One proposal is that we form a vague (consistent with many possibilities) model of what the musician is likely to do next, and enjoy it when the model feels accurate.
Andrew Hickey said:
I suspect actually the opposite is true—that we enjoy it when our expectations are subverted, but in a way that makes sense after the fact, like a joke.
I’m not where I can give you more detail right now, but interestingly (and kind of maddeningly) these positions are both correct; current psychological models of responses to music include both prediction mechanisms which experience gratification when they are proven correct (Manfred) and other “imaginative” mechanisms which find it arousing when expected events are delayed or when unexpected events occur (Andrew). Obviously, the interplay between these opposed mechanisms accounts for much of the complexity of the human response to music. The current standard text in the field is David Huron’s Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation (MIT 2006). This isn’t my area, but I will be happy to provide more information when I can consult my references later, if this would be of general interest.
What I find unsatisfying about the “imaginative” notion is that it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that these “surprising” things are still enjoyable, and arguably more so, after we learn to expect them. I do think (introspectively) that the notion has a good bit of merit, but I’d be more inclined to describe these events as clever subversions of the model/context/grammar they’re embedded in, rather than succeeding by actually “surprising” the listener.
I’d love to hear whether and how the examples above tackle this issue. And I cast my vote for “interested” in general.
I think that’s exactly right. My sense is that we retain a certain ability to hear “surprising” events as “surprising with respect to general musical syntax” even once we’ve learned to hear them as “not surprising in the specific context of a piece of music we’ve heard many times.” The repeatability of musical experience pretty much demands that this be the case.
Thanks for your interest, I’ll be glad to post a synopsis of Huron’s book as soon as I can find the time.
Perhaps it’s like Flow, people like it when they’re good at predicting the next sequence but not too near perfect. This has been my model for some time now.
Maybe so, I don’t know. I recall that Huron suggests that the expectation/imagination responses are actually neurologically distinct from one another; I’ll have to review his text later to see what his evidence is for that, instead of for a single algorithm like you suggest.
Manfred said:
Andrew Hickey said:
I’m not where I can give you more detail right now, but interestingly (and kind of maddeningly) these positions are both correct; current psychological models of responses to music include both prediction mechanisms which experience gratification when they are proven correct (Manfred) and other “imaginative” mechanisms which find it arousing when expected events are delayed or when unexpected events occur (Andrew). Obviously, the interplay between these opposed mechanisms accounts for much of the complexity of the human response to music. The current standard text in the field is David Huron’s Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation (MIT 2006). This isn’t my area, but I will be happy to provide more information when I can consult my references later, if this would be of general interest.
What I find unsatisfying about the “imaginative” notion is that it doesn’t seem to account for the fact that these “surprising” things are still enjoyable, and arguably more so, after we learn to expect them. I do think (introspectively) that the notion has a good bit of merit, but I’d be more inclined to describe these events as clever subversions of the model/context/grammar they’re embedded in, rather than succeeding by actually “surprising” the listener.
I’d love to hear whether and how the examples above tackle this issue. And I cast my vote for “interested” in general.
I think that’s exactly right. My sense is that we retain a certain ability to hear “surprising” events as “surprising with respect to general musical syntax” even once we’ve learned to hear them as “not surprising in the specific context of a piece of music we’ve heard many times.” The repeatability of musical experience pretty much demands that this be the case.
Thanks for your interest, I’ll be glad to post a synopsis of Huron’s book as soon as I can find the time.
Perhaps it’s like Flow, people like it when they’re good at predicting the next sequence but not too near perfect. This has been my model for some time now.
Maybe so, I don’t know. I recall that Huron suggests that the expectation/imagination responses are actually neurologically distinct from one another; I’ll have to review his text later to see what his evidence is for that, instead of for a single algorithm like you suggest.
I actually know very little about this topic. I was just drawing an analogy, I don’t have any opinion on whether there there is a single algorithm.
I am definitely interested in hearing more about this, though.