This chapter considers the benefits of uncertainty for the development of improvisations and their novelty. Uncertainty is used both in a general sense, reflecting the participants’ awareness, and in the specific senses of information theory, reflecting statistical probability of an event and its separable uncertainty (indicating the degree of confidence one would justifiably have about that probability). Examples from several different musical components, such as compositional pre-structure, melody, rhythm, and pitch are discussed, alongside consideration of hyperimprovisation, metamusic, and human-controlled or autonomous machine improvisers, where performers are complemented by computational partners. Music from Louis Couperin to Miles Davis and the author’s group LYSIS is analyzed. Social interactions are discussed as a critical additional layer influencing uncertainty in improvised performance. The discussions are juxtaposed and integrated with a series of quotations from a trio of novels by Nathaniel Mackey, concerning a fictitious improvising ensemble.

This work aimed to objectively (mainly computationally) measure the extent to which 68 older adult novices developed specific musical abilities. The participants learned aural and keyboard performance skills in a 12-month online course with an expert piano teacher, spending six months each on a digital piano keyboard and an iPad virtual piano. Within each 6 months, 3 were devoted successively to each of melodic replication and improvisation. Teaching sought correctness of pitches/sequences (for replication), and introduction of systematic diversity thereof (for improvisation). We measured aural perception using melody detection and beat alignment tests; and replication and improvisation learning using computational measures of MIDI-recordings. Bayesian modelling showed that melody detection, replication and improvisation were learned successfully and seemingly progressively, while beat detection, and rhythmic precision in replication, which were not our focus, were not. These skills were retained over a 6-month follow-up period. Improvisation teaching was the bigger predictor of melody detection, and replication teaching of replication performance. Potential applications for these findings in learning contexts are discussed.

This article describes a personal music recommender system designed to overcome the "cold start" problem that affects the visibility of recent works of composition and improvisation outside popular music. The approach builds upon the authors' experimental results showing increased levels of engagement with unfamiliar music through a focus on acoustic properties and emotional response. Set in the context of a digital music library, the developed recommender feature provides two visual acoustic representations of a musical work and allows users to record their continuous affect responses. These interface elements are designed to invoke the behaviors observed in the authors' experiments: i.e., to keep visitors engaged with the online resource for longer periods and motivate them to experience a broader range of music.

Personalised creative computational or manual/performative exploration and perceptual experimentation with the basic sonic and structural materials of music can initiate novel expression. We propose a generalised metacultural approach that can encourage this process, while secondarily readying its users for intercultural music-making. Amongst such basic mutable musical elements we distinguish six: rhythm, pitch, timbre, dynamics, hierarchical structure and creator-interaction, each with their attendant structuring processes that anyone in any culture might consider as tools of expression. Formed cultures differ in their ranges of expectations as to stylistic fixity or flux; metaculture can freely choose its type and degree of variability. We propose five general exploratory principles, converting: discrete categories into usable continua; linearities or sequences into non-linearities or re-orderings; separations into overlays or vice versa (in space, time and other respects); or using: partial randomisation; and novel hierarchies. All the approaches we propose are susceptible to computational application, while most are underutilised. We present brief surveys of cognition of each of the sonic materials, illustrating that much remains only partially researched (whereas some dogma is often meekly accepted). This in turn supports the view that practical exploration by musicians can provide perceptible and usable creative innovations. We discuss briefly the sociocultural implications of such a novel generalised exploratory metaculture, likely requiring corresponding cognitive learning and adaptation. We conclude that in any current environment one could strive both to respect traditions and cultural sensitivities, and to evolve new musics.

We provide evidence that the roughness of chords-a psychoacoustic property resulting from unresolved frequency components-is associated with perceived musical stability (operationalized as finishedness) in participants with differing levels and types of exposure to Western or Western-like music. Three groups of participants were tested in a remote cloud forest region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and two groups in Sydney, Australia (musicians and non-musicians). Unlike prominent prior studies of consonance/dissonance across cultures, we framed the concept of consonance as stability rather than as pleasantness. We find a negative relationship between roughness and musical stability in every group including the PNG community with minimal experience of musical harmony. The effect of roughness is stronger for the Sydney participants, particularly musicians. We find an effect of harmonicity-a psychoacoustic property resulting from chords having a spectral structure resembling a single pitched tone (such as produced by human vowel sounds)-only in the Sydney musician group, which indicates this feature's effect is mediated via a culture-dependent mechanism. In sum, these results underline the importance of both universal and cultural mechanisms in music cognition, and they suggest powerful implications for understanding the origin of pitch structures in Western tonal music as well as on possibilities for new musical forms that align with humans' perceptual and cognitive biases. They also highlight the importance of how consonance/dissonance is operationalized and explained to participants-particularly those with minimal prior exposure to musical harmony.

