Musical syntax

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When analysing the regularities and structure of music as well as the processing of music in the brain, certain findings lead to the question, if music is based on a syntax which could be compared with linguistic syntax. To get closer to this question it is necessary to have a look at the basic aspects of syntax in language, as language unquestionably presents a complex syntactical system. If music has a matchable syntax, noteworthy equivalents to basic aspects of linguistic syntax have to be found in musical structure. Claiming that syntax is a fundamental element of music, it is interesting to know, if there are also similarities in processing linguistic and musical syntax in the brain. By implication the processing of music in comparison to language could also give information about the structure of music.

To give a further insight into this topic the abstract can be divided into two parts:

I Does music have a syntax comparable with linguistic syntax?

II Processing of musical syntax in the brain

I Does music have a syntax?

Syntax in general can be referred to as a study of the principles and rules needed for the construction of a language or as a term in particular describing these principles and rules for a special language. Linguistic syntax is especially marked by its structural richness which becomes apparent in its multi layered organization as well as in the strong relationship between syntax and meaning. That is that there are special linguistic syntactic principles which define how the language is formed out of different subunits, such as words out of morphemes, phrases out of words and sentences out of phrases. The fact that a change in the order of subunits especially in the order of phrases in a sentence can add to a change of meaning, appears to set human language apart from nonhuman animal communication systems. The sentence “The child with the red shirt hit the man.” has a completely different meaning from the sentence “The man with the red shirt hit the child.” Furthermore, linguistic syntax is featured by the fact that a word can take on abstract grammatical functions which are less defined through properties of the word itself but through the context and structural relations. This is for example that every noun can be used as a subject, object or indirect object, but without a sentence as the normal context of a word, no statement about its grammatical function can be made. At last, linguistic syntax is marked by abstractness. This means that only conventional structural relations and not psychoacoustic relationships are the basis for the linguistic syntax.

Concerning musical syntax these three aspects of richness in linguistic syntax as well as the abstractness should be found in music too, if one wants to claim that music has a comparable syntax. An annotation that has to be made concerns the fact that most of the studies dealing with musical syntax are confined to the consideration of Western European tonal music. Thus this article can also only focus on Western tonal music. Considering the multi layered organization of music, three levels of pitch organization can be found in music.

The lowest level are musical scales, which consist of seven tones or “scale degrees” per octave and have an asymmetric pattern of intervals between them (for example the C-major scale as shown in figure 1). They are built up out of the 12 possible pitch classes per octave (A, A♯,B, C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯) and the different scale tones are not equal in there structural stability. Empirical evidence indicates that there is a hierarchy concerning the stability of the single tones. The most stable one is called the “tonic” and embodies the tonal centre of the scale. The most unstable tones were the ones closest to the tonic (scale degrees 2 and 7) which are called the “supertonic” and the “leading tone”. In studies scale degrees 1, 3 and 5 have been judged as closely related. It was also shown that an implicit knowledge of scale structure has to be learned and developed in childhood and is not inborn.

The next superordinate level of pitch organization is the chord structure which means that three scale tones with a distance of two scale steps each are played simultaneously and are therefore combined into chords. When building up chords on the basis of a musical scale there are three different kinds of chords resulting, namely “major”(e.g. C-E-G), “minor” (e.g. D-F-A) and “diminished” (e.g. B-D-F) triads. This is due to the asymmetric intervals between the scale tones. These asymmetric intervals effect, that a distance of two scale steps can comprise either three or four semitones and therefore be an interval of a minor (with three semitones) or a major (with four semitones) third. A major triad consists of a major third followed by a minor third and is built on scale degrees 1, 4 and 5. A minor triad consists of a minor third followed by a major third and is built on scale degrees 2, 3 and 6. Only on scale degree 7 the triad consists of to minor thirds and is therefore defined as a diminished triad. Chordal syntax touches mainly four basic aspects. The first is, that the lowest note in each triad functions as a fundament of the chord and therefore as the structural most important pitch. The chord is named after this note as well as the chord's harmonic label is grounded on it. The second aspect is, that chord syntax provides norms for altering chords by additional tones. One example is the addition of a fourth tone to a triad, which is the seventh tone of the scale (e.g. in a C-major scale the addition of F to the triad G-B-D would lead to a so called “seventh” chord). Concerning norms for the progression of chords in time the third aspect focuses on the relationship between chords. The patterning of chords in a cadence for example indicates a movement from a V chord to a I chord. The fact that the I chord is perceived as a resting point in a musical phrase implicates, that the single chords built up on notes of a scale are not equal in there stability but show the same differences in stability as the notes of the scale do. This describes the fourth basic aspect of chordal syntax. The tonic chord (the one built on the tonic, C-E-G in C-major, for example) is the most stable and central chord, followed by the dominant chord (built on the 5th scale degree) and the subdominant chord (built on the 4th scale degree).

