Key, Mode, Species

2015

Front. Psychol.

This paper reveals the way in which musical pitch works as a peculiar form of cognition that reflects upon the organization of the surrounding world as perceived by majority of music users within a socio-cultural formation. The evidence from music theory, ethnography, archeology, organology, anthropology, psychoacoustics, and evolutionary biology is plotted against experimental evidence. Much of the methodology for this investigation comes from studies conducted within the territory of the former USSR. To date, this methodology has remained solely confined to Russian speaking scholars. A brief overview of pitch-set theory demonstrates the need to distinguish between vertical and horizontal harmony, laying out the framework for virtual music space that operates according to the perceptual laws of tonal gravity. Brought to life by bifurcation of music and speech, tonal gravity passed through eleven discrete stages of development until the onset of tonality in the seventeenth century. Each stage presents its own method of integration of separate musical tones into an auditory-cognitive unity. The theory of “melodic intonation” is set forth as a counterpart to harmonic theory of chords. Notions of tonality, modality, key, diatonicity, chromaticism, alteration, and modulation are defined in terms of their perception, and categorized according to the way in which they have developed historically. Tonal organization in music, and perspective organization in fine arts are explained as products of the same underlying mental process. Music seems to act as a unique medium of symbolic representation of reality through the concept of pitch. Tonal organization of pitch reflects the culture of thinking, adopted as a standard within a community of music users. Tonal organization might be a naturally formed system of optimizing individual perception of reality within a social group and its immediate environment, setting conventional standards of intellectual and emotional intelligence.

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of tonal organization in music mirrors symbolic representation of perceptual reality. Part-1: Prehistoric

2015

Front. Psychol.

“…43 The fact that adding two tetrachords together would make an octave was a coincidence, and not a principle of Ancient Greek music-making: 5 th was the largest interval considered in Classical theory of melodic composition (Kholopov, 2006). Octave species were byproducts of joining the tetrachords (pentachords) together within a given key -therefore, keys had names, whereas species remained nameless (Gombosi, 1951).…”

Section: Multitonal Modementioning

confidence: 99%

Music Cognition from Birth to Adolescence: A Structuralist Approach

2022

Preprint

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.

“…The fact that joining two tetrachords made an octave was a coincidence and not a principle of Ancient Greek melopoeia (art of making melody): Greeks simply did not have a name for intervals larger than 5th (Kholopov, 2006). Octave species were byproducts of conjoining the tetrachords (occasionally, pentachords) within a given keyfor this reason, keys had names, whereas species remained nameless (Gombosi, 1951).…”

Section: Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Glossary of some important musical terms

2022

Preprint

This document contains definitions and brief explanations of the key musical terms that are most important for tonal organization in music and for the evolution of music. The explanations are aimed at those researchers who do not have a strong background in music theory. All the terms are grouped into a few sections marked by headings. The musicological information and psychoacoustic information are combined to identify the main physical and perceptual substrates of each of the defined musicological concepts. The key references are provided for those interested to find out more.