Abstract Experiences of modulated temporality commonly accompany musical listening, but how music can produce experiences of modulated temporality as it unfolds in real time remains obscure. This chapter discusses psychophysical relationships between ‘real-time’ trajectories of musical/sonic parameters and listeners’ experiences of musical time and timelessness. It reports selected findings from an empirical study focusing on listeners’ responses to two excerpts from Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum, a piece in which the composer deliberately employs different temporalities. This is in keeping with the current volume’s themes of relations between music and temporal experiences, the interplay between objective and subjective senses of time, and, more broadly and speculatively, the psychological models of time as they relate to human perceptual processes and associated states of consciousness.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many cultural and artistic programs for older adults have been put on hold, despite the numerous physical, social, and emotional well-being benefits continued participation may bring. This article details a cross-section of participants ( n = 13) in the Active Minds Music Ensemble—a longitudinal Australian-based research project that provides 12 months of group music instrument lessons to healthy older adult novices—who transitioned from face-to-face (F2F) to an online format. Research questions include the benefits and challenges for older adults as they cope with the technological demands of “going online,” perceived effects on teaching and older adults’ musical learning, as well as perceived effects on group learning benefits. Qualitative data were collected from three different perspectives: i) a frequently asked questions (FAQ) report from the research team documenting technological issues, ii) individual semi-structured interviews with the participants, and iii) a reflective report from the teacher. The findings confirm that online group music instrument lessons are viable for and valued by older adults, with appreciation of continued technical support. Teaching and learning changed as a result of the online format, primarily in the reduction of individual feedback and less interplay between participants; this was mitigated by use of various functions such as chat, whiteboards, and breakout rooms. Implications for older adult online music instrument lessons include providing continued technical support to learners and helping them maintain confidence with technology. Social opportunities for informal “side-chatter” may also help them to empathize with and encourage each other during music learning activities.

Sixty-nine participants made continuous response judgments of perceived arousal and valence while listening to 30-s extracts of 100 unfamiliar pieces within a novel recommender system. Our purpose was to take advantage of the relatively large number of participants and pieces studied (compared with prior work on time series analysis [TSA] of continuous affective responses to music) to test the generality of the deductions made from prior evidence in smaller studies. Accordingly, we expected highly autoregressive responses, and hypothesized that acoustic intensity fluctuation would be a major (population-wide, fixed-effect) predictor of arousal and to a lesser degree valence responses in multivariate models, operating in conjunction with broad features of the spectral profile of the music (such as spectral flatness and centroid). We expected considerable interparticipant variability and were interested in the degree to which there was also interpiece variability (both being features of group-specific, random effects). The basic expectations were supported, and we also demonstrated, partly by means of a novel use of cluster analysis, that the observed group variabilities in response features could not be readily attributed to indices of a range of participant-preference and piece-feature characteristics, determined prior to the experiments. A Bayesian analysis was developed, possibly for the first time in the TSA of continuous affect responses to music, since it provides a more comprehensive description of the parameters of the analysis (not only their best estimate point values) and their effects, and a comprehensive range of tests for meaningful effects.

Prior investigations of simple rhythms in familiar time signatures have shown the importance of several mechanisms; notably, those related to metricization and grouping. But there has been limited study of complex rhythms, including those in unfamiliar time signatures, such as are found outside mainstream Western music. Here, we investigate how the structures of 91 rhythms with nonisochronous onsets (mostly complex, several in unfamiliar time signatures) influence the accuracy, velocity, and timing of taps made by participants attempting to synchronize with these onsets. The onsets were piano-tone cues sounded at a well-formed subset of isochronous cymbal pulses; the latter occurring every 234 ms. We modelled tapping at both the rhythm level and the pulse level; the latter provides insight into how rhythmic structure makes some cues easier to tap and why incorrect (uncued) taps may occur. In our models, we use a wide variety of quantifications of rhythmic features, several of which are novel and many of which are indicative of underlying mechanisms, strategies, or heuristics. The results show that, for these tricky rhythms, taps are disrupted by unfamiliar period lengths and are guided by crude encodings of each rhythm: the density of rhythmic cues, their circular mean and variance, and recognizing common small patterns and the approximate positions of groups of cues. These lossy encodings are often counterproductive for discriminating between cued and uncued pulses and are quite different to mechanisms-such as metricization and emphasizing group boundaries-thought to guide tapping behaviours in learned and familiar rhythms.

