Music and dance as a coalition signaling system

Evidence suggests that humans have neurological specializations for music processing, but a compelling adaptationist account of music and dance is lacking. The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form of social organization is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups. This capability may have evolved from coordinated territorial defense signals that are common in many social species, including chimpanzees. We present a study in which manipulation of music synchrony significantly altered subjects’ perceptions of music quality, and in which subjects’ perceptions of music quality were correlated with their perceptions of coalition quality, supporting our hypothesis. Our hypothesis also has implications for the evolution of psychological mechanisms underlying cultural production in other domains such as food preparation, clothing and body decoration, storytelling and ritual, and tools and other artifacts

Swinging the Score: Compositional and empirical investigations into the performance of swing and groove rhythms by score-reading musicians

This PhD project consists of (1) an empirical thesis and (2) a portfolio of compositions with commentary. 1.) The thesis explores the effect of habitually playing from music notation on classical musicians’ ability to play by ear and produce the jazz phrasing structure known as “swing”. Swing and its relationship to groove are explored from musicological and psychological perspectives, focussing especially on its conflicting relationship with notation when performed by classical musicians. Two behavioural studies explore interactions between classical musicians’ notation reading, aural discrimination skills, and their swing performance. One of these also allows for formulating a syntax definition of swing, which so far is lacking in the literature. The first study investigates levels of score-dependency, i.e. dependency on notational over aural learning, in classical musicians. Results of several aural reproduction tasks show that score-dependent musicians are more limited in aural reproduction of pitch than score-independent musicians, though no difference between groups is found for rhythmic reproduction. Score-dependency is found to be a likely consequence of long-term task specialisation that can be mitigated by engaging in practices involving playing by ear. The second study focuses on how classical musicians produce swing while playing from notation, as evaluated by jazz-enculturated listeners. In line with the first study, results suggest that performers’ score-dependency has little bearing on their perceived swing rhythm. Instead it modulates the relationship between notational style and swing, with score-dependent musicians swinging more using classical and jazz notation formats. Unlike in jazz practice, listening to jazz recordings did not improve classical musicians’ swing. Jazz listeners’ detailed critiques of classical musicians’ swing provided details for formulating a syntax definition of swing: Swing is a particular cultural expression of groove, characterised by both synchronization and de-synchronization from a near- metronomic beat sequence, an unequal beat subdivision, rhythmic displacement, offbeat articulation, and a preference for faster tempi. The results presented in this thesis have wider implications for research on behavioural and microrhythmic issues in swing and groove production, cognition in aural vs. notation-based music learning, and effects of musical experiences on performance practice. 2.) The portfolio of compositions demonstrates the practical application of swing and groove rhythms in notation for artistic purposes. Over the course of four pieces, it explores how such rhythms can be negotiated in a variety of contexts, including semi-improvised vs. fully scripted performances, classical vs. crossover orchestrations, and metric ambiguities vs. steady rhythmic frameworks. Together, the portfolio and thesis contribute to both creative and empirical research on intercultural composition and associated notation practices

Verbal rehearsal methods and their effects on expressive music performance: A comparison of verbal explanation and transformational verbal imagery

The purpose of this study was to determine if use of transformational verbal imagery rehearsal methods, when compared to use of methods based on verbal explanation, resulted in (a) higher levels of expressive performance by wind quintets and (b) greater appreciation of the composition by quintet members. The study used a posttest-only control-group design. Thirty high school brass and/or woodwind quintets were randomly assigned to experimental groups (n = 15) or control groups (n = 15). A composition rich in expressive aspects of music was used. Each quintet had three rehearsals. The first rehearsal dealt with the technical aspects of performance. Treatment which focused on the expressive aspects of performance occurred during the second and third rehearsals. An audio recording of the performance was made at the end of the third rehearsal. A questionnaire designed to measure appreciation of the music was completed by subjects at the end of the third rehearsal. To test the null hypothesis regarding expressive performance level, two independent adjudicators scored the final performance tape on two measures, (a) the level of technical performance, and (b) the level of expressive performance. A one-way analysis of covariance was used, with level of technical performance serving as the covariate. The questionnaires were analyzed using a t test for independent samples to test the null hypothesis regarding level of appreciation of the music. Significance was tested at the.05 level. No statistically significant differences were found between the treatment groups on these two measures. Subjects involved in the experimental treatment completed an additional questionnaire to provide data regarding the perceived effect of the transformational verbal imagery procedure. Results of a descriptive analysis of the data indicated that over 90% of the subjects perceived verbal imagery as easy to use and helpful in completing learning tasks. Subjects\u27 perceptions of verbal imagery suggested that its use in rehearsals helped motivate them and helped them complete learning tasks effectively and efficiently

