Exploring the Effects of Pitch Layout on Learning a New Musical Instrument †
1
The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith 2751, Australia
2
School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Penrith 2751, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
This article is a re-written and expanded version of “Evaluation of the Learnability and Playability of Pitch Layouts in New Musical Instruments.” In Proceedings of the 14th Sound and Music Computing Conference, Espoo, Finland, 5–8 July 2017; pp. 450–457.
‡
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Academic Editor: Vesa Valimaki
Appl. Sci. 2017, 7(12), 1218; https://doi.org/10.3390/app7121218
Received: 27 October 2017
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Revised: 21 November 2017
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Accepted: 21 November 2017
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Published: 24 November 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sound and Music Computing)
Although isomorphic pitch layouts are proposed to afford various advantages for musicians playing new musical instruments, this paper details the first substantive set of empirical tests on how two fundamental aspects of isomorphic pitch layouts affect motor learning: shear, which makes the pitch axis vertical, and the adjacency (or nonadjacency) of pitches a major second apart. After receiving audio-visual training tasks for a scale and arpeggios, performance accuracies of 24 experienced musicians were assessed in immediate retention tasks (same as the training tasks, but without the audio-visual guidance) and in a transfer task (performance of a previously untrained nursery rhyme). Each participant performed the same tasks with three different pitch layouts and, in total, four different layouts were tested. Results show that, so long as the performance ceiling has not already been reached (due to ease of the task or repeated practice), adjacency strongly improves performance accuracy in the training and retention tasks. They also show that shearing the layout, to make the pitch axis vertical, worsens performance accuracy for the training tasks but, crucially, it strongly improves performance accuracy in the transfer task when the participant needs to perform a new, but related, task. These results can inform the design of pitch layouts in new musical instruments.
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Keywords:
sound and music computing; new musical instruments; pitch layouts; perception and action; motor learning
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MDPI and ACS Style
MacRitchie, J.; Milne, A.J. Exploring the Effects of Pitch Layout on Learning a New Musical Instrument. Appl. Sci. 2017, 7, 1218. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7121218
AMA Style
MacRitchie J, Milne AJ. Exploring the Effects of Pitch Layout on Learning a New Musical Instrument. Applied Sciences. 2017; 7(12):1218. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7121218
Chicago/Turabian StyleMacRitchie, Jennifer, and Andrew J. Milne. 2017. "Exploring the Effects of Pitch Layout on Learning a New Musical Instrument" Applied Sciences 7, no. 12: 1218. https://doi.org/10.3390/app7121218
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