The effect of modulation and formal manipulation on perception of tonic closure by expert listeners

This study arises in response to previous research that calls into question the ability of musically trained listeners to perceive tonal closure in th e original tonic key. In our Experiment 1, 36 experienced musicians heard 1 2 randomly ordered excerpts from piano and orchestral works in three catego ries: nonmodulating, modulating to the dominant, modulating to a key other than the dominant. After hearing each excerpt, participants answered six qu estions, one of which asked whether the concluding key was the same as the initial one. Participants correctly answered this question at above-chance levels, with music academics (theorists and musicologists) more accurate th an other musicians. In Experiment 2, 33 experienced musicians heard MIDI pe rformances of six Handel keyboard compositions. On each trial, participants heard either the original composition or one of two variants with phrase u nits rearranged. Trials were quasi-randomly ordered so that an original and variant were not heard in succession. Three types of tonal motion resulted from our formal manipulation: the stimulus began and ended in the tonic ke y, began and ended in the dominant key, or began and ended in different key s. After hearing each work, participants answered seven questions, of which data were analyzed for three: whether the beginning and ending key were th e same, whether the harmonic structure conformed to stylistic expectations, and whether the final key was the tonic. Participants' accuracy on the beg inning/ending key question was no better than chance would predict; however listeners were able to discriminate between works that ended in the tonic key and those that did not. Unlike Experiment 1, we found no significant di fferences in accuracy between music academics and other musicians. Listener s generally found both the original and the manipulated compositions to con form to stylistic expectations, possibly because they attended to local har monic relationships rather than global ones.