The relationship between dynamics and tension in Haydn's symphony 104: A developmental study.

The Effect of Instruction on Children’s Perceived Musical Tension in Debussy’s Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maisons

“…The idea that a group of people listened and traced a similar graph of perceived musical tension to another completely different group presents an interesting finding. These findings are consistent with earlier investigations of perceived musical tension where the same piece of music was used for more than one study (Burnsed & Sochinski, 1998-2001; Fredrickson, 1994, 1997b, 1999, 2000) and imply that the listener’s ability to perceive tension related directly to various moments in the music is stronger than any particular variable presented to date. In this study, the feelings evoked by the music, rather than the ideas presented during instruction, may have held the most importance for listeners.…”

“…The experimental group’s graph tracked somewhat higher on the tension scale than the control group’s throughout the listening example. Based on graphic analyses in earlier studies using similar protocols (Burnsed & Sochinski, 1998–2001; Fredrickson, 1994, 1997b, 1999, 2000; Fredrickson & Coggiola, 2003) it is likely that the differences observed are not significant, are highly individualized to specific participants, and vary in magnitude over time. When compared with the graph from Hackworth and Fredrickson (2010), the similarities between two distinctly different populations (children and university music majors) do evidence interesting similarities.…”

“…Examination of perceived musical tension has included perception of music with and without visual presence of a conductor (Fredrickson, 1994) or musician (Vines, Krumhansl, Wanderley, & Levitin, 2006), age and/or sophistication of the listener (Fredrickson, 1997a), dynamics (Burnsed & Sochinski, 1998–2001), listeners’ musical sophistication (Fredrickson, 2000), performance medium (Fredrickson, 2001), and focus of attention (Williams, Fredrickson, & Atkinson, 2011). In these studies, researchers made no attempt to define tension for participants.…”

Gradual Tempo Change and Aesthetic Responses of Music Majors

“…Results showed an inverse relationship between the two dimensions: The exciting-relaxing (arousal) dimension was generally opposite to listeners' affective responses. Burnsed and Sochinski (2001) investigated effects of reducing dynamic range on perceived tension. The resulting tension curves were similar to earlier research (e.g., Fredrickson, 1997).…”

A Comparison of Music Majors' and Nonmajors' Perceptions of Tension for Two Selections of Jazz Music

“…Their results showed that compressing the dynamics did not notably alter the pattern of onset and release points of perceived tension, but did seem to limit the overall range (high and low) of the responses. Also of note is the similarity in responses between studies, especially when one takes into account that Burnsed andSochinski (1998-2001) used a recording played by a different orchestra with a different conductor than had been used by Fredrickson (1997b).…”