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Perception and Familiarity of Diatonic Modes 352 Daphne Tan & David Temperley PERCEPTION AND FAMILIARITY OF DIATONIC MODES DAPHNE TAN (1990), where the perceived stability of pitches in a tonal Indiana University Jacobs School of Music context is strongly correlated with their frequency in musical corpora. Internalized scale frameworks play DAVID TEMPERLEY a role in many aspects of musical processing and Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester response, including expectation (Schellenberg, 1997), tension (Bigand & Parncutt, 1999), and completeness IN A PRIOR STUDY (TEMPERLEY &TAN, 2013), (Palmer & Krumhansl, 1987). A question arises here, participants rated the ‘‘happiness’’ of melodies in differ- however: What kind of scale system is most appropriate ent diatonic modes. A strong pattern was found, with for modeling this musical knowledge? Krumhansl’s happiness decreasing as scale steps were lowered. We widely used tone profiles are based on the major/minor wondered: Does this pattern reflect the familiarity of system of Western classical music. But present-day diatonic modes? The current study examines familiarity young adults—the population sampled in many music directly. In the experiments reported here, college stu- psychology experiments—listen to popular music much dents without formal music training heard a series of more than classical music, as recent studies have con- melodies, each with a three-measure beginning (‘‘con- firmed (The Echo Nest, 2015; Stratton & Zalanowski, text’’) in a diatonic mode and a one-measure ending that 2003). If we wish to characterize the scale structures that was either in the context mode or in a mode that differed are brought to bear in music perception, the classical from the context by one scale degree. Melodies were major/minor system is not the only possibility and not constructed using four pairs of modes with the same necessarily the most appropriate one. tonic: Lydian/Ionian, Ionian/Mixolydian, Dorian/Aeo- The study reported here examines the perception of lian, and Aeolian/Phrygian. Participants rated how well diatonic modes—pitch structures that may reflect the the ending ‘‘fit’’ the context. Two questions were of inter- experiences of many modern Western listeners better est: (1) Do listeners give higher ratings to some modes (as than classical scale structures. Before turning to the endings) overall? (2) Do listeners give a higher rating to experiments and results, we will present an overview the ending if its mode matches that of the context? The of diatonic modes and suggest how they might serve results show a strong main effect of ending, with Ionian as a test case for studying more general issues of music (major) and Aeolian (natural minor) as the most familiar cognition. We will also review a prior study on the (highly rated) modes. This aligns well with corpus data ‘‘happiness’’ of diatonic modes, which partly motivated representing the frequency of different modes in popular the current study. music. There was also a significant interaction between ending and context, whereby listeners rated an ending DIATONIC MODES higher if its mode matched the context. Our findings Figure 1 displays six diatonic modes as scales, starting suggest that (1) our earlier ‘‘happiness’’ results cannot on the tonic of C.1 Notice that each of these modes be attributed to familiarity alone, and (2) listeners with- contains a particular ordering of five whole-steps (W) out formal knowledge of diatonic modes are able to inter- and two half-steps (H); collectively, they are displayed in nalize diatonic modal frameworks. Figure 1 from relatively sharpest to relatively flattest. The pitch organization of Western art music of the Received: September 26, 2015, accepted June 27, 2016. common-practice period is usually described not in terms of diatonic modes but in relation to major and Key words: familiarity, diatonic modes, scales, emotion, minor keys. Diatonic modes and keys are related but not popular music 1 A seventh diatonic mode, Locrian, contains half-steps between the first T IS WIDELY ASSUMED THAT THE PERCEPTION OF and second scale degrees, and between the fourth and fifth scale degrees. It pitch organization—key, scale, harmony, and is the only diatonic mode that has a diminished fifth rather than a perfect I melody—is shaped by the listener’s experience. Evi- fifth above the tonic. It is rarely found in either Western art music or dence for this is found in the classic work of Krumhansl popular music, and we did not include it in the studies discussed here. Music Perception, VOLUME 34, ISSUE 3, PP. 352–365, ISSN 0730-7829, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1533-8312. © 2017 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLEASE DIRECT ALL REQUESTS FOR PERMISSION TO PHOTOCOPY OR REPRODUCE ARTICLE CONTENT THROUGH THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS’S REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS WEB PAGE, HTTP://WWW.UCPRESS.EDU/JOURNALS.PHP?P¼REPRINTS. