Discrimination of melodies from the first and fifth serials of the pentatonic scale

Abstract

A basic aspect of music is the scale or set of tones that is used to generate melodic and rhythmic patterns. There is one scale that has a prominent place in the music of many cultures. This scale, the pentatonic, dates back as far as 1300 B.C. and extends to the present. Data are presented on the discrimination of melodies randomly generated from the first and fifth serials of the pentatonic scale. The question is: does the part of the scale used to generate a melody give a distinct quality to the melody? The results show that such melodies can be discriminated independently of melodic line, rhythm, frequency range, and tone color. This suggests that melodies can be heard as being from two different serials, indicating that each of these serials possesses a quality, a tonality, that yields perceptually different melodies. The results are related to Orff’s theory of musical development. © 1979, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.