First Session Test Results Discussion

To make a rigorous test of the Harmonic Walk application very hard and strict assessment con- ditions were established:

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Judgements Not Musicians Musicians

Useful 3 4

Interesting 3 1

Difficult 2 1

Amusing 1 2

Useless 2 0

Table 7.8: Table of the subjects’ ideas about the application.

Principles Not Musicians Musicians

Musical memory 4 2

Rhythmic skills 1 3

Body reaction to music 2 1

Song segmentation 2 1

Aural skills 1 1

Connections between melody and chords 0 1

Table 7.9: Table of perceived principles upon which the application was designed.

b) no previous hints about the application cognitive contents, nor about the song employed during the test;

c) strict test protocol and time constraints.

Of course this choice greatly affected the chance of success of the subjects, who could rely solely upon their previously acquired knowledge of the musical structural elements involved in the test. Thus, the test does not bring great success expectation, but rather suggests what is the learning potential of a system like Harmonic Walk. The general results of the 1st _{session of Harmonic}

Walk learning test, summarized in Table 7.10, are the following:

1. The recognition of the syllables of changes hits a mean of 3.6 for Not Musicians and of 5.5 for Musicians, over ten syllables. The mean is rather low, but, as shown in Figure 7.2, the hits are higher in the first part of the songs and decrease depending on the song’s harmonic area (minor parallel area), demonstrating a difficulty in parallel harmonies per- ception. Nonetheless, as this area covers the second part of the song excerpt, the reason of the drop of the number of detected syllables could be also a lack of memorization.

2. The exploration of the harmonic space. The exploratory phase is apparently free of any biasing element, in the sense that no hint was given to the subjects about the task to ac- complish. It seems that, in such conditions, the shape on the responsive floor (the circular ring) has been the most important cue to follow for the subject. Indeed, in nearly all the recorded paths at least one circular path was found, whereas not in all the recorded paths

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Learning Test General Results (1stsession)

Test/Interview/Likert-scale Not Musicians Musicians Difference

Syllables of Change 3.6 (6.4) 5.5 (4.5) + 21%

Harmonization (CH + PH) 1 (4.5%) 5 (22.7%) + 18%

Chords changes 4.8 (5.2) 7 (3) + 22%

Chords employed 3.5 (0.5) 4.2 (1.2) - 24%

Harmonizing route

(more than three chords detected) 0 54% + 54%

Pleasantness 3.4 (68%) 3.4 (68%) 0

Utility 2.9 (58%) 3.6 (72%) + 14%

Table 7.10: Table with the general results of the 1st _{session of Harmonic Walk learning test.}

Separate data for Musicians and Not Musicians with their performance differences are reported.

a recursive path was found. Moreover, many of the subjects could not fully understand the difference between the straight path and the circular one, and, consequently, showed a clear tendency in using them in the same way, that’s is following the shape’s contour. On the other hand, the straight logic of this behavior must be recognized and seriously consid- ered in the future work of refinement of the application design. As already outlined, when following passively the ring, many subjects missed the possibility of building a perceptual and a sensorimotor map of the strongest tonality harmonic progressions, thus compromis- ing the possibility of success in the third phase of the test. The search of a satisfactory harmonization path has nothing to do with a random search, but follows very clear, per- ceptually strong, recursive tracks. Nevertheless, one of the aims of Harmonic Walk is to encourage the users to discover such features through a perceptual and movement practice. 3. The partial or full harmonization task was accomplished by the 27.2% of the twenty-two subjects. Considering the high level of complexity of the melody harmonization this result is not so bad, mainly when no explicit information about melody harmonization has been previously delivered to the subjects.

4. The number of chord changes is directly related to the detection of the syllables of har- monic changes, as the number of changes is exactly corresponding to the number of syl- lables detected. Basically the question is the same, but is put in a different perspective: It seems that the subjects did not realize the similarity of the two questions, as the answers from the same subject differ in all the cases but one. Only subject 7 among the Musicians group gave both correct answers, while subject 9 gave the most coherent answer having de- tected only four syllables of change but also four chord changes. Furthermore, comparing the records of the successful or partially successful subjects in the melody harmonization task (starred and double starred subjects) it possible to observe that the correlation is scarce or null. Only subject 2 of the Musicians group achieved a good record in the number of chord changes, while all the others made a more or less mistakes. Similarly, comparing the number of different employed chords (three in total, I, V and vi degree) it is possible

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to see that there is a good match only with subjects 5 and 6 of the Musicians group, while the other four starred subjects declared all the wrong number of chords. The results of the syllables column are particularly touching and need further investigations, mainly for the complete successful subjects. How can a successful harmonizer miss to detect the sylla- bles of the song for which s/he actually searched and successfully found the right chord? It seems that musical consciousness lays far away from the embodied knowledge employed by these successful subjects. On the other hand, subject 7 of the group of Musicians de- tects perfectly all the syllables of change (ten) and the number of harmonic changes (ten), but misses to find the number of employed chords (five instead of three); nevertheless s/he fails to harmonize the melody in the given time.

5. Qualitative assessment results show that the psychological and cognitive weight of the test’s experience has been remarkable, as witnessed by the rich and complex output ob- tained from the participants. It seems that, independently of the explicit knowledge they succeed to realize at the end of the experience, the Harmonic Walk is able to offer to the users a deeper insight of what a musical experience is. The application’s use is not a fa- tigue, as the average of ratings about its pleasantness is 3.4. In general, the main perceived features upon which the application is built are musical memory, rhythmic skills and sen- sorimotor reactions that are important factor in musical activities. As a matter of facts Harmonic Walk, in spite of its simple interaction modality, conveys in a very short time a great deal of information about complex music composition processes and this can embar- rass the user who is not properly prepared. On the other hand, this is just the field where a didactic approach and careful training can help. Moreover, a most insightful address to the Harmonic Walk can also highlight the great potential of its creative use, which is implicit in the design.

6. Musicians versus Not Musicians results. In general, in the quantitative assessment’s records, Musicians obtained better results than Non-Musicians, as can be seen at glance in Table 7.10. The number of successful harmonizers was one among Musicians as well as among Not Musicians, whereas no partially successful harmonizer was found among Not Musi- cians. Looking at Table 7.6 it is possible to see that Musicians were much better than Not Musicians in identifying the right song chord sequence, as the majority of them (54%) could identify a right sequence of more than three chords, while all the sample of Not Mu- sicians equals or remains above this number. In general, in Likert-scale surveys Musicians quoted better the application’s utility whereas Not Musicians quoted better its pleasantness. In particular, in the application perception opinion question, two Not Musicians judged it useless, showing that the mere test’s experience cannot be considered self-explanatory for all the subjects.

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