A brief discussion on musical structures, expectations and emotions

1. Choo Jun
Quan, Stefan

2. Disclaimer:
• “Expectation” is a theoretical construct
whose meaning and definition is open to
debate. (Ch. 3, Huron, 2009)
• What is accounted for in this presentation
represents my personal experiences of the
music, and knowledge of shared similar
experiences made available through
research or social experiences.

3. Overview
• Knowledge Management- Combining
Musical Expectation and Interpretation
• Musical Structures and Chord Progressions
• Meter, Tempo, Note Density
• Frission
– Tears in Musical Expectation
•
•
•
•
Does lyrics play a role in expectation?
What is Musical Prosody?
“Defying expectations”- Stravinsky
Concluding thoughts

4. Musical Expectation: A Knowledge
Management Perspective:
explicit (codified) (e.g. theory, computation, visualization)
Knowledge
implicit (tacit) : Where listeners perceive musical
structures and develop expectations for musical events
Gained through „learning‟:
Knowledge comes about through the integration of information
derived from data, plus theory that puts the information in the
proper context, plus experience of how things work in the real
world. This process of integration is also called learning.
theory
data
information
knowledge
experie
nce

5. Musical Expectation: A Knowledge
Management Perspective
• Polanyi (1966): Human beings acquire knowledge by ACTIVELY
creating and organizing their own experiences – explicit knowledge is
the tip of the iceberg.
• We learn a language, not just by learning the fundamentals of
grammar itself. Integration occurs as we shift our attention from the
parts to the whole.
• The whole ≠ simple Σ all parts because it takes on a different
meaning in the whole.
• The integration of the whole is tacit knowing.
Polanyi‟s Concept of Tacit Knowing, Nina Abraham Palmer, Harvard

6. Music stimulus and possible
responses
Stimulus
“Fast Track”
Quick
Unthinking
Action
Fear
Surprise
Thamalus
Matches
stimulus to
primitive
cues
HIJACK
“Slow Track”
Thoughtful
appraisal
Sensory Cortex
Amlygdala
Anger
Hippocampus
Midbrain
Periaqueductal gray
Perigigantocellularis
lacteralis
Defense
Coordinating
Centre
Given context
out of stimulus
Visceral alerting
responses

7. •
Tonal Knowledge and
Perception of Musical
Most songs use Structures
3 chords:
the primary triad
• Stable cognitive reference point
• Tonic – Dominant – Subdominant
– E.g. C Major Key:
• Tonic:
(C-E-G)
• Dominant:
• Subdominant:
C Major
G Major
(G-B-D)
F Major
(F-A-C)
Image obtained from
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/blog/uploa
ds/2010/07/07_musa_rt.jpg
Visualizing Tonality and
Chord ProgressionMusa.RT

8. Applications: Chord Progression
in Western Tonal Music
• Circle of fifths
–
Chord progressions between chords whose roots are related by
perfect fifth are common. For instance, root progressions such as
D-G-C are common. For this reason, the circle of fifths can often
be used to represent "harmonic distance" between chords.
• Tonic chords -“home”
• Conclusion of a song.
– C Major Key: C, G/B, Am,
G, F, Em, D, G, C.
• Cadences (Demo)
– Full, Half, Deceptive, Plaga
Interesting statstics on chords and keys
commonly used in popular music
Picture obtained from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circle_of_fifths_deluxe_4.svg

9. Music Expectations: Pitch
• Repetition is favored.
• Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Dramatic Soprano, Diana Damrau
Die Zauberflöte, WA Mozart
• Small Intervals- Same pitch direction
• Large Intervals- Change of direction
• Post-Skip
Reversal

10. Music Expectations: Pitch
• Playing with musical expectations is at the
origin of musical expressivity,
communicated by musical pieces.
• Pitch described as musical “know-what”
(Facts)

11. Musical Expectations: Meter
• “Know-when”
• Performance in recognition tasks and
communication.
– Recall
• Rhythm patterns
• Completion judgments
• Evaluations of music

12. Tempo, note Density
on Emotions
•
Chapter 14- Handbook of Music and Emotions, Juslin P.
• Fast Tempo- Expressions of Activity/ Excitement,
Happiness/Joy/Pleasantness, Potency, Surprise, Anger,
Uneasiness, Fear.
• Slow Tempo- Calmness/ Serenity, Peace, Sadness, Dignity/
Solemnity, Tenderness, Longing, Boredom, and disgust.
• Discussed in context of other structural factors.
• Note density (No of notes/ unit time)- Higher in expressions of
happiness, anger, and fear.
• Tempo and note density may be additive- Higher activation
• To be further discussed in Musical Prosody Section.

13. What is Frission?
• Frission- “Chills running down your spine” or “hair standing on ends”
• Closely related to element of musical surprise, yet one of expected
surprise.
• Experienced listening- Noema (Leigh Landy)
• Not everyone experiences music- induced Frission. More so in
females than males. (Panskepp, 1995)
• „Chill seekers‟ are „thin-skinned‟ and „reactive‟
– Less physical risk taking
– More likely to listen to music in concentrated fashion
• The capacity to experience music-induced frission may encourage
certain people to pursue a career in music. (Ch 21, Handbook of
music and emotion).

