Key Membership and Implied Harmony in Western Tonal Music: Developmental Perspectives

Overview

Journal Percept Psychophys

Specialties Psychiatry
Psychology

Date 1994 Aug 1

PMID 7971113

Citations 23

Authors

L J Trainor

S E Trehub

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We investigated the role of key membership and implied harmony in adults' and children's perception of tone sequences. Listeners were evaluated on their ability to detect three types of changes in one note of a well-structured Western tonal melody. In one change (out-of-key) the new note was not in the basis key, in another (out-of-harmony) it was in the key but not in the implied harmony, and in the third (within-harmony) it was in both the key and the implied harmony. Adults and 7-year-olds performed better on the out-of-key and out-of-harmony changes than on the within-harmony change, reflecting their implicit knowledge of key membership and implied harmony. Five-year-olds performed better on the out-of-key change than on the other two changes, reflecting the influence of key membership but not implied harmony. We consider the developmental precedence of key membership over implied harmony in the context of cross-cultural and theoretical perspectives.

Citing Articles

Early social communication through music: State of the art and future perspectives.

Nguyen T, Flaten E, Trainor L, Novembre G Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2023; 63:101279.

PMID: 37515832 PMC: 10407289. DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101279.

The perception of octave pitch affinity and harmonic fusion have a common origin.

Demany L, Monteiro G, Semal C, Shamma S, Carlyon R Hear Res. 2021; 404:108213.

PMID: 33662686 PMC: 7614450. DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2021.108213.

Effects of Visual Predictive Information and Sequential Context on Neural Processing of Musical Syntax.

Shin H, Fujioka T Front Psychol. 2019; 9:2528.

PMID: 30618951 PMC: 6300505. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02528.

Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability.

Ireland K, Parker A, Foster N, Penhune V Front Psychol. 2018; 9:426.

PMID: 29674984 PMC: 5895917. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00426.

Memory for melody and key in childhood.

Schellenberg E, Poon J, Weiss M PLoS One. 2017; 12(10):e0187115.

PMID: 29077726 PMC: 5659795. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187115.

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