Effects Of Timbre And Tempo Change On Memory For Melody

The occurrence of music is a transient process, it depends on our ability to storage and extract the "music information". Memory plays a particularly important role in music activities. There is a long history of studies abroad about music memory and China also has some empirical research for music memory. A comprehensive survey of the existing studies, based on the stimulation of the experiment it will be divided into two kinds of tonal memory and music memory. The tonal memory is mainly used in meaningless materials, such as comparing the test tones and the standard tones, to see if their pitch is consistent. Music memory is used in meaningful material, such as the research for memory of melody In addition, through the digital library database search, it is found that the amount of domestic research on musical memory is relatively small, which most of the literature are literal review of foreign music memory research, but there are also a small amount of empirical research on this field.The results of existing studies about whether timbre and speed will affect the melody memory of the subjects have been varied. In the aspect of timbre, the change of the timbre is generally considered which can cause the recognition rate of the melody to be reduced, and is particularly evident in the non-musicians. But some research showed that subjects were not influenced by the change of the timbre, such as the musicians. A lot of studies have proved that the musicians and the nonmusicians have a remarkable difference in memory of melody, when the timbre have a change. In speed, most studies have considered that the speed change can cause the recognition of the variation, but there is a critical threshold, the change is less than this threshold, it will not affect. The present study did not come to a certain answer, nor did it determine whether the musicians and the nonmusicians have a remarkable difference in memory of melody, when the speed have a change.This study designed two experiments. The purpose of experiment 1 is to study if the change of timbre will affect on melody memory. Experiment 1 used a 2 (timbre change/timbre not change) ×2 (musician/non-musician) two factor completely randomized experimental design. There were 40 subjects, including 19 musicians, and 21 nonmusicians. On average, the musicians had 10.1 cumulative years of music training, the nonmusicians are no professional music learning experience. All the subjects were normal and were not clear on the purpose and content of the experiment. All the subjects were voluntarily participate in the experiment, and listeners received small amount of remuneration for their participation. In the present stage, subjects were asked to heard 8 pieces of melody, half of them were Chinese national tonal tunes, and another 8 pieces were Western tonal music, the tunes differed in timbre,8 was piano and another 8 was oboe. After the present stage, there is 2 minutes speech interference, and then get in the recognition stage. In this stage, subjects heard 16 tunes,8 tunes were previously heard in the first stage. Participants were asked to judge whether the tunes they have heard in the present stage.The purpose of experiment 2 was to study if the change of speed will affect on melody memory. Experiment 2 used 2 (musician/non-musician)×3 (the original speed/slow down/speed up) completely randomized experimental design. There were 64 subjects, including 23 musicians, and on average they had 11.5 years of music learning experiences. There were 41 nonmusicians, they all have no music experience. All subjects were normal hearing, and all subjects were voluntarily involved in the experiment, and listeners received small amount of remuneration for their participation. The procedure was similar to Experiment 1 and the participants were not participated in Experiment 1.We define the musicians were musical college students which have learn to play an instrument for more than 6 years. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results suggest timbre change and tempo slow down 40bpm both impaired the memory of musicians, but speed up 40bpm will not impaired the music memory for both musicians or non-musicians. In addition, for nonmusicians, on the Chinese national tonal music memory performance, the score was significantly higher than that of the Western tonal music score. But this difference was not found in the musicians.Future studies could increase the number of subjects, and try to ensure the reliability and validity of the study. In the aspect of speed, future studies could let the speed increase or decrease with the stepwise increase, so that the speed change (magnitude) can be studied more accurately. In addition, the cultural is also an issue factor that cannot be ignored. Foreign studies have found that subjects are better at remembering local music. This study only found that the nonmusicians were better at remembering Chinese national tonal melody than that of the Western tonal melody, but it did not find the difference between the musicians.