Sunday, July 4, 2010

How we perceive chords






Over the last two decades, the work of psychologist Carol Krumhansl has illuminated the way we hear musical harmony.  Using the technique of Krumhansl and Petri Toiviainen, I've made this video.  All twenty four major and minor tonal centers are represented regions in this plane.  Starting with a midi file of the Bach G major prelude from the cello suites, I generated the images---one per measure.  The red regions correspond to the perceived tonal center, based on the Krumhansl's data.  I then matched the images to a performance of the prelude by Mstislav Rostropovich.