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Table 2. Complete list of the music works used for
the segmentation test; for each score is reported
the length in bars.
of a musical phrase, a simple and a double bar
respectively indicating the presence of a normal
or of a strong boundary between lexical units.
The test package was given to the subject, who
had a complete freedom in the development of
the test. There was no maximum time for giving
back the compiled tests. Moreover, they were al-
lowed to help themselves by playing the excerpts
on their instrument, and to make corrections of
previous choices. Even if it was roughly calcu-
lated that the development of the test would take
about 20 minutes for each excerpt, subjects had
the test at their homes for more than one month.
This was because almost all of them claimed that
the task of segmenting the excerpt was tiring and
time-consuming.
No.
Title
Bars
J. S. Bach
1
Sinfonia Cantata no. 186, Adagio
7
2
Orchestral Suite no. 3, Aria
6
3
Orchestral Suite no. 2, Bourreé
13
4
Cantata BWV 147, Choral
26
5
Preludium n. 9, BWV 854
8
L. Van Beethoven
6
Symphony n. 5, 4th movement
22
7
Symphony n. 7, 1st movement
21
8
Sonata n. 14, 3rd movement
12
9
Sonata n. 7, Minuetto
17
10
Sonata n. 8, Rondò
18
analysis of the results
F. Chopin
11
Ballade no. 1, op. 23
11
The first, quite surprising, result was that more
than half of the subjects followed the given instruc-
tions only partially and provided indirectly useful
feedback. As reported in the previous section,
subjects were asked to put a marker, by drawing
a single or double bar, between two subsequent
notes of the score to highlight the presence of a
boundary in the melodic surface. Hence, instruc-
tions had the implicit assumption that melodic
lexical units do not overlap.
Some subjects, that is, 8 out of 17 subjects,
disregarded this assumption and invented a new
sign (different among subjects, but with the same
meaning) that clearly indicated that some notes
were both the last of a lexical unit and the first
of the next one. This result implies that, at least
for these subjects, the concept of melodic contour
cannot be applied, unless we take into account
the fact that contours may overlap of at least one
note. Another result is that subjects very seldom
highlighted the presence of a strong boundary
by drawing a double marker. The number of
double markers represents the 4.5% of the overall
number of markers (including also the ones used
for overlapping phrases), thus preventing for a
12
Impromptu op. 66, 2nd movement
16
13
Nouvelle Etude no. 3
21
14
Waltz no. 7
16
15
Waltz no. 9
17
W. A. Mozart
16
Concerto no. 1, K313
10
17
“Don Giovanni”, Aria
18
18
“Le Nozze di Figaro”, Aria
10
19
Sonata no. 11, K331
18
20
Sonata no. 9, K310
22
concerning: played musical instrument, years of
music practice, expertise on music analysis and
knowledge of the proposed melodic excerpts.
The major direction given to the subjects was
an operative definition of lexical units, which were
expressed as “the
musical phrases
, or
musical
gestures
, in which a melody can be divided during
its performance, playing a similar role of words
in the spoken language.” The example annexed
to the test showed some possible musical phrases,
while stating that subjects may disagree with the
particular choices. Instructions suggested to use
two different graphic signs to be drawn at the end
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