Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

The Musical Timespace

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Fig 5.2

The note (0) is a symbol that represents the complex timbral quality of a

sound produced by a rounded felt hammer striking three tense metal

strings which evoke resonances in a wooden soundboard of a particular

form. The predominance of harmonically related partials in the sound

induces auditory perceptual processing in the ear and brain to focus at a

comparatively well-defined pitch height, named middle C, or C4. The

sound is perceived in two dimensions simultaneously, the piano timbre

quality and the focusing quality of pitch height.

The notes (1) represent two timbral qualities produced simultaneously

by the piano mechanism and resonance. The resulting sound is perceived

in three dimensions simultaneously, the piano timbre quality plus the

focusing qualities of two pitch heights plus an emergent quality, the

quality of harmonic color. The harmonic color of this particular sound is

the specific transparent color named the interval of a fifth.

The following examples of interaction between piano tones each

display a particular emergent harmonic color. (2) and (3) produce par-

ticularly rich and sharp colors, (4) and (5) comparatively soft and trans-

parent colors; (6) and (7) display the saturated colors known as the major

and minor triads of tonal music.

Major and minor chords played on a piano are complex timbral quali-

ties which are perceived in three dimensions simultaneously, the piano

timbre quality plus the focusing qualities of three pitch heights plus the

emergent quality of a specific harmonic color.

Harmony emerges as a secondary listening dimension between the source-specific

quality of timbre and the focusing quality of pitch height.

The addition of other keyboard tones increases the complexity of the inter-

actions, as heard in (8) (9) (10) (11) and (12). As the complexity is increased,

the pitch heights of the piano tones lose their focusing quality, and a

gradual transition from simple harmonic color to complex harmonic color

takes place. In (11) and (12), the pitch heights of the piano tones are not

heard separately any more; they merge in the specific fused colors of tone

complexes. These complex sounds are not perceived in three dimensions,

but in two, the piano timbre quality plus the specific fused harmonic color.

This is a crucial phenomenon. The piano timbre and the pitch heights are

distinct qualities. When a sufficient number of tones are played close

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5 – Microtemporal listening dimensions: Timbre, Harmony and Pitch height

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together, the single tones lose their distinctness, merging in a diffuse

quality of harmonic color. Distinct salience is superseded by diffuse, space-

filling presence.

The possibility of gradual transitions and fusions between timbre, pitch

height and harmonic color reveals the continuity underlying these listen-

ing dimensions. Their relationship is shown in the graphic model Fig. 5.3.

Fig. 5.3. The microtemporal timbre-harmony-pitch height continuum

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