Perceptual Musical Analysis: Segmentation and Perception of Tension

Addessi, Anna Rita; Caterina, Roberto

doi:10.1177/102986490000400102

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Perceived contrasts, discontinuities, changes, and repetitions at multiple hierarchical levels commonly serve as heuristics that guide the identification of musical segment boundaries (Addessi & Caterina, 2000). Studies in automatic segmentation often refer to these musical novelty points simply as instants of significant change (Foote, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides boundary indication time points, analyzed segmentation data in these studies include verbal justifications of segment boundaries, judged time positions, and duration of segments. In particular, boundary indications have been defined according to perceived tension (Addessi & Caterina, 2000;Krumhansl, 1996), expectations and closure (Peebles, 2011), descriptors (Bailes & Dean, 2007;Krumhansl, 1996), and grouping rules (Clarke & Krumhansl, 1990;Deliège, 1987;Frankland & Cohen, 2004;Temperley, 2001). Automatic segmentation systems have been implemented in corpus-based studies; these systems were based on musical features (Hargreaves, Klapuri, & Sandler, 2012;Sanden, Befus, & Zhang, 2012;Smith, Chuan, & Chew, 2013), sets of rules (Bruderer, 2008;Cambouropoulos, 2006;Lartillot & Ayari, 2009;Lartillot, Yazıcı, & Mungan, 2013), or probabilistic methods (Ferrand, Nelson, & Wiggins, 2003;Lattner, Grachten, Agres, & Chacón, 2015;Pearce, Müllensiefen, & Wiggins, 2010), and generally compared against ground-truth data (cf.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Multi-scale Modelling of Segmentation

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While listening to music, people often unwittingly break down musical pieces into constituent chunks such as verses and choruses. Music segmentation studies have suggested that some consensus regarding boundary perception exists, despite individual differences. However, neither the effects of experimental task (i.e., real-time vs. annotated segmentation), nor of musicianship on boundary perception are clear. Our study assesses musicianship effects and differences between segmentation tasks. We conducted a real-time experiment to collect segmentations by musicians and nonmusicians from nine musical pieces. In a second experiment on non-real-time segmentation, musicians indicated boundaries and their strength for six examples. Kernel density estimation was used to develop multi-scale segmentation models. Contrary to previous research, no relationship was found between boundary strength and boundary indication density, although this might be contingent on stimuli and other factors. In line with other studies, no musicianship effects were found: our results showed high agreement between groups and similar inter-subject correlations. Also consistent with previous work, time scales between one and two seconds were optimal for combining boundary indications. In addition, we found effects of task on number of indications, and a time lag between tasks dependent on beat length. Also, the optimal time scale for combining responses increased when the pulse clarity or event density decreased. Implications for future segmentation studies are raised concerning the selection of time scales for modelling boundary density, and time alignment between models.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-scale Modelling of Segmentation

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We observed that the perception of “prominent features” allowed the listeners to perceive several points of segmentations, to divide the piece into the main sections and consequently, to memorize the overall structure of the musical piece. It was also found that there was a correlation between the memorization of the overall structure and the perception of tension and relaxation (Addessi and Caterina, 2000). We listed several musical categories trying to describe the musical features of the perceived “cues”: variation in intensity, timbre variation, acceleration/deceleration or change in rhythm, thickening or thinning of the sound, introduction, repetition, elements concluding or suspending, and pause.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing the Underlying Principles of Perceived Immanent Accents Using a Modeling Approach

