Unit 10.1

Question 1

Psychologists

Answer 1

Interested in studying features of the human mind
- not influenced by culture constraints

Question 2

Musicologists

Answer 2

Focus more on culture specificity

Question 3

Challenges of cross-cultural research

Answer 3

1. comfort zone (researchers stick to music they are most comfortable with)
2. difficulty finding participants (ie. non-western participants shouldn’t have been exposed to western music)
3. historical claims on western music being ‘better’
   - barrier not a challenge
   - impacted previous research

Question 4

Pitch patterns

Answer 4

Tonal material = large set of pitches from which scales are constructed

Spacing varies across different cultures (not always even)
- Indian tonal music is unevenly spaced
- Indian and Arabic music both include smaller pitch intervals

Question 5

Consonance & Dissonance
- Tsimane’ study & results

Answer 5

• Tsimane’ in a remote village in the Amazon rainforest
• harmony, polyphony and group performances are by all accounts absent from their music
  Consonant & dissonant sounds were played and they were asked to differentiate between the two
  Results
• were able to differentiate (exhibited western-like discrimination abilities)
• they had no preference for either (rated c and d chords and vocal harmonies as equally pleasant)