Fred Lerdahl | Columbia University (original) (raw)
Papers by Fred Lerdahl
Musicae Scientiae, 2010
The eye movements of a conductor were tracked during a performance of Lerdahl's “Time after t... more The eye movements of a conductor were tracked during a performance of Lerdahl's “Time after time”. The analysis of the data revealed that, for most of the time, the conductor was looking at the score, rather than the performers. Most of the score-reading was in anticipation of the music to be played. Micro- and macro-anticipations could be defined, the former being between 2 to 5 seconds in advance, the later being more than 5 seconds in advance. The largest visual anticipations were as long as 10 seconds. The longer anticipations were found to correspond to the occurrence of those thematic cells the conductor considered to be of expressive importance for the piece. This suggests that the conductor's eye movements were governed on a small scale by the coordination of instrumental performance and on the large scale by his musical conception of the piece.
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2015
This paper undertakes a comparative study of concepts and visual representations of hierarchical ... more This paper undertakes a comparative study of concepts and visual representations of hierarchical aspects of musical structure. After consideration of the rhythmic components of grouping and meter, the discussion turns to pitch-event hierarchies and the tonal hierarchy (or pitch space). Contrasting notations are evaluated in terms of the efficacy of the concepts they exemplify.
A Mysterious Relationship, 2013
Music is meaningful, but there is no musical counterpart to the lexicon or semantics of language,... more Music is meaningful, but there is no musical counterpart to the lexicon or semantics of language, nor are there analogs of parts of speech or syntactic phrases. This chapter seeks to establish a notion of musical syntax at a more fundamental level, starting from the view that syntax can be broadly defi ned as the hierarchical organization of discrete sequential objects which generate a potentially infi nite set of combinations from a relatively small number of elements and principles (thereby extending not only to linguistic syntax in the usual sense but also to a syntax of phonology). The elementary musical objects in this approach are perceived pitches, chords, and rhythms. Sequences of musical events receive three types of structure: groupings, grids, and trees. Using a Beatles song as illustration, the formation of successive structural levels is described and issues of sequential ordering, the status of global structural levels, contour, and the question of psychological musical universals are discussed. The strongest correspondences between music and language appear to be between musical syntax and linguistic phonology , not musical syntax and linguistic syntax.
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2007
THIS STUDY PRESENTS AND TESTS a theory of tonal tension (Lerdahl, 2001). The model has four compo... more THIS STUDY PRESENTS AND TESTS a theory of tonal tension (Lerdahl, 2001). The model has four components: prolongational structure, a pitch-space model, a surfacetension model, and an attraction model. These components combine to predict the rise and fall in tension in the course of listening to a tonal passage or piece. We first apply the theory to predict tension patterns in Classical diatonic music and then extend the theory to chromatic tonal music. In the experimental tasks, listeners record their experience of tension for the excerpts. Comparisons between predictions and data point to alternative analyses within the constraints of the theory. We conclude with a discussion of the underlying perceptual and cognitive principles engaged by the theory's components.
Current Musicology, 1993
HALLE JOHN, A Generative Textsettìng Model, Current Musicologa 55 (1993) Extracted from PCI Full ... more HALLE JOHN, A Generative Textsettìng Model, Current Musicologa 55 (1993) Extracted from PCI Full Text, published by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. 6 Current Musicology beats are relative notions: an event may be strong in relation to a second event but weak ...
Structures in the Mind: Essays on Lanuuage, Music and Cognition in Honor of Ray Jackendoff, 2015
We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are i... more We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general? We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization: rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.
Cognition, 2006
We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are i... more We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general?
We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization:
rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.
Musicae Scientiae, 2010
The eye movements of a conductor were tracked during a performance of Lerdahl's “Time after t... more The eye movements of a conductor were tracked during a performance of Lerdahl's “Time after time”. The analysis of the data revealed that, for most of the time, the conductor was looking at the score, rather than the performers. Most of the score-reading was in anticipation of the music to be played. Micro- and macro-anticipations could be defined, the former being between 2 to 5 seconds in advance, the later being more than 5 seconds in advance. The largest visual anticipations were as long as 10 seconds. The longer anticipations were found to correspond to the occurrence of those thematic cells the conductor considered to be of expressive importance for the piece. This suggests that the conductor's eye movements were governed on a small scale by the coordination of instrumental performance and on the large scale by his musical conception of the piece.
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2015
This paper undertakes a comparative study of concepts and visual representations of hierarchical ... more This paper undertakes a comparative study of concepts and visual representations of hierarchical aspects of musical structure. After consideration of the rhythmic components of grouping and meter, the discussion turns to pitch-event hierarchies and the tonal hierarchy (or pitch space). Contrasting notations are evaluated in terms of the efficacy of the concepts they exemplify.
A Mysterious Relationship, 2013
Music is meaningful, but there is no musical counterpart to the lexicon or semantics of language,... more Music is meaningful, but there is no musical counterpart to the lexicon or semantics of language, nor are there analogs of parts of speech or syntactic phrases. This chapter seeks to establish a notion of musical syntax at a more fundamental level, starting from the view that syntax can be broadly defi ned as the hierarchical organization of discrete sequential objects which generate a potentially infi nite set of combinations from a relatively small number of elements and principles (thereby extending not only to linguistic syntax in the usual sense but also to a syntax of phonology). The elementary musical objects in this approach are perceived pitches, chords, and rhythms. Sequences of musical events receive three types of structure: groupings, grids, and trees. Using a Beatles song as illustration, the formation of successive structural levels is described and issues of sequential ordering, the status of global structural levels, contour, and the question of psychological musical universals are discussed. The strongest correspondences between music and language appear to be between musical syntax and linguistic phonology , not musical syntax and linguistic syntax.
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2007
THIS STUDY PRESENTS AND TESTS a theory of tonal tension (Lerdahl, 2001). The model has four compo... more THIS STUDY PRESENTS AND TESTS a theory of tonal tension (Lerdahl, 2001). The model has four components: prolongational structure, a pitch-space model, a surfacetension model, and an attraction model. These components combine to predict the rise and fall in tension in the course of listening to a tonal passage or piece. We first apply the theory to predict tension patterns in Classical diatonic music and then extend the theory to chromatic tonal music. In the experimental tasks, listeners record their experience of tension for the excerpts. Comparisons between predictions and data point to alternative analyses within the constraints of the theory. We conclude with a discussion of the underlying perceptual and cognitive principles engaged by the theory's components.
Current Musicology, 1993
HALLE JOHN, A Generative Textsettìng Model, Current Musicologa 55 (1993) Extracted from PCI Full ... more HALLE JOHN, A Generative Textsettìng Model, Current Musicologa 55 (1993) Extracted from PCI Full Text, published by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. 6 Current Musicology beats are relative notions: an event may be strong in relation to a second event but weak ...
Structures in the Mind: Essays on Lanuuage, Music and Cognition in Honor of Ray Jackendoff, 2015
We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are i... more We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general? We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization: rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.
Cognition, 2006
We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are i... more We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general?
We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization:
rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.