CHAMELEON is a computational melodic harmonization assistant. It can harmonize a given melody according to a number of independent harmonic idioms or blends between idioms based on principles of ...conceptual blending theory. Thus, the system is capable of offering a wealth of possible solutions and viewpoints for melodic harmonization. This study investigates how human creativity may be influenced by the use of CHAMELEON in a melodic harmonization task. Professional and novice music composers participated in an experiment where they were asked to harmonize two similar melodies under two different conditions: one with and one without computational support. A control group harmonized both melodies without computational assistance. The influence of the system was examined both behaviorally, by comparing metrics of user-experience, and in terms of the properties of the artifacts (i.e., pitch class distribution and number of chord types characterizing each harmonization) that were created between the two experimental conditions. Results suggest that appreciation of the system was expertise-dependent (i.e., novices appreciated the computational support more than professionals). At the same time, users seemed to adopt more explorative strategies as a result of interaction with CHAMELEON based on the fact that the harmonizations created this way were more complex, diverse, and unexpected in comparison to the ones of the control group.
During the period of Austro-Hungarian rule, Bukovina demonstrated a great breakthrough in both socio-economic and cultural development. We find a reflection of the peculiarities of musical culture in ...the writings of that time. Even though musicology in the region was not a priority during the reign of the Habsburg monarchy, a few scientific, pedagogical and cultural works were found. We consider the work of Anton Norst to be the most informative source about the culture of Bukovina as the book reveals the bright moments of the region’s musical life. A significant achievement in the field of music pedagogy is the book on harmony by Sydir Vorobkevych, which became a textbook on musical literacy for Bukovynian musicians. Therefore, the presence of such scientific music-theoretical investigations makes it possible to draw conclusions about certain achievements of the Bukovinians in the field of historical and theoretical musicology. After all, the scientific works of Bukovynian authors were in demand during the period of their creation and are of interest even today.
Prelingually deaf children listening through cochlear implants (CIs) face severe limitations on their experience of music, since the hearing device degrades relevant details of the acoustic input. An ...important parameter of music is harmony, which conveys emotional as well as syntactic information. The present study addresses musical harmony in three psychoacoustic experiments in young, prelingually deaf CI listeners and normal-hearing (NH) peers. The discrimination and preference of typical musical chords were studied, as well as cadence sequences conveying musical syntax. The ability to discriminate chords depended on the hearing age of the CI listeners, and was less accurate than for the NH peers. The groups did not differ with respect to the preference of certain chord types. NH listeners were able to categorize cadences, and performance improved with age at testing. In contrast, CI listeners were largely unable to categorize cadences. This dissociation is in accordance with data found in postlingually deafened adults. Consequently, while musical harmony is available to a limited degree to CI listeners, they are unable to use harmony to interpret musical syntax.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hugo Riemann (Leipzig) and the representatives of the Berlin school of music psychology (Stumpf, Hornbostel, and Lachmann) engaged in a fierce debate about ...the proper definition of the elements of music and basic musical processes. These discussions formed the background for Jacques Handschin’s inquiry into the fundamental principles of music.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
The article is written for the special journal issue dedicated to Alan L. Mackay on his 90th birthday. The remarkable ideas of Alan L. Mackay about generalized crystallography, its connections with ...encoding of information, and also the interrelationship between art and science generate many ideas and their consequences. Mackay paid a special attention to the theme of five-fold symmetry, Fibonacci numbers and the golden section, which are essential in the structures of quasicrystals and living bodies. The present article considers a continuation of this theme in relation to the genetic coding system and to ratios of musical harmony. Hidden connections between the matrix representations the genetic code system and the golden section and the Pythagoras’s theory of esthetics of proportions are described. Such connections testify the validity of the molecular-genetic foundation of many known facts about inborn feeling of harmony in our perceptions, which becomes a part of the scientific field of “biochemical esthetics” (the term first introduced by Russian biophysicist S. Shnoll,
7
). Data from theory of resonances and mathematics of noise-immunity coding of information are used in the article.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
This article discusses two interpretations of musical harmony around the 3rd century BCE based on the
Xunzi
荀子 and the
Lüshi Chunqiu
呂氏春秋 (
Annals of Mr. Lü
), comparing the concepts of resonance ...between sound and
qi
氣 in each interpretation. The
Xunzi
supports the moral influence of the sage kings’ music where ethical resonance between sound and bodily
qi
serves as firm ground for musical harmony begetting social harmony. In contrast, the
Lüshi Chunqiu
advocates the idea of physical resonance between sound and cosmic
qi
whereby musical harmony acts as a contributor to cosmic harmony. In discussing resonance between sound and
qi
, the
Xunzi
restricts its scope to the human realm while the
Lüshi Chunqiu
extends it more broadly to the cosmic realm, which indicates that humans foster cosmic harmony. This broader perspective is an adequate reflection of the germinating idea of a resonant correlation between the human and cosmic realms.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Few studies have been reported on the effects of music on brain biopotentials. The present investigation addresses the perception of consonant and dissonant chords by humans. Subjectively presented ...consonant intervals were evaluated as more harmonic and pleasant than dissonant intervals. Analysis of evoked brain activity showed that the perception of dissonant chords was accompanied by activation of the right frontal lobe, which regulates negative emotions, while consonant chords activated the left frontal area, which regulates positive emotions.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
We present a comparison between two recent approaches to the harmonic similarity of musical chords sequences. In contrast to earlier work that mainly focuses on the similarity of musical notation or ...musical audio, in this paper we specifically use on the symbolic chord description as the primary musical representation. For an experiment, a large chord sequence corpus was created. In this experiment we compare a geometrical and an alignment approach to harmonic similarity, and measure the effects of chord description detail and a priori key information on retrieval performance. The results show that an alignment approach significantly outperforms a geometrical approach in most cases, but that the geometrical approach is computationally more efficient than the alignment approach. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that a priori key information boosts retrieval performance, and that using a triadic chord representation yields significantly better results than a simpler or more complex chord representation.
Theories of harmony state that the contribution of both sensory and cognitive components is important for musical consonance perception. The aims of the present study were to analyze (a) functional ...intra- and inter-hemispheric connectivity associated with listening to consonant and dissonant chords using EEG coherence method; (b) relationships between affective responsiveness, sensory aspects of perceived consonance and associated brain connectivity. We identified two lines of inter-hemispheric connectivity in the theta band; one localized anterior being sensitive to consonance and one localized posterior sensitive to dissonance. Stronger right intra-hemispheric connectivity for consonance than dissonance in the theta band was associated with higher pleasantness ratings. The relationship between sensory aspects of perceived consonance and left intra-hemispheric connectivity found in theta-2 was interpreted as processing of vertical harmony without emotional involvement. The stronger connectivity along the axis “left anterior-right posterior” for dissonance than consonance in the alpha-1 band is discussed as a correlate of novelty processing. By introducing a “auditory object dissociation” hypothesis we suggest to extend the present concept of harmony perception. We believe that “auditory object dissociation” is a component of “sensory dissonance.”
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
PDF
