Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

The Musical Timespace

98

Melody is the spatial shape of movement

When the movement of sound is related to a pattern of pitch intervals,

melody arises. Findings of W. Jay Dowling based on melody recognition

experiments shed light on this phenomenon. Dowling has developed a
two-component theory of melody, stating that

actual melodies, heard or sung, are the product of two kinds of

underlying schemata. First, there is the melodic contour - the pattern

of ups and downs - that characterizes a particular melody. Second,

there is the overlearned musical scale to which the contour is applied

and that underlies many different melodies. It is as though the scale

constituted a ladder or a framework on which the ups and downs of

the contour were hung. (Dowling, 1978)

This is a description of the interaction taking place when the movement of

sound in the sound height continuum is met with the process of perceptual

focusing on discrete pitches.

An overlearned musical scale is stored in long-term memory, from

where it can be recalled as an expectation of a certain pattern of pitch inter-

vals.

When a movement of sound is heard, its variation of sound height is

experienced in working memory and compared with one or several

well-known interval patterns stored in long-term memory. The selection of

interval patterns available for comparison depends on the previous

musical experience of the individual.

If the movement of sound seems to fit into a well-known interval
pattern, it is heard as a familiar kind of melody. If it does not seem to fit

into a well-known pattern, the movement of sound is heard as "out of

tune" or "a strange kind of melody", or as sound without a melody.

If the movement of a sonorous form can be adapted to a familiar fram-

ework of pitch intervals, it can be memorized as a melodic contour. If it

cannot be adapted to a framework of intervals, it can be memorized as a

sound shape.

Melody arises as a secondary listening dimension between the basic dimen-

sions movement and pitch height. Rhytm arises as

a secondary listening dimension between the basic dimensions movement

and pulse. Harmony arises as a secondary listening

dimension between the basic dimensions timbre and pitch height.

The relationships between these three secondary dimensions and the

five basic dimensions are shown in the model Fig. 6.5. The memorized

representations of the basic dimensions are indicated in the model.

6 – Macrotemporal listening dimensions: Movement, Pulse, Rhythm and Melody

99

Fig. 6.5. Five basic and three secondary listening dimensions.

Memorized representations are indicated in italics.