Loyalties v. Royalties

Friendship rewards us with a bond of loyalty and equality. The marketplace rewards us based on what we have to offer. When friends work together to create something, and when the market judges their creation to have value, this sets up a clash between realms. Should the pie of profits be sliced according to the values of friendship or the values of the marketplace? The answer matters for policymakers concerned with creative incentives. How satisfied people are with their monetary rewards can turn more on how much others are getting—their relative rewards—than on the absolute amount received. Nevertheless, it is the latter that has been the focus of empirical legal studies casting doubt on the central premise of copyright law—money motivates creative output. But relative rewards have not been addressed. This Article closes the gap, making three contributions that advance empirical research on copyright law and the psychology of creative incentives. First, I present empirical evidence of a link between creators’ relative rewards and the quality of creative output, providing support for the incentive theory of copyright law. Second, I argue that the joint authorship rule on license proceeds is an area of copyright law that gets creative incentives right. Third, my findings suggest the cross-industry uniformity of copyright law’s approach to relative rewards is leaving value on the table. I identify a certain social context—prior friendship—as an important predictor of creators’ relative reward preferences that can inform the design of industry-specific incentives. These insights are drawn from regression analyses of a novel dataset built around a creative relationship central to the music industry: songwriting in music groups. The data span sixty years and comprise 1,000 music groups, each of which has earned at least one Gold Record. The first study reveals that groups that share royalties pro rata, even when some members’ contributions are small, produce songs that garner more Grammy Awards and earn higher revenue than groups that channel royalties to major contributors. What consideration is outweighing economic self-interest in songwriters’ royalty split decisions? The second set of studies identifies a key predictor through a preregistered experiment with over 600 participants and further analysis of the Gold Records dataset. Prior friendship—specifically friends’ desire for equal standing with one another—is essential to understanding songwriters’ relative reward preference for pro rata splitting. Loyalties trump royalties. My findings suggest that the predominance of prior friendships among collaborating songwriters drives the industry-level equal-splitting norm uncovered in my prior work. The insight that copyright industries differ, in terms of predictable relative reward preferences, supports the viability of an industry-specific approach to joint authorship rules. While predictable, co-songwriters’ judgments about fair reward distributions are socially contingent—in stark contrast with a central premise of modern moral and political theory that morality is concerned with values and obligations owed to all persons equally. This suggests some limits on the evidentiary role moral psychology can play in nonutilitarian accounts of authors’ rights. These relative reward insights into copyright law’s monetary incentives may extend to coinventorship in patent law and beyond intellectual property to corporate ownership structure, such as startup founder equity splits

Is melodic expectancy influenced by pitch and temporal manipulations?

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of altering the surface structure and organisational framework of both pitch and time on expectancy ratings of melodies. The pitches and durations comprising each melody were presented either in their original order, as a reordered sequence, as a sequence with modified contour, or as a sequence with modified contour randomly reordered. 24 participants, exposed primarily to Western tonal music, provided expectancy ratings of the sequences in two selective attention conditions (attend to pitch only, or time only), and one global (attend to both pitch and time) condition (blocked). All manipulations of pitch and time influenced perceived melodic expectancy, however for both dimensions, manipulating the organisational framework was more effective than changes to the surface structure. Under selective attention conditions, the irrelevant dimension still influenced ratings but its effect size was attenuated in accordance with the instructions. Effects of pitch and time were significant for all instructional conditions. These results emphasise the importance of tonal and metric hierarchies as organisational frameworks for melodic perception, and provided a better insight of the overall contribution of both pitch and temporal dimensions in formation of musical expectancies

