africa, governed by the order of the degrees, leaving the exact interval sizes unimportant (Arom & Fürniss, 1993). An example of a harmonic-interval-based music system is traditional Setu music of Lithuania and Siberia, where the symmetric tonal organization is determined by the vertical harmony of the major 3 rd (Ambrazevičius & Pärtlas, 2011).…”

Section: Modules Of Hearing As the Ultimate Music Competencementioning

confidence: 99%

Music Cognition from Birth to Adolescence: A Structuralist Approach

Nikolsky¹

2022

Preprint

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This book draws a new perspective on music as a special form of cognition that provides growing children with the means to mediate their emotional state and attitude to suit their physical and social environment. My conclusions are based on new evidence coming from: 1) musicological analysis of the original and spontaneous vocalizations by children, selected to represent the milestones in the development of music cognition; 2) comprehensive research on "ear development" throughout early childhood, systematically conducted in the USSR/Russia on a large pool of subjects during the 1920-1980s; 3) data on music perception by people habituated to non-Western forms of music, including timbre-oriented music traditions of northeast Eurasia; and 4) research coming from Vygotskian school on sociogenesis and objectivization of musical sound in early childhood (published in Russian only). The principal objective of this book is to arm researchers and students with tools to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the patterns of tonal organization in children musicking - and to inter-relate these patterns to cross-cultural patterns of early verbal, social, and emotional development. Children’s musical cognition needs a thorough revision because of the old erroneous belief, still widespread amongst developmental psychologists, that the principles of Western tonality constitute a universal modus operandi, intuitively sought by children from birth. According to this view, early children’s musicking constitutes a “defective” implementation of adult’s music due to children’s deficiencies in vocal control and its coordination with hearing. In reality, early childhood musicking constitutes a peculiar type of music, different from adult’s music – very much like children’s early speech that follows its own principles, different from adult’s speech. The principles of children’s musicking ought to be inferred from the structural organization of their non-imitative attempts to make music - bottom-to-top (as opposed to the current "a priori" top-to-bottom method of describing children's music in terms of Western tonality). Some other important issues covered in this book are the goals of musical development in childhood, the issues of musical attrition, bimusicality, and normalcy of musical abilities, the modularity of musical hearing, and the relation between musical and real-life emotions.

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“…In contrast, when discussing intonation in societies without theoretical scales, tuning variation is often highlighted as an intrinsic part of that culture [44,48,[108][109][110]. There is indeed evidence that variability in tuning is intentional in some societies [107,109,111], and in other societies musicians may tolerate large deviations in their tunings [112], but it feels at times like there is an underlying assumption in the literature of differences between societies with established music theory, and those without. Unfortunately, we lack sufficient examples of instrument tunings from societies with theory scales for a thorough comparison, and microtonal deviations may have been airbrushed out of historical records due to the reliance on Western notation in transcription [113].…”

Section: How Different Are Scales?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

McBride¹,

Passmore²,

Tlusty³

2021

Preprint

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Scales, sets of discrete pitches used to generate melodies, are thought to be one of the most universal features of music. Despite this, we know relatively little about how cross-cultural diversity, or how scales have evolved. We remedy this, in part, we assemble a cross-cultural database of empirical scale data, collected over the past century by various ethnomusicologists. We provide statistical analyses to highlight that certain intervals (e.g., the octave) are used frequently across cultures. Despite some diversity among scales, it is the similarities across societies which are most striking. Most scales are found close to equidistant 5- and 7-note scales; for 7-note scales this accounts for less than 1% of all possible scales. In addition to providing these data and statistical analyses, we review how they may be used to explore the causes for convergent evolution in scales.

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An interactive experimental method for the determination of musical scales in oral cultures

Cited by 8 publications

References 2 publications

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

Music Cognition from Birth to Adolescence: A Structuralist Approach

Convergent evolution in a large cross-cultural database of musical scales

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