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/MP.2017.34.3.352 Perception and Familiarity of Diatonic Modes 353 FIGURE 1. The six diatonic modes employed in this study with a fixed tonic of C. Whole (W) and half (H) steps indicated. identical. In its scalar form, the major key shares the whether listeners can rapidly orient themselves to a dia- same pattern of half- and whole-steps as the Ionian tonic modal framework and use it to evaluate subse- mode. The minor key can be expressed through several quent melodic continuations. Our study also sheds different scalar orderings: natural minor, harmonic light on the relative familiarity of different diatonic minor, and melodic minor; additionally, melodic minor modes. Our interest in these issues stems partly from differs in its ascending and descending form. Only nat- a previous study on the emotional connotations of ural minor and the descending melodic minor corre- modes, which we now describe. spond to the Aeolian mode. Diatonic modes are widely used in modern Western “HAPPINESS” AND FAMILIARITY OF DIATONIC MODES popular music (further evidence for this will be pro- In an earlier study (Temperley & Tan, 2013), we inves- vided below); one need not have any specialized music tigated the perceived ‘‘happiness’’ of diatonic modes. training to encounter these pitch structures. The set of It is widely accepted that major and minor keys have modes can therefore serve as a test case for studying expressive implications, notably as ‘‘happy’’ and ‘‘sad,’’ more general issues of music cognition; namely the cog- respectively, and experimental studies have confirmed nitive representation and implicit learning of scale hier- this (Kastner & Crowder, 1990; Peretz, Gagnon, & Bou- archies. Existing research has demonstrated the chard, 1998). Several theories have been put forth to importance of learned scale structures for music percep- explain these associations. Based on these theories and tion in a range of systems and cultures, including clas- the relationship between modes and keys, we consid- sical major/minor scales (Krumhansl, 1990), North ered several predictions for the emotional connotations Indian ragas (Castellano, Bharucha, & Krumhansl, of diatonic modes. For instance, the ‘‘consonance’’ 1984), and Sami yoiks (Krumhansl et al., 2000). These hypothesis predicts that modes with major tonic triads studies have shown that listeners can quickly select the (Lydian, Ionian, Mixolydian) will be positively valenced, appropriate scale structure for a given stimulus. For while those with minor triads (Dorian, Aeolian, Phry- example, in evaluating the ‘‘fit’’ of pitches, listeners gian) will be negatively valenced. Another hypothesis, respond quite differently to major contexts than to based on the ‘‘height’’ of modes relative to each other, minor ones (Krumhansl, 1990). A study by Bartlett and predicts that modes will decrease in expressed happi- Dowling (1988) offers further evidence that familiar ness as flats are added (Lydian is happiest, Phrygian is scalar structures inform Western listeners’ perceptions least happy). Finally, we discussed the possibility that of melodies. The researchers found an asymmetry in the participants’ happiness ratings would be influenced by perceived similarity of melody pairs: when participants their familiarity with each of the modes. This hypothesis heard melodies in the order diatonic-nondiatonic, they predicts that Ionian would be perceived as the happiest perceived them as less similar than the same melodies in mode, since it is (arguably) the most familiar. It should the reverse order (nondiatonic-diatonic). The authors be noted that our 2013 experiment was specifically posit that a diatonic melody evokes a small set of alter- designed to probe emotional recognition rather than natives, among which the nondiatonic melody does not induction—the emotion that listeners perceived in belong. the melodies, rather than the one that they felt while In the present study, we examine listeners’ ability listening (Evans & Schubert, 2008; Gabrielsson, 2002). to discriminate among different scalar orderings of Familiarity has generally been found to influence felt the diatonic collection within melodic contexts. We ask rather than perceived emotion (Gaver & Mandler, 354 Daphne Tan & David Temperley A obtained a similar pattern of results, as shown in Figure 2b; in this case, all the pairwise differences were signif- icant except Lydian/Mixolydian. In this previous study, we assumed that in order to rate the emotional connotations of different modal melodies, listeners were implicitly differentiating among the diatonic modes. In the current study, we test this assumption. It is possible that, rather than hearing ‘‘in’’ modes, listeners were hearing each melody in a variant of the major key: that is, as a major-mode melody with chromatic notes. Indeed, as the dotted line in Figure 2a shows, the happiness of each mode corresponds fairly B closely to the number of scale degrees it shares with major (or Ionian). In our 2013 discussion, we suggested using a probe-tone methodology to tease apart these two possible explanations. For instance, after hearing a Mixolydian context melody, listeners should judge the ‘‘fit’’ of a 7ˆ probe tone higher than 7ˆ if they have inter- nalized the modal framework.
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