Agreement among human and annotated transcriptions of global songs

Cross-cultural musical analysis requires standardized symbolic representation of sounds such as score notation. However, transcription into notation is usually conducted manually by ear, which is time-consuming and subjective. Our aim is to evaluate the reliability of existing methods for transcribing songs from diverse societies. We had 3 experts independently transcribe a sample of 32 excerpts of traditional monophonic songs from around the world (half a cappella, half with instrumental accompaniment). 16 songs also had pre-existing transcriptions created by 3 different experts. We compared these human transcriptions against one another and against 10 automatic music transcription algorithms. We found that human transcriptions can be sufficiently reliable (~90% agreement, κ ~.7), but current automated methods are not (<60% agreement, κ <.4). No automated method clearly outperformed others, in contrast to our predictions. These results suggest that improving automated methods for cross-cultural music transcription is critical for diversifying MIR

From speech to song: an interdisciplinary investigation of rhythm in English and Spanish

The general theoretical frame of this dissertation has to do with the study, from an interdisciplinary and interlinguistic point of view, of the typological dichotomy between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, inasmuch as this distinction is valid at all. As a preliminary step, I carry out a comparative examination of the basic prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish, in order to then analyse the standard versification systems of these two languages. In the central part of my dissertation, I explore the most important text-setting Optimality Theory constraints as applied to a corpus of English and Spanish folk and art songs.My main objective in carrying out these three-level analyses is to check whether the actual setting of verse to music responds to some kind of underlying rhythmic constraints common to language prosody, verse prosody and music, and whether those constraints are ranked differently from language to language.The conclusions have to do with a correspondence between the timing typologies of language and the rhythmic typologies of music. I find clear inconsistencies or mismatches between speech prosody, on the one hand, and verse and music rhythm, on the other. These inconsistencies work differently in a syllabletimed language like Spanish than in a stress-timed language like English. While in the first type of languages I find a natural counterpoint or dialogue between speech prosody and musical rhythm, in the second type this counterpoint tends to be considered arhythmic. In other words, I establish a difference in kind in relation to the dialogue between prosody and music for each of the two types of languages. In English, the level of agreement between the two stress-patterns is really high, while in Spanish the counterpoint between the two patterns is used as an expressive device

A LINGUISTIC CONSTRUCT INFORMS MUSICOLOGY: RANKING METRICAL CONSTRAINTS IN MUSIC PERCEPTION

The construct of perceptual constraints has become increasingly important in cognitive science in recent years, including the research at the intersection of linguistics and musicology. The present paper provides the results of an empirical study into the ordering of metrical preference rules/constraints from the group MPR5, as proposed in "A Generative Theory of Tonal Music" (GTTM, Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983). The theory predicts a preference for inferring strong beats on musical tones which exhibit a relatively prominent pitch change, dynamic, long slur, long pattern of articulation, long duration of a pitch in the relevant levels of a time-span reduction, and prominent harmony in the relevant level of a time-span reduction. A hundred and twenty randomly selected undergraduate students (30 musicians and 90 nonmusicians) were played twelve metrical sequences based on the examples of the rule MPR5 from GTTM, of which one half were constructed so as to comply with the participants' expectancies and another half so as to contradict them. The participants were prompted to press a button when certain they had heard a stressed beat. The distributions of responses suggest that the six constraints can be ranked into three larger groups, as follows: physical stress (dynamic, harmony), melodic stress (pitch, slur, length), ornamental stress (articulation). Musicians achieved better results than nonmusicians, and the response latencies considerably rose in the stimuli contradicting expectancies, but the internal constraint rankings remained relatively stable irrespective of the two factors (musical training and inception of stimuli on the targeted beat). Given such results, metrical segmentation is hypothesized to be the principal contribution of GTTM which has stood the test of time