Four experiments were performed to investigate the effect the musical training on the accuracy of musical interval estimation and its effect on the relationship between the melody perception and the musical scales with two groups of music major and no...
Four experiments were performed to investigate the effect the musical training on the accuracy of musical interval estimation and its effect on the relationship between the melody perception and the musical scales with two groups of music major and nonmajor students. Results to the experiments show, first, the estimation of the isolated simple musical intervals tend to be proportional to the physical frequency of sounds, and the music major group were able to estimate the musical interval sire accurately while the nonmajor group were inclined to overestimate or underestimate the interval sire. This implies that the musical interval representation of the music major is more finely differentiated than that of the nonmajor. Second, the perceived difference was greater when changes were made in the type of scale used in the melody, rather than in the major & minor modes. This suggests that melody contour, major & minor modes, and interval size are constrained by type of scale used. Third, the perception of method similarity is influenced by the differences in the semitone structure of the type of melody used, and pattern recognition of an atonal melody is more difficult than that of a tonal one. This implies that she perceptual representation structure of a tonal scale is inadequate for an atonal scale. Fourth, although melody perception is influenced by consonance of harmony when combining to the Korean pentatonic scale melody, the parallel harmony of the minor third was found to be better suited to the baseline melody than that of the major third. This suggest that type of scale used and the major & minor modes can affect the harmonic interval size suitable to a melody.