Perceived relationships between timbres are critical in electroacoustic music. Most studies assume timbres have fixed inter-relationships, but we tested whether distinct tasks change these. Thirty short sounds were used, from five categories: acoustic instruments, impulse responses, convolutions of the preceding, environmental sounds and computer-manipulated instrumental sounds. In Task 1, 46 non-musicians formed a ‘cohesive’ sonic ordering of unlabelled icons (sounds attached). In Task 2, they categorised the icons into four boxes. In Task 3 listeners separately ordered the sounds from each of Task 2’s boxes using the approach of Task 1. Tasks 1 and 2/3 revealed distinct orderings, consistent with conceptual flexibility. To analyse the orderings, we replaced conventional distance by adjacency measures, and described each system as a network (rather than spatial positions), confirming that the two task outcomes were distinct. Network analyses also showed that the two systems were mechanistically distinct and allowed us to predict temporally changing networks, modelling the observed networks as successive perceptions. Further simulated networks generated with the temporal model readily encompassed all possible pairings between the sounds and not just those we observed. The temporal network model thus confirms conceptual flexibility even in untrained listeners, clearly suitable for a composer to use.

We present computational analyses of musical performances during 12-months study by novice participants aged 65–80. They learned two instruments (an electronic piano keyboard; the iPad app ThumbJam) each with two distinct approaches: replication by ear of melodies, and improvisation using specified methods. Here we present computational simulations and analyses of such processes and the corresponding R script. Using MIDI recordings from one participant group, we reveal diverse performance levels. Our tools are apt to analyse of our full dataset and potentially other assessments of early musical learning. The code can readily be developed for more advanced learners.

Experiments where participants synchronise their taps to rhythmic cues are often used to study human perception and performance of rhythms. This experimental study is novel in two regards: The cyclic rhythms (non-isochronous patterns of cues) presented to participants were more challenging than usual (including many from unfamiliar time signatures), and we have modelled participants’ performance via a conditional point process. Point processes are well suited to describing partly random sequences of events, but have rarely been used previously to model tapping experiments, the only other study we know being Cannon (2021). Our model uses continuous functional parameters to describe participants’ responses to auditory stimuli with much finer temporal resolution than in previous studies. Taking account of both the clock and the dynamic attention theories of sensorimotor synchronisation, we assessed the time course of the propensity to tap within each cycle at a resolution of less than 13ms, identifying the influence of cues on the tapping propensity and the progress of learning their rhythmic patterns. We also sought to determine the trajectory of the putative refractory period (feedback inhibition of tapping) after each tap, and assessed the distribution of tap-cue asynchronies in a more finely resolved manner than usual. Our models also indicated complex kinetics of the feedback over about 100ms.

Affective responses to music have been shown to be influenced by the psychoacoustic features of the acoustic signal, learned associations between musical features and emotions, and familiarity with a musical system through exposure. The present article reports two experiments investigating whether short-term exposure has an effect on valence and consonance ratings of unfamiliar musical chords from the Bohlen-Pierce system, which are not based on a traditional Western musical scale. In a pre- and post-test design, exposure to positive, negative and neutral chord types was manipulated to test for an effect of exposure on liking. In this paradigm, short-term ("mere") exposure to unfamiliar chords produced an increase only in valence ratings for negative chords. In neither experiment did it produce an increase in valence or pleasantness ratings for other chord types. Contrast effects for some chord types were found in both experiments, suggesting that a chord's affect (i.e., affective response to the chord) might be emphasised when the chord is preceded by a stimulus with a contrasting affect. The results confirmed those of a previous study showing that psychoacoustic features play an important role in the perception of music. The findings are discussed in light of their psychological and musical implications.

Music is a vital part of most cultures and has a strong impact on emotions [1–5]. In Western cultures, emotive valence is strongly influenced by major and minor melodies and harmony (chords and their progressions) [6–13]. Yet, how pitch and harmony affect our emotions, and to what extent these effects are culturally mediated or universal, is hotly debated [2, 5, 14–20]. Here, we report an experiment conducted in a remote cloud forest region of Papua New Guinea, across several communities with similar traditional music but differing levels of exposure to Western-influenced tonal music. One hundred and seventy participants were presented with pairs of major and minor cadences (chord progressions) and melodies, and chose which of them made them happier. The experiment was repeated by 60 non-musicians and 19 musicians in Sydney, Australia. Bayesian analyses show that, for cadences, there is strong evidence that greater happiness was reported for major than minor in every community except one: the community with minimal exposure to Western-like music. For melodies, there is strong evidence that greater happiness was reported for those with higher mean pitch (major melodies) than those with lower mean pitch (minor melodies) in only one of the three PNG communities and in both Sydney groups. The results show that the emotive valence of major and minor is strongly associated with exposure to Western-influenced music and culture, although we cannot exclude the possibility of universality.