The highest level of pitch organization can be seen in key structure. In Western European tonal music the key is based on a scale with its associated chords and chord relations. Scales can be built up as minor or major scales (differing in the succession of intervals between the scale tones) on each of the 12 pitch classes and therefore there are 24 possible keys in tonal music. Analysing key structure in context of musical syntax means to examine the relationship between keys in a piece of music. Usually, not only one key is used to built up a composition, but also so-called key “modulations” (in other words the alteration of keys) are utilized. In these modulations a certain recurring pattern can be perceived. Switches from one key to another are often found between related keys. Three general principles for relationship between keys can be postulated on the basis of perceptual experiments and also neural evidence for implicit knowledge of key structure. Looking at the C-major key as an example, there are three close related keys: G-major, A-minor and C-minor. C-major and G-major are keys whose 1st scale degrees are separated by a musical fifth (the pattern of relations is represented in the circle of fifths” for major keys). A-minor and C-major share the same notes of the scale but with a different tonic (so-called relative minor key, i.e. C-major and A-minor). And C-major and C-minor have the same tonic in their scales. All in all it can be said that music like the human language has a considerable multi layered organization.

Considering the last two basic aspects of linguistic syntax, namely the considerable significance of the order of subunits for the meaning of a sentence as well as the fact that words undertake abstract grammatical functions defined through context and structural relations, it seems to be useful to analyse the hierarchical structure of music to find correlations in music.

One aspect of hierarchical structure of music is the ornamentation. The meaning of the word “ornamentation” points to the fact that there are events in a musical context which are less important to form an idea of the general gist of a sequence than others. The decision on the importance of events not only comprises harmonic considerations, but also rhythmic and motivic information. But a classification of events simply into ornamental and structural events would be too superficial. In fact the most common hypothesis implies, that music is organized into structural levels which can be pictured as branches of a tree. A pitch that is structural at a higher level may be ornamental at a deeper level. This can be compared with the hierarchical syntactic structure of a sentence in which there are structural elements which are necessary to built up a sentence like the noun phrase and the verb phrase but looking at a deeper level the structural elements also contain additional or ornamental constituents.

Searching for other aspects of hierarchical structure of music there is a controversial discussion, if the organization of tension and resolution in music can be described as hierarchical structure or only as a purely sequential structure. According to Patel (2008) research in this area has produced apparently contradictory evidence, and more research is needed to answer this question.

The question concerning the kind of structure which features tension and resolution in music is linked very close to the relationship between order and meaning in music. Considering tension and resolution as one possible kind of meaning in music a hierarchical structure would imply that a change of order of musical elements would have an influence on the meaning of the music.

The last aspect to examine is the abstractness of linguistic syntax and its correlate in music. There are two contradicting point of views. The first one claims that the foundation for musical scales and for the existence of a tonal centre in music can be seen in the physical basis of overtone series or in the psychoacoustic properties of chord in tonal music respectively. But in recent time there is strong evidence for the second point of view that syntax reflects abstract cognitive relationships.

The remaining part of the text will follow tomorrow!