musical concepts and audition (Niall Griffith )

Subject: musical concepts and audition
From:    Niall Griffith  <niall.griffith(at)UL.IE>
Date:    Thu, 15 May 1997 18:25:33 +0100

I was interested to read the posting by Steve McAdams (a month or so
ago) on concepts of pitch and Marie-Elisabeth Duchez's paper on greek
and medieval concepts of pitch. The recognition that cultural musical
concepts are distinct from our basic auditory abilities is not always
foremost in either computational or psychological models of
musical/auditory capacities.  We often seem to assume that our western
musical concepts are either universal or simply given. Can anyone
point me to other work done in this area - ie.

- on the relationship between cultural (explicit) notions of musical
elements or structure and "auditory cognition"

- the relationship between musical "dimensions" (pitch, rhythm,
timbre, etc.) - how these might reflect auditory "universals or
constraints" and impinge on cultural notions of music and musical
practice in different genres and forms?

Thanks.

Niall Griffith