Cognitive Inspections of the Tonnetz: A Multimodal Approach

Résumé En

Supported by the CNRS interdisciplinary program, the ProAppMaMu project took advantage of several tools from computational musicology designed to enhance mathematical learning in high schools and universities. One of the main axes of this project focused on cognition, particularly on the ability to detect patterned relationships between geometrical features of pitch spaces and harmonic sequences of chords, and on the impact that these relationships may have on our musical judgements. This paper summarizes two experiments we have conceived for this purpose, paying attention on the Tonnetz as a paradigmatic model of neo-Riemannian theories. In a first experiment (completed), participants were asked to identify, among several possibilities, the triangle on the Tonnetz matching with the last triad completing a given harmonic sequence; in total, 12 different sequences were provided, as audiovisual coordinated stimuli. In a second experiment (currently ongoing, following a pilot study), participants are being asked to evaluate the inner coherence and stability of 24 harmonic sequences, first presented as pure aural stimuli and secondly matched with their visual counterparts on the Tonnetz. We only present here the shared context design of both experiments and their respective aims and methods.