Expressive Microstructure in Music: A Preliminary Perceptual Assessment of Four Composers' "Pulses"

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Abstract
According to a provocative theory set forth by Manfred Clynes, there are composer-specific cyclic patterns of (unnotated) musical microstructure that, when discovered and realized by a performer, help to give the music its characteristic expressive quality. Clynes, relying mainly on his own judgment as an experienced musician, has derived such personal "pulses" for several famous composers by imposing time and amplitude perturbations on computer-controlled performances of classical music and modifying them until they converged on some optimal expression. To conduct a preliminary test of the general music lover's appreciation of such "pulsed" performances, two sets of piano pieces by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert, one in quadruple and the other in triple meter, were selected for this study. Each piece was synthesized with each composer's pulse and also without any pulse. These different versions were presented in random order to listeners of varying musical sophistication for preference judgments relative to the unpulsed version. There were reliable changes in listeners' pulse preferences across different composers' pieces, which affirms one essential prerequisite of Clynes' theory. Moreover, in several instances the "correct" pulse was preferred most, which suggests not only that these pulse patterns indeed capture composer- specific qualities, but also that listeners without extensive musical experience can appreciate them. In other cases, however, listeners' preferences were not as expected, and possible causes for these deviations are discussed.

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