Background In Western Classical music, “good” intonation is often a highly desired quality in performance. Skilled musicians have to perform in such a way that even the most fastidious jury’s ears are satisfied. These expert adjustments of interval sizes, often deviating from equal tempered tuning, are generally considered as central expressive means in classical performance practice (e.g., Sundberg, 2013). Indeed, when working with instruments without fixed pitch, the performers are permitted the freedom to choose their own intonation without conforming to one strict standard (e.g., Geringer, 2018). However, listeners’ instrumental backgrounds and levels of expertise may influence group consensus regarding intonation preferences (Loosen, 1994). Also, the musical context has been shown to contribute to different widths of intonation tolerance (Fyk, 1982).

Aims In the present study, we focused on assessment of melodic intonation on the violin as potentially variable between local musical contexts. We were interested to see 1) whether violin expertise strengthens listeners’ consensus regarding preferred deviations from equal temperament, and 2) whether preferences regarding narrow intonation of semitones are contextually determined by musical structure.

Method 38 higher-education music students, 19 violin students and 19 music teacher students, participated in the study. Three intonation variants were created for twelve pre-recorded excerpts, by manipulating the intonation of chosen critical semitones to the sizes of 110, 90, and 70 cents. Selection of the excerpts was based on ascending semitones that brought about “melodic anchoring” (e.g., Bharucha, 1996) to tonally more stable tones on different levels of tonal structure (either first and fifth scale degrees or various local chord tones). In a two-alternative forced choice study, the participants listened to paired samples that were identical in every aspect, except the differences of 20 or 40 cents in intonation.

Results By contrast to the teacher students, the violin students seemed to have a stronger consensus about deviating toward the sharper side from the equal temperament. More interestingly, the violinist group more often preferred the extremely sharp intonation in metrically unaccented positions, especially in the major mode. Such metrically sensitive preference for the narrowest minor seconds was not observed for the teacher students.

Conclusions With the advantage of expert knowledge of the violin and its repertoire, the violinist group was more unanimous in their preference for what musicians often understand as “sharp leading tones”, and more sensitive to their placement in the musical structure. Our results suggest that intonation, as an aspect of musical expertise, cannot be fully understood without regard to the temporal structure of music.

References

Bharucha, J. J. (1996). Melodic anchoring. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 13(3), 383-400.

Fyk, J. (1982) Perception of mistuned intervals in melodic context. Psychology of Music, Special Edition, 36-41.

Geringer, J. M. (2018). Eight artist-level violinists performing unaccompanied Bach: Are there consistent tuning patterns? String Research Journal, 8(1), 51-61.

Loosen, F. (1994). Tuning of diatonic scales by violinist, pianists, and nonmusicians. Perception & Psychophysics, 56(2), 221-226.

Sundberg, J. (2013). Perception of singing. In D. Deutsch (Ed.), The psychology of music, 3rd ed. (pp. 69-105). Academic Press.