in relation to others.As the piece unfolds,and over successive repeti-
tions,certain clues are abandoned and others are reinforced that define
groups of pitch and rhythm between which links are established.Here
again,the most stable clues that are repeated between groups in an adja-
cent or distant manner allow a larger structure to be constructed that
goes beyond grouping succession.
However,how can these clues,which in Deliège’s work allow the con-
stitution of the imprint in memory,give rise to a dynamic hierarchical
organization? To what extent do they also reflect the organization of ten-
sions and relaxations?
I have tried to provide an answer through the concepts of macrostruc-
ture and dynamic vectors.From the perceptual point of view,a tonal or
atonal musical piece is a hierarchy of changes,contrasts,and ruptures
perceived during listening.From the theoretical point of view this means,
first,that perceptual organization is a hierarchy of saliences in the sense
we have just defined,before being a syntactic functional hierarchy.
Second,this means that this perceptual organization is founded first of
all on temporal phenomena and not on phenomena having functional
value,such as successions or repetitions,ruptures or continuities,that we
would be tempted to designate by the concepts of strong prolongation,
weak prolongation,or lack of prolongation (contrasted prolongation) of
the GTTM.But the question arises of whether this perceptual hierarchy
of changes can be considered a hierarchy of relative saliences.What I
suggest is that the concept of salience is perhaps insufficient to explain
the dynamism of phenomena of succession or prolongation.That is why
I propose to define the macrostructure of a musical piece not from the
syntactic point of view but from a psychological point of view,as a
schema of the structuring of time;that is,as a reduction of temporal
structures of tension and relaxation of the musical piece,or rather,a
mental representation of the temporal progression of the musical piece.
In other words,a musical piece is first of all an ordering of auditory
events in time,and the macrostructure is a simplified type schema,a
priori an ordering that is filled later by concrete auditory events of which
the progression for the listener is thus more or less predictable.This pro-
gression can be defined as a structured and hierarchical succession of
tensions and relaxations.The Psychological Foundations of Macrostructure
The question now arises as to how the meaning of this progression might
be founded,cognitively and emotionally.It so happens that in the past
few years child psychologists have proposed relevant hypotheses.458 Michel Imberty