Musical Tension Associated With Violations of Hierarchical Structure

Abstract

Tension is one of the core principles of emotion evoked by music, linking objective musical events and subjective experience. The present study used continuous behavioral rating and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the dynamic process of tension generation and its underlying neurocognitive mechanisms; specifically, tension induced by structural violations at different music hierarchical levels. In the experiment, twenty-four musicians were required to rate felt tension continuously in real-time, while listening to music sequences with either well-formed structure, phrase violations, or period violations. The behavioral data showed that structural violations gave rise to increasing and accumulating tension experience as the music unfolded; tension was increased dramatically by structural violations. Correspondingly, structural violations elicited N5 at GFP peaks, and induced decreasing neural oscillations power in the alpha frequency band (8-13 Hz). Furthermore, compared to phrase violations, period violations elicited larger N5 and induced a longer-lasting decrease of power in the alpha band, suggesting a hierarchical manner of musical processing. These results demonstrate the important role of musical structure in the generation of the experience of tension, providing support to the dynamic view of musical emotion and the hierarchical manner of tension processing.

Tension experience induced by tonal and melodic shift at music phrase boundaries

“…Therefore, no typical N5 component was found. The results of Sun et al 4 showed that N5 may be induced by tonal shift at phrase boundaries could because the materials were self-written chords sequences, and listeners might analyze the harmonic structure rather than the event structure. Our results proved that the cognitive mechanisms of tonal modulations within the harmonic structure and event structure were different.…”

“…Incorporated) and were exported in mid format. Using Cubase 5.1 software, the mid files were set at a constant velocity of 100 and were archived with a Yamaha piano timbre at a tempo of 100 beats per minute in .wav format, the same method as used by Sun et al 4 , 8 . Each sequence lasted 9.6 s, and the quaver rest at the end of the first phrase was 300 ms. All scores of the sequences used in the current study were presented in Supplementary Information .…”

“…More specifically, the alternation between tension and relaxation plays a fundamental role in emotion generation 2 . Tension experience is associated with dissonance, conflict, instability and yearning for resolution 3 , 4 , and relies on the cognition of music structures through the processes of build-up, violation and fulfillment of expectation 5 – 8 .…”

“…Tonal shift may increase tension experience, and thus provides yearning of returning to the original key 2 , 26 . Sun et al 4 found that higher tension experience was induced by tonal shift at phrase and period boundaries, with larger N5 component and decreased alpha band power induced at period boundary than at phrase boundary. This suggested that tonal shift between music events affected tension experiences.…”

“…Previous research demonstrated that unexpected chords in harmonic progression induced N5 as a marker for tonal and harmonic structure processing 8 , 12 , 15 . However, Sun et al 4 also found N5 at phrase and period boundaries with tonal shift, and the authors deemed that N5 indicated both prediction violations and integration processing of incongruence. Therefore, we could not rule out the possibility of N5 under the TS condition.…”