François Madurell

Multidimensional scaling of emotional responses to music: The effect of musical expertise and of the duration of the excerpts

Musically trained and untrained listeners were required to listen to 27 musical excerpts and to group those that conveyed a similar emotional meaning (Experiment 1). The groupings were transformed into a matrix of emotional dissimilarity that was analysed through multidimensional scaling methods (MDS). A 3-dimensional space was found to provide a good fit of the data, with arousal and emotional valence as the primary dimensions. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the consistency of this 3-dimensional space using excerpts of only 1 second duration. The overall findings indicate that emotional responses to music are very stable within and between participants, and are weakly influenced by musical expertise and excerpt duration. These findings are discussed in light of a cognitive account of musical emotion.

Sensory versus cognitive components in harmonic priming.

This study investigated the strength of sensory and cognitive components involved in musical priming. In Experiment 1, the harmonic function of the target chord and the number of pitch classes shared by the prime sequence and the target chord were manipulated. In Experiment 2, the temporal course of sensory and cognitive priming was investigated. For both musician and nonmusician listeners, cognitive priming systematically overruled sensory priming even at fast and very fast tempi (300 ms and 150 ms per chord). Cognitive priming continued to challenge sensory priming processes at extremely fast tempo (75 ms per chord) but only for participants who began the experimental session with slower tempi. This outcome suggests that the cognitive component is a fast-acting component that competes with sensory priming.

À propos d'une approche didactique de l'analyse musicale : trois conditions nécessaires mais non suffisantes

Au cours de cette breve reflexion sur l’enseignement de l’analyse, nous aborderons trois points delicats. Le premier concerne la relation entre decision analytique et ecoute interieure. Cette question, cruciale lors d’une analyse d’une partition sans ecoute, se pose egalement lorsque qu’un nombre limite d’ecoutes est accorde. Le second aborde le cadre theorique : quel lien entre pratique analytique et theories du langage musical ? A quel moment et de quelle facon ces liens peuvent-ils se construire ? Le troisieme evoque le contexte institutionnel et son influence sur l’orientation de l’analyse. Lorsque l’une de ces trois questions est eludee, les conditions d’une approche didactique de l’analyse ne sont pas reunies et la recherche d’un consensus devient difficile.