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article deals with the question of how the perception of the “immanent accents” can be predicted and modeled. By immanent accent we mean any musical event in the score that is related to important points in the musical structure (e.g., tactus positions, melodic peaks) and is therefore able to capture the attention of a listener. Our aim was to investigate the underlying principles of these accented notes by combining quantitative modeling, music analysis and experimental methods. A listening experiment was conducted where 30 participants indicated perceived accented notes for 60 melodies, vocal and instrumental, selected from Baroque, Romantic and Post-tonal styles. This produced a large and unique collection of perceptual data about the perceived immanent accents, organized by styles consisting of vocal and instrumental melodies within Western art music. The music analysis of the indicated accents provided a preliminary list of musical features that could be identified as possible reasons for the raters’ perception of the immanent accents. These features related to the score in different ways, e.g., repeated fragments, single notes, or overall structure. A modeling approach was used to quantify the influence of feature groups related to pitch contour, tempo, timing, simple phrasing, and meter. A set of 43 computational features was defined from the music analysis and previous studies and extracted from the score representation. The mean ratings of the participants were predicted using multiple linear regression and support vector regression. The latter method (using cross-validation) obtained the best result of about 66% explained variance ( r = 0.81) across all melodies and for a selected group of raters. The independent contribution of each feature group was relatively high for pitch contour and timing (9.6 and 7.0%). There were also significant contributions from tempo (4.5%), simple phrasing (4.4%), and meter (3.9%). Interestingly, the independent contribution varied greatly across participants, implying different listener strategies, and also some variability across different styles. The large differences among listeners emphasize the importance of considering the individual listener’s perception in future research in music perception.

show abstract

“…Majority of young and inexperienced listeners at first parse melody by rhythm and only then by pitch contour and mode ( Halpern et al, 1998 ). Tempo/rhythm descriptors are much more prevalent in listeners’ judgments of thematic similarity than of pitch contour ( Addessi and Caterina, 2000 ; McAdams, 2004 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pastoral Origin of Semiotically Functional Tonal Organization of Music

Nikolsky

2020

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents a new line of inquiry into when and how music as a semiotic system was born. Eleven principal expressive aspects of music each contains specific structural patterns whose configuration signifies a certain affective state. This distinguishes the tonal organization of music from the phonetic and prosodic organization of natural languages and animal communication. The question of music’s origin can therefore be answered by establishing the point in human history at which all eleven expressive aspects might have been abstracted from the instinct-driven primate calls and used to express human psycho-emotional states. Etic analysis of acoustic parameters is the prime means of cross-examination of the typical patterns of expression of the basic emotions in human music versus animal vocal communication. A new method of such analysis is proposed here. Formation of such expressive aspects as meter, tempo, melodic intervals, and articulation can be explained by the influence of bipedal locomotion, breathing cycle, and heartbeat, long before Homo sapiens. However, two aspects, rhythm and melodic contour, most crucial for music as we know it, lack proxies in the Paleolithic lifestyle. The available ethnographic and developmental data leads one to believe that rhythmic and directional patterns of melody became involved in conveying emotion-related information in the process of frequent switching from one call-type to another within the limited repertory of calls. Such calls are usually adopted for the ongoing caretaking of human youngsters and domestic animals. The efficacy of rhythm and pitch contour in affective communication must have been spontaneously discovered in new important cultural activities. The most likely scenario for music to have become fully semiotically functional and to have spread wide enough to avoid extinctions is the formation of cross-specific communication between humans and domesticated animals during the Neolithic demographic explosion and the subsequent cultural revolution. Changes in distance during such communication must have promoted the integration between different expressive aspects and generated the basic musical grammar. The model of such communication can be found in the surviving tradition of Scandinavian pastoral music - kulning. This article discusses the most likely ways in which such music evolved.

show abstract

Perceptual Musical Analysis: Segmentation and Perception of Tension

Abstract: Recent investigations have studied the processes of segmentation and perception of the points of tension which occur while listening to tonal and post tonal music. The present study aims to investigate the criteria people use to segment and memorise post tonal pieces.

Cited by 12 publications

References 8 publications

Multi-scale Modelling of Segmentation

Multi-scale Modelling of Segmentation

Probing the Underlying Principles of Perceived Immanent Accents Using a Modeling Approach

The Pastoral Origin of Semiotically Functional Tonal Organization of Music

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About