Strategies Used by Musicians to Identify Notes’ Pitch: Cognitive Bricks and Mental Representations

Letailleur, Alain; Bisesi, Erica; Legrain, Pierre

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01480

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Some of the strategies that they identified seem to be reflected in answers to the postexperiment questions collected in the current study, specifically "view of a musical instrument or view of the body position required to play that note, " "note recognition by association of pitch with specific auditory hues, or the notion of 'timbrepitch, ' " and "feeling of an instrumental gesture associated to the production of a note." The findings of Letailleur et al (2020) demonstrate that musicians use a wide variety of strategies in note identification tasks and suggest that future research on the mechanisms of instrument-specific absolute pitch may benefit from analysis of participants' accounts of their own strategies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Regarding response strategies in naming pitches more generally, Letailleur et al (2020) found a rich diversity of approaches to identifying the pitch of piano tones that combined auditory, visual, and kinesthetic strategies. Some of the strategies that they identified seem to be reflected in answers to the postexperiment questions collected in the current study, specifically "view of a musical instrument or view of the body position required to play that note, " "note recognition by association of pitch with specific auditory hues, or the notion of 'timbrepitch, ' " and "feeling of an instrumental gesture associated to the production of a note."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

Reymore

2020

Front. Psychol.

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While absolute pitch (AP)-the ability to name musical pitches globally and without reference-is rare in expert musicians, anecdotal evidence suggests that some musicians may better identify pitches played on their primary instrument than pitches played on other instruments. We call this phenomenon "instrument-specific absolute pitch" (ISAP). In this paper we present a theory of ISAP. Specifically, we offer the hypothesis that some expert musicians without global AP may be able to more accurately identify pitches played on their primary instrument(s), and we propose timbral cues and articulatory motor imagery as two underlying mechanisms. Depending on whether informative timbral cues arise from performer-or instrument-specific idiosyncrasies or from timbre-facilitated tonotopic representations, we predict that performance may be enhanced for notes played by oneself, notes played on one's own personal instrument, and/or notes played on any exemplar of one's own instrument type. Sounds of one's primary instrument may moreover activate kinesthetic memory and motor imagery, aiding pitch identification. In order to demonstrate how our theory can be tested, we report the methodology and analysis of two exemplary experiments conducted on two case-study participants who are professional oboists. The aim of the first experiment was to determine whether the oboists demonstrated ISAP ability, while the purpose of the second experiment was to provide a preliminary investigation of the underlying mechanisms. The results of the first experiment revealed that only one of the two oboists showed an advantage for identifying oboe tones over piano tones. For this oboist demonstrating ISAP, the second experiment demonstrated that pitchnaming accuracy decreased and variance around the correct pitch value increased as an effect of transposition and motor interference, but not of instrument or performer. These preliminary data suggest that some musicians possess ISAP while others do not. Timbral cues and motor imagery may both play roles in the acquisition of this ability. Based on our case study findings, we provide methodological considerations and recommendations for future empirical testing of our theory of ISAP.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

Reymore

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…On retrouve ici, par une approche visant à comprendre le cheminement mental effectué lors d'un événement perceptif, les interrogations largement partagées sur la réalité matérielle des objets [Ingold, 2011], ou sur le dilemme entre objet d'art et objet de science [Hennion et Latour, 1993]. Dans une deuxième phase de recherche, Pierre Legrain et Alain Letailleur ont analysé systématiquement la présence d'appuis mentaux dans la centaine d'entretiens réalisés par ce dernier, en décrivant la typologie des diverses stratégies utilisées par des musiciens [Letailleur, Bisesi et Legrain, 2020]. Onze types d'appuis mentaux (AM) ont ainsi été décrits, de nature auditive, visuelle, ou kinesthésique (Tableau 1).…”

Section: Intermuseunclassified

“…Après une première publication posant le cadre de l'étude [Letailleur, Bisesi et Legrain, 2020], un protocole expérimental a été conçu, visant à permettre la caractérisation des spécificités cérébrales individuelles des musiciens réalisant la tâche d'identifier un son par le nom d'une note.…”

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Silence, cerveau et musique : un biologiste, une anthropologue, une enquête

Legrain,

Lucero

2023

Ethnologie Française

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Le projet Intermuse vise à cerner les singularités individuelles des musiciens lorsqu’ils identifient une note. Alors que la démarche biologique recherche une neutralité du contexte expérimental, les silences placés entre les notes constituent, chacun, un appui pour le musicien, interférant ainsi avec la tâche cognitive demandée. Une approche anthropologique menée en parallèle à l’expérience permet de la contextualiser en intégrant le musicien comme sujet à part entière.

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“…“You must get to the point that you can hear music from the page,” the composer Robert Schumann taught his students (Reich, 1967, p. 402). The process whereby the so-called inner ear experiences the sound of the notes without them being physically played on an instrument has been labeled as notational audiation (Gordon, 1975), and has been shown to be enabled by kinaesthetic and tactile sensations associated with the auditory experience (Letailleur et al, 2020; Zatorre & Beckett, 1989; Zatorre et al, 2007). Brodsky et al (2008) have concluded that this process involves subvocalizations of the sounds suggested by the notes on the page, a silent “singing to oneself” (p. 442).…”

Section: Absolute (Perfect) Touchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of absolute pitch: II. Pitch shift and perfect touch

Thurlow¹,

Baggaley

2022

Musicae Scientiae

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The previous article in this series reviewed the historical and modern academic literature concerning the distinctive characteristics of individual musical notes and keys. It stressed Bachem’s definition of tone chroma (TC) as the quality that allows notes/keys to be identified instantly and accurately by musicians possessing the type of absolute pitch (AP) that Bachem described as genuine. TC qualities were shown to vary in the same systematic manner as the second-order acoustical beats predicted to accumulate during the tuning of instruments to equal temperament. This article offers further evidence for the connection between TC and acoustical sensitivity, as indicated by an examination of paracusis musicalis (PM), the shifting of the pitch sense with age to a level sharper or flatter than its original level. It is also noted that AP judgments have been shown to be based on kinaesthetic and tactile sensations, which perform the same cueing functions as auditory TC, and that types of AP judgment may, therefore, exist not typically identified as absolute: for example, an absolute or perfect touch capacity observed in keyboard players. Evidence of this capacity supports the theory of instrument-specific AP.

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Strategies Used by Musicians to Identify Notes’ Pitch: Cognitive Bricks and Mental Representations

Cited by 5 publications

References 49 publications

A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

A Theory of Instrument-Specific Absolute Pitch

Silence, cerveau et musique : un biologiste, une anthropologue, une enquête

Mechanisms of absolute pitch: II. Pitch shift and perfect touch

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