Perceiving the Classical Cadence

Abstract

THIS STUDY EXPLORES THE UNDERLYING MECHANISMSresponsible for the perception of cadential closure in Mozart's keyboard sonatas. Previous investigations into the experience of closure have typically relied upon the use of abstract harmonic formulae as stimuli. However, these formulae often misrepresent the ways in which composers articulate phrase endings in tonal music. This study, on the contrary, examines a wide variety of cadential types typically found in the classical style, including evaded cadences, which have yet to be examined in an experimental setting. The present findings reveal that cadential categories play a pivotal role in the perception of closure, and for musicians especially, ratings of the cadential categories provide empirical support for a model of cadential strength proposed in music theory. A number of rhetorical features also affect participants' ratings of closure, such as formal context, the presence of a melodic dissonance at the cadential arrival, and the use of a trill within the penultimate dominant. Finally, the results indicate that expertise modulates attention, with musicians privileging bassline motion and nonmusicians attending primarily to the soprano voice.

Musically Informed Sonification for Chronic Pain Rehabilitation

“…We demonstrate the application of implicit musical understood theory [1,14] to create a musically-informed movement sonification. We show that endings of different stabilities can be used to either encourage movement or provide a definite end point and how these definite ends are seen as more rewarding.…”

“…Bigand demonstrated that this aspect of music is understood by people without explicit musical training, and that tonal factors are important for both musicians and non-musicians for determining the stability [1]. Sears' recent work on perception of cadence also demonstrates the ability of non-musically trained people to identify differing stabilities of cadences [14]. Cadences represent a specific way in which musical stability can be manipulated.…”

“…For example, in a pop song there may be a build in tension before the chorus, partly achieved through aspects of musical instability and which will often become resolved at the end of the chorus. This aspect of music has been shown to be understood implicitly by people without musical training, through day-to-day exposure [1,23,21,14]. By exploiting the sense of agency over the heard sounds derived from the sonification of one's body movement (i.e., the feeling that the sounds heard are being produced by one's own body movement [18]) and the musical resolution obtained using harmonic stability levels, we aim to provide the perception that the level of resolution of the sonification is created by the person's internal decision to either conclude a movement or not.…”

Multi-scale Modelling of Segmentation

“…Other work on segmentation includes a neural study on finding working memory triggers (Burunat, Alluri, Toiviainen, Numminen, & Brattico, 2014) and a performance study on improvisational structure (Dean, Bailes, & Drummond, 2014). Outside our scope, work on musical closure has explored the role of musicianship and experience on boundary perception of classical music (Peebles, 2011;Sears, Caplin, & McAdams, 2014).…”

“…In contrast, we expected high smoothness (large time scales) to be more suitable for estimation of boundary distribution from musicians as they would focus not only on dynamics, instrumentation, register, and pace, but also on higher structural levels (chord and key changes, metric modulation, multiple concurrent changes). For instance, a study on perceived closure of classical cadences (Sears et al, 2014) showed that nonmusicians focus mainly on the leading voice, whereas musicians pay attention to multiple voices, suggesting greater salience of harmonic change for musicians. (Tierney et al, 2008).…”