A PERCEPTUAL STUDY INVESTIGATED THE ABILITY of scale degrees to evoke qualia, and the impact of harmonic context in shaping a scale degree's qualia. In addition, the following questions were addressed: What role does music training have in shaping qualia? Are listeners consistent in their descriptions? Are experiences similar across participants, or are they individual and subjective? Listeners with or without musictheoretic training were asked to rate the qualia of scale degrees following various chord progressions, each ending with a different final harmony. Scale degrees were found to exhibit relatively consistent musical qualia; however, the local chord context was found to significantly influence qualia ratings. In general, both groups of listeners were found to be fairly consistent in their ratings of scale-degree qualia; however, as expected, musician listeners were more consistent than nonmusician listeners. Finally, a subset of the musical qualia ratings were compared against Krumhansl and Kessler's (1982) scale-degree ''profiles.'' While profiles created from the present data, overall, were correlated with the K&K profiles, their claim that tonal stability accounts for the high ratings ascribed to tonic triad members was found to be better explained by the effect of the local chord context.

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Probabilistic models have proved remarkably successful in modeling melodic organization (e.g., Huron, 2006a; Pearce, 2005; Temperley, 2008). However, the majority of these models rely on pitch information taken from melody alone. Given the prevalence of homophonic music in Western culture, however, surprisingly little attention has been directed at exploring the predictive power of harmonic accompaniment in models of melodic organization. The research presented here uses a combination of the three main approaches to empirical musicology—exploratory analysis, modeling, and hypothesis testing—to investigate the influence of harmony on melodic behavior. In this study a comparison is made between models that use only melodic information and models that consider the melodic information along with the underlying harmonic accompaniment to predict melodic continuations. A test of overall performance shows a significant improvement using a melodic-harmonic model. When individual scale degrees are examined, the major diatonic scale degrees are shown to have unique probability distributions for each of their most common harmonic settings. That is, the results suggest a robust effect of harmony on melodic organization. Perceptual implications and directions for future research are discussed.

A venerable rule of traditional Western part writing is the so-called Direct Octaves Rule (also known as Hidden or Exposed octaves), whereby similar pitch motion (i.e., two or more voices moving in the same direction) to a perfect octave should be avoided unless step motion is used. A number of interpretations have been offered as to why musicians might follow this rule. A traditional account (Fux, 1725(Fux, /1966 exhibits several inconsistencies. A modern interpretation based on auditory scene analysis appears to have merit. However, this interpretation has yet to be tested empirically. Three experiments test the scene-analysis account using numerosity judgments for complex chords as the dependent measure. In Experiment 1, musician listeners show decreasing accuracy in numerosity judgments when an octave is present in the sonority -as predicted. In experiments 2 and 3, chords were preceded by a single neighboring or distant tone. It was hypothesized that neighboring primes would increase the accuracy of numerosity judgments for octave-containing chords more than distant primes -consistent with the Direct Octaves rule. However, no such facilitation was observed. Nevertheless, a post-hoc test showed improved accuracy when the octave was approached by step motion in highest voice compared with stepapproach to the lowest voice. This latter finding is consistent with the most restrictive formulations of the direct octaves rule.In the training of Western musicians, a common rule of part-writing is the so-called direct octaves rule (also known as hidden octaves or exposed octaves). Statements of this rule can be traced back several centuries (e.g., Zarlino, 1558). Formulations of the rule differ over time, and even today, one finds subtle variations in its statement. Consider six recent characterizations:

A musical performance renders an acoustic realization of a musical score or other representation of a composition. Different performances of the same composition may vary in terms of performance parameters such as timing or dynamics, and these variations may have a major impact on how a listener perceives the music. The analysis of music performance has traditionally been a peripheral topic for the MIR research community, where often a single audio recording is used as representative of a musical work. This paper surveys the field of Music Performance Analysis (MPA) from several perspectives including the measurement of performance parameters, the relation of those parameters to the actions and intentions of a performer or perceptual effects on a listener, and finally the assessment of musical performance. This paper also discusses MPA as it relates to MIR, pointing out opportunities for collaboration and future research in both areas.

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This paper offers a critical reflection on the paucity of theories for the phenomenon of “earworms,” also known as involuntary musical imagery (INMI), and poses some as-yet unanswered questions relating to the unique nature of the phenomenon, the optimal conditions for earworm induction, as well the underlying mechanisms that may drive the behavior. While numerous earworm studies have focused on analyzing the symptoms of the phenomenon, few studies have attempted to focus on investigating the underlying cause. In addition, common explanations are typically tied to proximal rather than distal causes (e.g., recent exposure). In particular, the question of “why music” (as opposed to other time-based auditory stimuli such as language/poetry), or, perhaps “what about music” is raised, and some conjectures and starting places for future studies are offered. Possible theoretical avenues and testable hypotheses are suggested, based on synthesizing informal observations and existing empirical research across multiple disciplines.

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