Is the perception of melody governed by motivic arguments or by generative rules or by both?

ISSN： 0749-4467

Source： Contemporary Music Review, Vol.9, Iss.1-2, 1993-01, pp. : 139-150

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Abstract

Traditional formal analyses of music have emphasised the sequence of motivic arguments as the source of the listener's understanding and appreciation. More recently the concept of a listening grammar related to the compositional grammar by shared generative rules has offered an alternative model of musical processing. Experimental subjects listened to melodic materials which embodied comparable generative rules but differing thematic arguments in order to compare the relative contribution of these components to ratings of musical interest and preference. Ratings were also obtained for hybrid melodies constructed by alternating motivic materials from the source melodies. If the motivic structure is the main determinant of processing, the intact melodies should be preferred to the synthetic hybrids. In fact, the results suggested that the generative rules were the more prominent vehicle of processing. Individual differences in the processing of melodies were also clearly evident.