Chord span and other chordal characteristics affecting connections between perceived closeness and set-class similarity

Abstract

The importance of chord span for estimations of closeness (similarity or resemblance) was examined. The subjects (musically trained and less-trained) were asked to rate closeness between pentachords with spans varying from 6 to 22 semitones. Closeness estimations were found to be only weakly correlated with theoretical similarities calculated by eleven similarity measures. The factors that did guide closeness estimations were analysed using regression analysis and multidimensional scaling. Chord span, common pitches and set-class identity were found to be factors guiding estimations in both subject subgroups. Additional factors guiding the estimations of the trained group were the degree of dissonance, chord voicing and common pitch classes.

Subset-Class Relation, Common Pitches, and Common Interval Structure Guiding Estimations of Similarity

“…Subset-class relation seemed to be important only if the relation was represented by common pitches, in other words literally as a chord and a subchord, or by similar intervals. Thus the present study confirmed the importance of the number of common pitches for closeness estimations (reported earlier by Bruner, 1984;Gibson, 1993;Kuusi, 2001Kuusi, , 2005bLane, 1997;Williamson & Mavromatis, 1999). Previous studies have also shown that chordal characteristics are more important than abstract properties for estimations (Bruner 1984;Gibson, 1988Gibson, , 1993Samplaski, 2000).…”

“…Previous studies have also shown that chordal characteristics are more important than abstract properties for estimations (Bruner 1984;Gibson, 1988Gibson, , 1993Samplaski, 2000). In certain studies however, abstract concepts were found to play a key role in estimations (Kuusi, 2001(Kuusi, , 2005a(Kuusi, , 2005bSamplaski, 2004;Williamson & Mavromatis, 1999).…”

“…The most important of these is the shared pitch content of the two chords; other factors being the degree of consonance, chord span, associations with familiar (tonal) chords, shared pitch-class content, and the actual chordal setting (see Bruner, 1984;Gibson, 1988Gibson, , 1993Kuusi, 2001Kuusi, , 2005aKuusi, , 2005bSamplaski, 2000Samplaski, , 2004Williamson & Mavromatis, 1999). In certain studies a connection has been found between the perception of chords and certain pitch-class set-theoretical abstract concepts such as set-class (Kuusi, 2001(Kuusi, , 2005a(Kuusi, , 2005bSamplaski, 2004;Williamson & Mavromatis, 1999), total interval-class content, and total subset-class content (Kuusi, 2001). At the time of this writing however, no studies of the subset-class relation have been published.…”

“…If the chords of the pair had two or more common pitches, the outer voices of the chords were identical, indicating that both chords had the same span. The same span was selected because the chord span has been found to guide the listeners' estimations of chords (Kuusi, 2001;2005b;Samplaski, 2000). If the chords of the pair had one pitch in common, it was the highest pitch.…”

Musical training and musical ability: Effects on chord discrimination

“…The idea has strong relations with the continuum between conceptually-based and perceptually-driven similarity (Goldstone, 1994). Many experiments have studied perception of post-tonal chords in ways that enhance surface-level characteristics and enable perceptually-driven estimations (Bruner, 1984;Gibson, 1993;Kuusi, 2001Kuusi, , 2005aSamplaski, 2000). The abstract-level similarity of post-tonal chords has thus far been studied only in a few experiments (Kuusi, 2005b(Kuusi, , 2007(Kuusi, , 2010, and all of them have compared chords representing different set-classes.…”