Unlike a physical grand piano, a physical synthesis instrument, such as one of Pianoteq's series of grand pianos, is not necessarily constrained at any moment to a single tuning system. This article discusses why a system using discrete piano pitches (not sliding pitches) chosen freely among the audible pitch continuum presents interesting musical and expressive possibilities. Audio and video of compositions and an improvisation exploiting the system demonstrate its potential and a performing interface for it.

While accompanying or contextualizing information ("framing") is often included alongside music, prior research on the impact of framing on music preference has produced heterogeneous results. Most of these studies have examined historical framing, although a small subset has suggested that imaginative framing may have an understudied potential to increase preference. In such studies the participants are encouraged to freely use their imagination while listening. The present work directly compared these 2 approaches to framing to examine which has greater positive impact on preference. One hundred and fifty-two participants were exposed to 5 varied music excerpts (Pop/Rock and Classical), with participants placed into 1 of 3 conditions. Those in the historical condition were supplied with initial historical framing and were encouraged to freely search online for information related to the piece while listening to it (hence guided self-framing), whereas those in the imaginative condition were encouraged to freely use their imagination while listening. Those in a third, "unrelated" control condition were encouraged to choose an online game (selected from a provided list) while listening. Bayesian modeling was used to examine preference ratings by piece and condition. Historical framing led to higher preference than the control for 4 of 5 pieces, while imaginative framing led to higher preference than the control for 2 pieces. Additionally, those receiving historical framing rated preference higher for pieces that had a greater amount of information readily available online. Thus, historical framing most benefited preference, although we discuss limitations and future directions for research on guided self-framing.

The extent to which emotional responses to musical elements are influenced by their past associations with specific emotional responses is largely unknown. To assess this possibility, the present study tested whether pairing positive, negative, or neutral chords from an unfamiliar musical system (a microtonal Bohlen–Pierce tuning) with positively or negatively valenced pictures would have an effect on subsequent liking ratings. The microtonal chords used in this experiment had been previously rated, independent of any other affective input, in an earlier experiment; this allows us to class each chord as intrinsically positive, negative, or neutral. It was found that exposure with an image increases liking ratings independent of the valence of the images, compared with no exposure which supports a mere exposure effect; but, interestingly, we did not find substantial evidence for evaluative conditioning. Results are discussed in light of theoretical accounts of evaluative conditioning and musical implications.

Production of relatively few rhythms with non-isochronous beats has been studied. So we assess reproduction of most well-formed looped rhythms comprising K=2-11 cues (a uniform piano tone, indicating where participants should tap) and N=3-13 isochronous pulses (a uniform cymbal). Each rhythm had two different cue interonset intervals. We expected that many of the rhythms would be difficult to tap, because of ambiguous non-isochronous beats and syncopations, and that complexity and asymmetry would predict performance. 111 participants tapped 91 rhythms each heard over 129 pulses, starting as soon as they could. Whereas tap-cue concordance in prior studies was generally >> 90%, here only 52.2% of cues received a temporally congruent tap, and only 63% of taps coincided with a cue. Only −2 ms mean tap asynchrony was observed (whereas for non-musicians this value is usually c. −50 ms). Performances improved as rhythms progressed and were repeated, but precision varied substantially between participants and rhythms. Performances were autoregressive and mixed effects cross-sectional time series analyses retaining the integrity of all the individual time series revealed that performance worsened as complexity features K, N, and cue inter-onset interval entropy increased. Performance worsened with increasing R, the Long: short (L: s) cue interval ratio of each rhythm (indexing both complexity and asymmetry). Rhythm evenness and balance, and whether N was divisible by 2 or 3, were not useful predictors. Tap velocities positively predicted cue fulfilment. Our data indicate that study of a greater diversity of rhythms can broaden our impression of rhythm cognition.

Music is a vital part of most cultures and has a strong impact on emotions. In Western cultures, emotive valence (happiness and sadness) is strongly influenced by major and minor melodies and harmony (chords and their progressions). Yet, how pitch and harmony affect our emotions, and to what extent these effects are culturally mediated or universal, is hotly debated. Here, we report an experiment conducted in a remote cloud forest region of Papua New Guinea, across several communities with similar traditional music but differing levels of exposure to Western-influenced tonal music. One hundred and seventy participants were presented with pairs of major and minor cadences (chord progressions) and melodies, and chose which of them made them happier. The experiment was repeated by 60 non-musicians and 19 musicians in Sydney, Australia. Bayesian analyses show that, for cadences, there is strong evidence that major induced greater reported happiness than minor in every community except one: the community with minimal exposure to Western-like music. For melodies, there is strong evidence that those with higher mean pitch (major melodies) induced greater happiness than those with lower mean pitch (minor melodies) in only one of the three PNG communities and in both Sydney groups. The results show that the emotive valence of major and minor is strongly associated with exposure to Western-influenced music and culture, and there is no evidence for universality.