A new method for assessing consistency of real-time identification of phrase-parts and its initial application

ABSTRACT A method is developed with the aims of: 1) providing an assessment of selfand inter-listener consistency of key presses, represented along a timeline, in response to the musical listening task of identifying the beginning of phrases in a piece, 2) identifying an ‘interpretation’ for each listener, and 3) using these to identify groups of responses. This method leads to the quantitative identification of areas of phrase starts as perceived by groups of listeners. In the course of the method’s development, questions of how to categorise ‘similar’ or ‘different’ responses are also explored. The results indicate that this method can be usefully applied to listeners’ online phrase-identification responses.