Tonal Profiles of Artificial Scales: Implications for Music Learning

Music researchers have noted that structurally important tones in a melody are related to one another by perfect intervals (fifths and octaves) and occur frequently and in melody-final position. Here we ask whether the latter two cues—frequency and final position—have melodic significance for tone collections lacking perfect intervals. Three sets of melodies were generated from a whole-tone scale (C4-A#4). In one condition, E occurred both finally and most frequently. In another, E occurred infrequently but finally, while G# occurred most frequently. In a third condition, all tones occurred with equal frequency. Participants were briefly familiarized to one set of melodies, then heard each melody from the set, followed by each probe tone, creating a rating profile for each set. Participants in all conditions rated tones that had occurred in the melodies higher than tones that had not. Frequency and finality both exerted effects. Averaged ratings in each condition did not correlate significantly with Krumhansl and Kessler’s [7] major scale profiles, suggesting that ratings were not an artifact of familiarity with Western tonal music. The present work this shows effects of frequency and final position on note significance, without perfect interval relationships between the tones.