We studied memory for harmony using a melody-and-accompaniment texture and 10 commercially successful songs of Western popular music. The harmony was presented as a timbrally matching block-chord accompaniment to digitally isolated vocals. We used three test chord variants: the target was harmonically identical to the original chord, the lure was schematically plausible but different from the original, and the clash conflicted with both the tonal center and the local pitches of the melody. We used two conditions: in the one-chord condition we presented only the test chord, while in the all-chords condition the test chord was presented with all the chords of the original excerpt. One hundred and twenty participants with varying levels of music training rated on a seven-point scale if the test chord was the original. We analyzed the results on two dimensions of memory: veridical–schematic and specialized–general. The target chords were rated higher on average than the lures and considerably higher than the clash chords. Schematic memory (knowledge of Western tonal harmony) seemed to be important for rating the test chords in the all-chords condition, while veridical memory (familiarity with the songs) was especially important for rating the lure chords in the one-chord condition.
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December 2022
Research Article|
December 01 2022
Veridical and Schematic Memory for Harmony in Melody-and-Accompaniment Textures
Ivan Jimenez,
Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland
Ivan Jimenez, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Helsinki, P.O. Box 30, FI-00097 UNIARTS, Finland. E-mail: ivan.jimenez.rodriguez@uniarts.fi
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Tuire Kuusi,
Tuire Kuusi
Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland
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Juha Ojala
Juha Ojala
Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland
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Ivan Jimenez, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Helsinki, P.O. Box 30, FI-00097 UNIARTS, Finland. E-mail: ivan.jimenez.rodriguez@uniarts.fi
Music Perception (2022) 40 (2): 89–111.
Article history
Received:
December 15 2021
Accepted:
June 28 2022
Citation
Ivan Jimenez, Tuire Kuusi, Juha Ojala; Veridical and Schematic Memory for Harmony in Melody-and-Accompaniment Textures. Music Perception 1 December 2022; 40 (2): 89–111. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2022.40.2.89
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