David Huron
Hearing Seminar, Stanford University.
January 23, 2003
Two major historical revolutions in Western music are analyzed from a cognitive perspective. One revolution is the displacement of the Medieval system of modes by the Renaissance major/minor system. An empirical study of Gregorian chant shows that, by the 12th century, the eight-fold system of modes was already poised to collapse into two general schemas -- the precursors of "major" and "minor." This phenomenon is akin to phonemic "merger" in linguistics.
A second musical revolution is associated with the advent of "Modernism." Three empirical studies are presented that examine the compositional strategies of Wagner, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. In each case, these composers created music consistent with a "reverse psychology" in which listener expectations were systematically transgressed: Wagner with respect to cadential expectations, Schoenberg with respect to tonal expectations, and Stravinsky with respect to metric expectations. Inexperienced listeners find these transgressions unsettling, but experienced listeners internalize this strategy and come to expect the unexpected.