Part I: Hierarchical Structure in Music: Statistics, Structure, and Style

The seminar covers two quite independent projects. The first reviews a number of studies that demonstrate hierarchical organization in music, supporting the existence of non-local dependencies. These results have implications for both statistical analyses of music and statistical learning. It also invites comparisons between music and language.
The second project examines music-evoked autobiographical memories. Previous studies on music have found autobiographical memories and life-long preferences for music popular during late adolescence and early adulthood. Unexpectedly, in a study of young adults we find the same effects for music of their parents’ generation. A second survey traces how the intergenerational transfer effect changes over six generations.

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Carol Lynne Krumhansl is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. She is famous for her pioneering work on perception of musical tonality  and the establishment of the concept of tonal hierarchies. Later work addresses how music is perceived and remembered, understanding musical time and meter, perception of time, rhythmic synchronization. as well as emotional responses to music.  Recent research is using popular music and film to study memory representations and associated autobiographical memories.
Her book "Cognitive Foundations of Musical Pitch" is one of the most cited sources in music psychology.