Modern theories of melody start always with the presupposition that the
scale must be composed of tones having the simple mathematical relation
to one another of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (and by Meyer 7) and their multiples
in order to give pleasant combinations of successive tones. But the
question arises whether other tone-combinations which given together
appear disharmonious may not, by their mere acoustical difference,
similarity, and contrast, awake definite feelings of pleasure. And
if such feeling-tones exist independently from harmony it is evident
that they would enter into every melody in addition to the strictly
musical feelings of harmony and that they deserve consideration as a
factor of music. It would not even appear impossible that if every
successive tone-distance has its particular natural feeling-character,
the distances of successive harmonious tones might be only through
secondary factors as habit and training preëminent among the various
possibilities of combinations. A tone-consciousness, which under the
guidance of experiences of harmony has been trained in our musical
tone-relations, must give instinctive preference to such successions
as our melodies offer. But if we artificially inhibit the conscious
relation to our musical system by introducing a continuous tone-series,
or at least one of steps much smaller than musical intervals, do
we destroy the possibility of pleasure, and if not, do we find the
pleasure in the musical interval stronger than that in other instances?
That even the musical subject introduced into the realm of smallest
tone-steps can easily forget and inhibit his normal standards is well
known; the whole acoustical perspective seems changed by the new
intervals, and the subject begins at once to build up a new temporary
system of relations. The experiments in Wundt's laboratory have shown
that in such cases the theoretical judgment of distances is indeed
quite different from the standardized one; the octave may appear
equal to the higher fifth. I wanted to study in a similar way the
feeling-value in such a state of musical disorientation, when all
imaginative representations of our musical intervals are inhibited.
The instrument I used was an Appun Tonmesser giving reed-tones from 128
to 512 vibrations in intervals of 4 vibrations between adjacent tones.
The intervals with which I experimented varied from 4 to 88 vibrations
in steps of 4. The observers were all experimental psychologists, and
varied in musical discrimination from a very low to a very high degree
of natural ability and skill.
The observer reported his pleasure in the progression given, in the
traditional grades of 1 to 7, where 1 represents the greatest degree
of pleasure, 2 means very pleasant, 3 pleasant, 4 indifferent, 5
unpleasant, 6 very unpleasant, and 7 most unpleasant of all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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