This research explored the relations between the predictability of musical structure, expressive timing in performance, and listeners' perceived musical tension. Studies analyzing the influence of expressive timing on listeners' affective responses have been constrained by the fact that, in most pieces, the notated durations limit performers' interpretive freedom. To circumvent this issue, we focused on the unmeasured prelude, a semi-improvisatory genre without notated durations. In Experiment 1, 12 professional harpsichordists recorded an unmeasured prelude on a harpsichord equipped with a MIDI console. Melodic expectation was assessed using a probabilistic model (IDyOM [Information Dynamics of Music]) whose expectations have been previously shown to match closely those of human listeners. Performance timing information was extracted from the MIDI data using a score-performance matching algorithm. Time-series analyses showed that, in a piece with unspecified note durations, the predictability of melodic structure measurably influenced tempo fluctuations in performance. In Experiment 2, another 10 harpsichordists, 20 nonharpsichordist musicians, and 20 nonmusicians listened to the recordings from Experiment 1 and rated the perceived tension continuously. Granger causality analyses were conducted to investigate predictive relations among melodic expectation, expressive timing, and perceived tension. Although melodic expectation, as modeled by IDyOM, modestly predicted perceived tension for all participant groups, neither of its components, information content or entropy, was Granger causal. In contrast, expressive timing was a strong predictor and was Granger causal. However, because melodic expectation was also predictive of expressive timing, our results outline a complete chain of influence from predictability of melodic structure via expressive performance timing to perceived musical tension. (PsycINFO Database Record

Research on emotional responses to music indicates that prominent changes in instrumentation and timbre elicit strong responses in listeners. However, there are few theories related to orchestration that would assist in interpreting these empirical findings. This article investigates listeners’ emotional responses to four types of orchestral gestures – large-scale timbral and textural changes that occur in a coordinated, goal-directed manner – through an exploratory experiment that collected continuous responses of emotional intensity for musician and nonmusician listeners. A time series regression analysis was used to predict changes in emotional responses by modeling changes in several musical features, including instrumental texture, spectral centroid, loudness, and tempo. We demonstrate the application of a new visualization tool that compiles the emotional intensity ratings with score-based and performance-based musical features for qualitative and quantitative analysis. [...

This study focuses on the relationships between music analysis, performance, and tension perception. Part 1 examines harpsichordists’ analyses and performances of an unmeasured prelude—a semi-improvisatory genre open to interpretive freedom. Twelve harpsichordists performed the Prélude non mesuré No. 7 by Louis Couperin on a harpsichord equipped with a MIDI console and submitted a formal analysis. Using a curve-fitting approach, we investigated the correspondence between analyzed segmentations and group-final lengthening. We found that harpsichordists also employed “group-final anticipation,” involving deceleration before, and acceleration through, analyzed boundaries. In Part 2, three listener groups (harpsichordists, musicians, and nonmusicians) continuously rated tension for 12 performances. [...

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