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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Memory of Familiar Melodies: Comparison Between Original and Transposed Keys
Sumi Shigeno
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2014.12.005
Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
The long-term memory for musical keys of familiar melodies was investigated. An experiment was conducted focusing on memory strength, music familiarity, and key transposition using musical pieces. Participants were eighty-one Japanese undergraduate and graduate students. Eight were absolute pitch (AP) possessors and seventy-three were non-AP possessors. Two pieces of well-known classical music were selected as stimuli. These pieces were played in seven different keys: One was an original key and the other six were transposed keys in which the linear distance and harmonic distance were varied. Participants rated their strength of long-term memory for a particular segment of well-known music by comparing it with their memory of this piece. Importantly they were not required to identify the musical key of the melody. Results indicated that the strength of memory for these musical segments depended mainly on the pitch range associated with the transposed piece and partially on its key. We discussed participants’ memory of melodies in the light of linear distance between original and transposed keys, harmonic distance between these factors, and the possibility of absolute tonality.
musical key, memory of melodies, absolute tonality, transposition, long-term memory
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