Preferences for scale structure in melodic sequences.

Abstract

Most Western music is tonal; that is, pitch organization can largely be described in terms of scales or keys. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the role played by scale in perceiving notes and melodies. The present article points out a potentially important distinction between scale structure (the set permitted pitch intervals between notes) and mode (the assignment of a special salience or centrality to particular notes within the scale structure). Four experiments are described that investigated the judgment of adult Western listeners for melodies that approximated to scale structure in differing degrees but that were random in other respects. We found that musicians and nonmusicians gave higher ratings of preference and adjudged musicality to melodies containing increased numbers of consecutive notes conforming to scale structure. A significant exception to this rule was the least scalar type of sequence, which received ratings as high as the fully scalar sequences. This exception occurred because subjects identified scale structure not only in groups of contiguous notes but also in groups of discontiguous notes that formed a coherent "stream" as long as the number of notes intervening corresponded to a standard temporal grouping, or meter, such as is commonly found in Western music.

Auditory atonalia for melodies

“…Contrary to some aesthetic theories that predict maximum preference for musical excerpts that depart from typicality (e.g. Meyer, 1956), both Cross et al (1983) and Smith and Melara (1990) have shown that nonmusicians as well as musicians prefer musical sequences that are most typical of the tonal idiom. This finding is consistent with another current of experimental research showing that more familiar stimuli are consistently preferred (e.g.…”

“…Tonal structure also affects musical preferences. Western listeners have an aesthetic bias for tonal sequences; they prefer melodies that are most constrained in terms of tonal rules (Cross, Howell, & West, 1983;Smith & Melara, 1990). Finally, sensitivity to specific aspects of the tonal structure is reflected in the subjects' ability to identify particular elements within the scale as being most central, like the tonic and the fifth, via the judgments of good completion of melodic patterns (Cuddy & Badertscher, 1987;Janata & Reisberg, 1988).…”

Exposure effects on music preference and recognition

“…It may be the case that the unfamiliar melodies that we selected on the basis oftheir relative obscurity remained such because they are structurally poorer than the familiar melodies.> Accordingly, the overall preference for familiar melodies may be related to their greater musicality. For instance, it has been shown that Western listeners prefer musical stimuli that are most typical in terms of the tonal structure of their musical idiom (Cross, Howell, & West, 1983;Smith & Melara, 1990). Teasing apart the contribution of familiarity from musicality on liking judgments should be the goal of future studies.…”

Acoustic foundations of the speech-to-song illusion.

“…A second possible cue underlying the song illusion is musical scale structure, as naïve listeners prefer musical tone sequences which conform to scale structure to tone sequences that do not (Cross et al, 1983). Moreover, listeners are better at detecting pitch changes within song illusion stimuli when they are perceived as sung than when they are perceived as spoken, but only when those changes would violate Western musical scale structure (Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden, Hannon, & Snyder, 2015b).…”