14. Frission Inducing Music Pieces?
Guillaume Tell- Overture (Gioachino RossiniWilliam Tell)
Antonio Pappano & Orchestra dell' Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Defying Gravity (Wicked! The Musical OST):
Idina Menzel, Kristina Chenoweth & Cast of Wicked!
Nella Fantasia (Korea‟s got talent- Youtube):
Sung- Bong Choi, Runner-up with 60million YouTube Views
Voi- Che Sapete (From Mozert’s Opera “The Marriage of
Figaro”, Characterized by a young pageboy Cherubino):
Joyce DiDonato, Mezzo- Soprano,
Grammy Winner of Classical Voice Solo, 2012

15. Reflections on „Voi Che Sapete‟
• Is there a particular difference for the last
piece?
• Did anybody experience an instantaneous
uplift from a „depressed state‟?
• Presence of Frission/ Surprise?
• Fitting Structures in Classical Music
• Is “The Mozart Effect” present in this
particular piece?

16. What about Tears?
• Annatomy of a tear jerker- NY Times:
Presence of Appoggiatura (“to lean upon”
• John Sloboda, Psychology of Music (1991)
– Chills often descend on listeners at
moments of resolution.
– When several appoggiaturas occur next to
each other in a melody, it generates a cycle of
tension and release.
– This provokes an even stronger reaction, and
that is when the tears start to flow.

17. Anatomy of a Tear Jerker?
• Do all appoggiaturas evoke tears?
• Joan Slobada
– “melodic appoggiatura” applies for certain
kind of dissonant note, or non-harmonic tone.
– Melodic appoggiatura differs from most other
non-harmonic tones
– Dissonance occurs on a strong beat and
therefore receives more emphasis than usual.

18. Recap: Comparison of degree
of consonances (Lecture 5)

19. Tear Jerker: Caro mio ben
Giuseppe
(My Dear Beloved)
Giordani, 1751-1798
(Baroque Era)
Giuseppe Giordani (Giordanello)
Resolve
Note: F
(Major 2nd)
Chord: Eb Major: Eb-G- Bb
Luciano
Pavarotti:

20. Prosody
Definition of PROSODY
Meriam- Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prosody
1. The study of versification; especially : the
systematic study of metrical (/metrology/) structure
2. A particular system, theory, or style of versification
3. The rhythmic and intonational aspect of language
“Prosody was the music of everyday speech”
(Wennerstrom, 2001)

21. Prosody in Speech
• Lexical meaning of syllables across
languages
– Tonal Languages, e.g. Mandarin, Thai:
• Pitch Contours
– Non-tonal Languages:
• Accent Stress (e.g. someWHERE, VAlley,
CHRISTmas,
• Phrasing of sentences
• I will LOVE you until my dying day.
• I will love you until my dying DAY?

22. Musical Prosody
• Performers vary music, manipulating sound
properties:
– Frequency (pitch), Amplitude, Time and Timbre
• Musical prosody focuses on rhythm, grouping
and prominence, not intonation.
• Linguistic meter and musical meter are often
modelled with similar hierachial rules.
• Question: Why do audiences well- react to some
performers but not others?

23. Musical Prosody and
Expectations
• Listeners without musical knowledge are adept
at segmenting musical cues into units
• One of this expectation is „musical phrase‟.
• Lots of information occurs at „phrase
boundaries‟, undetailed in a musical score.
• Musical prosody: acoustic changes in features
that form grouping, prominence and intonation.

24. Musical Prosody
• Often includes features not given in score.
– Intensity
– Tempo
– Articulation
• Staccato, Legato
• Onsets/ Offsets
• Voiced/ Unvoiced consonants- xxxx-t, xxxx-k. e.g. “come
round right”- (“Simple Gifts”, Aaron Copland)

25. Enhancing prosody interpretation
with use of technology
Freeware: Sonic Visualizer
Accent
Crescendo
Phrase
groupings
Sustain/
Delay
~50-75ms
Derescendo

26. Application of Prosody Analysis
• Dotted lines
Inexpressive performance
• Solid LinesExpressive performanceprosodic slowing down with
intent at phrase boundaries.
• Expressive nuances are
systematic and hence
can be explicitly learnt.
• At least some expressive Structural representations of a musical performance.
From 5 measures from a “Prelude from Chopin”
nuances correspond to
the musical intent.

27. • Premier of Igor Stravinsky‟s “Rite of Spring” in Paris, May
1913.
– Sacrifice of a young pagan woman to pacify the gods of
spring.
• Inharmonic notes, strong use of dissonances.
• Triggered shouting, clamoring and near- riot in the audience.
• “…and the noise, fighting, and shouting in the audience got so
loud, he had to shout out the numbers to the dancers so that
they knew what they were supposed to do.”
• Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"

28. Concluding Thoughts/
Questions
• “Music; a universal language that transcends ALL cultures”.
Yes/ No?
• Or Emotions underlying Music that transcends?
• What is the point of transmission of music?: Expressing and
inducing emotion. (Mithen, Steven- “The Singing
Neanthdrals”
– Addendum from Prof Miller: Music structure in itself does not drive any
emotions. It‟s the acculturation that assigns emotions to music structure.
• Music and emotional capacity:
– Are the development of humans whole without music? Movie
“Equilibrium”- 2012?
• Human Emotion as the root of all conflict?
• Perfect world where Art/ Music & Feelings not exist?
Equilibrum movie trailer