Listener Preferences and Early Repetition in Musical Form Joy Ollen and David Huron School of Music, Ohio State University ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to determine listeners’ preferences for patterns of successive repetition in musical form. Twenty-nine musically sophisticated and naïve participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task in which they selected the “most musical” composition from pairs of stimuli that differed only with respect to form-related repetition. Compositions were comprised of two or three randomly- selected discrete musical passages specifically composed for the experiment. For each of the 44 trials, compositions of the same length and using the same musical passages were paired together. Paired compositions differed only in that one exhibited patterns of successive repetition that decreased over the course of the work and the other exhibited patterns that increased. Results from a preliminary analysis indicate that listeners prefer “early repetition” forms over “late repetition” forms. These results are consistent with Huron and Ollen (2004) who found evidence of early repetition in a cross- cultural sample of 50 musical works. 1. BACKGROUND Patterns of repetition in music are typically addressed in discussions of musical form. The subject of form has attracted extensive theoretical discussion and elucidation (Bairstow, 1943/1972; Berry, 1966; Davie, 1953/1966; Goetschius, 1904; Langer, 1953; Meyer, 1973; Riemann, 1910; Salzer, 1952; Schoenberg, 1937-1948/1967; de Stwolinski, 1977; Tovey, 1944). Within the Western classical music tradition, music theorists have identified many common forms. In other cultures, discussions of musical form sometimes point to similar notions of set structures (Fujie, 1996; Sachs, 1962; Wade, 1979). Nicholas Cook has argued, however, that stereotypes of various classical music forms were originally formulated to teach composition and not to reflect how listeners aurally experience a musical work (1987a). For example, listeners appear to be less perceptive of large-scale tonal closure as a work’s duration increases (Cook, 1987b) and may judge the musical unity of a work quite differently based upon their level of musical training (Tan, 1998). In a correlational study, Huron and Ollen (2004) analyzed a cross-cultural sample of 50 musical works for patterns of repetition. The sampled works were drawn from five continents and across five centuries. They were limited primarily to instrumental works to avoid the potentially confounding effects of text on musical form. Additionally, only works that exhibited repetitive structures with identifiable units were used; improvisatory and through-composed works were omitted from consideration. The works were then analyzed by assigning letter-names, beginning with A, to each unit of repetition or “figure.” Thus, the analysis of A-A-B-A-A1-C would correspond with a work whose opening figure was played twice, followed by some contrasting material, a return of the opening figure along with a varied repetition, concluding with some previously unheard material. For these analyses, figures did not represent the same structural level within or between works; they merely denoted discrete musical material that was either repeated elsewhere (the “A” material in the previous example) or never recurred (the “B” and “C” material). To put it in Western music theoretic terms, the figures did not necessarily represent motives or phrases; although in some cases, they might have. Huron and Ollen tested two hypotheses and found significant results for both. Of special interest to the present study was their finding that longer sequences of repetition are more likely to occur in the first half of a work than in the second half. Using their analysis protocol, a musical work is more likely to exhibit a structure like A-A-A-B-B-A-C-B-A than A-B- C-B-B-B-A-A-A. Huron and Ollen dubbed this phenomenon “early repetition.” If musical works from many cultures and time periods exhibit this early repetition, it is possible that, on some level, listeners may expect musical works to be structured in this way. Moreover, it would be interesting to know whether listeners judge works exhibiting this pattern of decreasing repetition over time as being “more musical” than works violating this pattern. 1. AIMS The purpose of the current experiment was to discover whether listeners show a preference for compositions exhibiting early repetition. In order to test the hypothesis, participants with varying levels of formal musical training judged which composition in each of 44 pairs sounded more “musical.” Both compositions within each pair used the same musical material, but differed in their patterns of successive repetitions: one composition exhibited decreasing patterns of successive repetitions (conforming to the findings of early repetition in Huron & Ollen, 2004) and the other exhibited increasing patterns (violating the findings). To anticipate the results, participants showed a significant preference for the compositions with decreasing patterns of successive repetitions. ISBN 1-876346-50-7 © 2004 ICMPC 405