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When listening to polyphonic music, we often perceive a melody as the figure against the ground of accompanying sounds. However, with repeated exposure, this figure–ground relationship may naturally shift, allowing the melody to recede into the ground. In a previous study, we found the consistent pattern of frontotemporal connectivity for the “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (TTLS) melody in the headings of two Variations (II and IV) in Mozart's 12 Variations, K. 265, indicating that the TTLS melody, but not the different lower voices, was the figure. However, the frontotemporal connectivity pattern may change in the same phrases repeating in the two variations. In the current study, we examined how frontotemporal connectivity changes in the repeated phrases. In the results, the frontotemporal connectivity pattern between the two variations changed in the final phrase after repeated passages. This suggests that the shift in the figure–ground relationship persists, with the TTLS melody becoming less prominent while the lower voices become relatively more prominent. Additionally, frontotemporal connectivity was strongly correlated with temporofrontal connectivity in the opposite direction. Finally, our data indicate that TTLS melody-based and sensory-based processes in response to a switched figure–ground relationship, are incorporated into the bidirectional connections between frontotemporal and temporofrontal connectivity. Our study highlights the brain's ability to reconfigure figure–ground relationships in the processing of musical voices.

We conducted four tests of the conjecture that higher musical pitch coincides with faster musical speeds in composition and performance. First, a ‘notewise’ examination of Western musical scores tested whether longer (i.e., slower) notes tend to have lower pitches. Results were genre-dependent, with three of six sampled styles exhibiting the predicted effect. A second study considered an independent sample of Western music part-by-part and found that lower musical voices tend to have significantly fewer notes than higher voices. The third study used instrumental recordings to directly measure event onset densities in notes per second. A strong correlation (rs = .74,p< .002) between performed note speed and an instrument’s pitch range (tessitura) was found. Finally, a fourth study indicated that Baroque ornaments are more likely to appear in higher musical parts. Considered together, these four studies suggest a pitch-speed relationship that is most evident when the methodology preserves the notion of musical ‘line.’ We outline several possible origins for the observed effect.

Three experimental studies suggest that music with more musical voices (highervoice multiplicity) tends to be perceived more positively. In the first experiment, participants heard brief extracts from polyphonic keyboard works representing conditions of one, two, three, or four concurrent musical voices. Two basic emotions (happiness and sadness) and two social emotions (pride and loneliness) were rated on a continuous scale. Listeners rated excerpts with higher voice multiplicity as sounding more happy, less sad, less lonely, and more proud. Results from a second experiment indicate that this effect might extend to positive and negative emotions more generally. In a third experiment, participants were asked to count (denumerate) the number of musical voices in the same stimuli. Denumeration responses corresponded closely with ratings for both positive and negative emotions, suggesting that a single musical feature or percept might play a role in both. Possible roles for both symbolic and psychoacoustic musical features are discussed.

The research contains: First: Introduction, study problem, study objectives, study importance, study, hypothesis, study limitations, study (steps-procedures) and study terms. Second: 1-Musical improvisation 2-educational Musical improvisation 3-the most important methods of improvisation music education. Third: The analytical framework Fourth: It includes: -Results and justifications of the study. -Recommendations. -References.

This chapter presents a few milestones in the history of musical voice processing. It presents some of the devices along the historical path taken by the vocoder through electronic music, from the 1970s until modern times. Like most instruments, vocoders can also be found in software form, as virtual machines. The chapter provides a few examples. Many of these software programs feature advanced functionality, combining vocoder, talkbox, transposer, and sound effects. The concept of vocoder immediately conjures up associations with two of its close relatives – talkbox and Auto‐Tune. Although often confused, these three technologies are not the same. Auto‐Tune is a software program that was originally created to correct the pitch of vocal tracks in 1997. Since then, it has grown into a full‐fledged vocal synthesis instrument, inspiring a whole new generation of voice processors.

This chapter contains sections titled: Venice's Public Statuary and the Grimani Family The Museum as Theatre The Grimani and their Statues on the Operatic Stage

The auditory environment typically contains several sound sources that overlap in time, and the auditory system parses the complex sound wave into streams or voices that represent the various sound sources. Music is also often polyphonic. Interestingly, the main melody (spectral/pitch information) is most often carried by the highest-pitched voice, and the rhythm (temporal foundation) is most often laid down by the lowest-pitched voice. Previous work using electroencephalography (EEG) demonstrated that the auditory cortex encodes pitch more robustly in the higher of two simultaneous tones or melodies, and modeling work indicated that this high-voice superiority for pitch originates in the sensory periphery. Here, we investigated the neural basis of carrying rhythmic timing information in lower-pitched voices. We presented simultaneous high-pitched and low-pitched tones in an isochronous stream and occasionally presented either the higher or the lower tone 50 ms earlier than expected, while leaving the other tone at the expected time. EEG recordings revealed that mismatch negativity responses were larger for timing deviants of the lower tones, indicating better timing encoding for lower-pitched compared with higher-pitch tones at the level of auditory cortex. A behavioral motor task revealed that tapping synchronization was more influenced by the lower-pitched stream. Results from a biologically plausible model of the auditory periphery suggest that nonlinear cochlear dynamics contribute to the observed effect. The low-voice superiority effect for encoding timing explains the widespread musical practice of carrying rhythm in bass-ranged instruments and complements previously established high-voice superiority effects for pitch and melody.

In this study we examine the effects of experience and culture on choral teachers’ description of choral tone across a range of genres. What does a “good” choral music performance sound like? Is there an objective standard of performance excellence, or is beauty in the eye of the beholder? In teacher preparation programs, choral directors in the United States have been taught to identify and teach particular, culturally-bounded standards of choral tone in their students. Choral directors evaluate their students’ voices along two dimensions: health and appropriateness. They discern and describe whether the student’s musical instrument—their voice—is producing sound in a healthy and non-damaging way. They also judge whether the style of their sound is appropriate for the music they are singing. However, teacher preparation programs do not provide common standards or lexicon for describing tone. This may increase implicit bias of individual directors, and inadvertently exacerbate ethnocentrism and harm students’ self-perception. Using a computational text analysis approach, we evaluate the content of open-ended survey responses from teachers, finding that the language used to describe and rate choral performance varies by experience, and by the choral selection (e.g., whether it is a traditional Western or non-Western song). We suggest that regularizing the terminology and providing common training through professional organizations can minimize potential bias and generate more systematic, precise use of qualitative descriptors of health and appropriateness, which will benefit students and teachers.