Shaping time in composition: Effects of expectancy contrast

Description

Many musicological works analyse the proportions of various composers’ pieces and show how significant structural points align with the mathematical concept of the Golden Section. Two well-known examples are Lendvai’s writing on Bartó k (1971) and Howat’s writing on Debussy (1983). However, the notion that these proportions are perceivable by the listener presupposes that the length of a section of
music will be perceived in absolute relation to another regardless of their musical content. This is problematic as many studies of perceived duration in music have shown that this can vary depending on properties of the music, the listening environment, an d the listener themselves (Phillips, 2022; Ziv & Omer, 2010).
Skybeam (2023) is a piece I have composed around a Golden Section model and is also designed to explore various theories of time perception which could impact a listener’s experience. These theories are Poynter’s (1983) segmentation model, the expectancy contrast theory of Jones and Boltz (1989), and attention-based models such as that of Block and Zakay (1996). Much of this research in how listeners perceive time in music could have significant implications for proportional compositional methods which will be discussed in relation to my piece.

Period	23 May 2023
Event title	PGR Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	ManchesterShow on map