Lecture 21

Question 1

What is pitch?

Answer 1

Quality of tones that range from high to low, often organized on a musical scale (associated with melodies)

Question 2

What is a melody?

Answer 2

the experience of a sequence of pitches as belonging together

Question 3

What is timbre?

Answer 3

Refers to various qualities of sound that differ across musical instruments

Question 4

What is harmony/consonance/dissonance?

Answer 4

Qualities of sound (positive or
negative) that emerge when multiple pitches are played together

Question 5

What is rhythm?

Answer 5

a temporal structure created by the inter-onset interval of
notes (the time between the onset of notes, not the duration of those notes)

Question 6

Which areas of the brain are activated by music?

Answer 6

• Amygdala and nucleus acumbens (emotion)
• The hippocampus (memory)
• Cerebellum and motor cortex (movement)
• Visual cortex (while reading music, watching performances)
• Sensory cortex (touch feedback while playing instruments)
• Prefrontal cortex (modelling the structure of a piece of music, generation expectations,
  etc.)

Question 7

What is the beat?

Answer 7

Equally spaced intervals of time, which occur when there are no notes
* This creates a framework for other components of music to ‘fit into’ (notes,
rhythm, etc.)
* When people tap their foot, they (typically) tap on the beat

Question 8

Describe Grahn & Rowe study

Answer 8

Grahn and Rowe (2009) listened to either ‘beat’ or ‘non- beat’ stimuli (beat stimuli included shorter notes that fell directly on the beat, increasing awareness of it)

• Found that basal ganglia activity was greater for beat
  stimuli, as compared to non-beat stimuli

Question 9

Describe Chen study

Answer 9

• Chen et al. (2008) found activity in the premotor cortex increased across three
  conditions that involving listening to beat stimuli:
  1. Tapping along
  2. Listening with the intention of tapping along later
  3. Passive listening
• Activity increased the most in the ‘tapping along’ condition (followed by the
  listening with the intention of tapping along later)
• As with the last study, demonstrates a close link between the beat and movement

Question 10

Describe meter

Answer 10

the organization of beats into bars or measures (often accenting the
first beat in each bar)

Question 11

Describe metrical structure

Answer 11

can be created by accentuating in various ways (playing that note louder, with a stronger attack, etc.

Question 12

What is a duple meter?

Answer 12

1234, 1234, 1234, 1234
12, 12, 12, 12

Question 13

What is a triple meter?

Answer 13

123, 123, 123, 123