Sequence Memory in Music

• Why study music for sequence memory?
• Untrained people seem to be able to remember long sequences of rhythm, pitch, movements, and timing of notes.
• Music is unique in the role of rhythm, so its a good testing ground.
• How are rhythm, pitch, and movements represented in the mind?
• They are represented as both sequences of action and sequences of sound.
• It helps if they have similar movements and similar pitches
• they each have independent effects on the results, so both representations help, that is it is doubly easier (mostly transfer studies - positive).
• Positive transfer - makes the 2nd task easier
• How are they different in beginners vs. experts?
• novice - dependent on motor skills - movements changes effected them the most.
• expert- they depended more on the notes.
• How is rhythmic sequence different from motor sequence?
• Rhythmic sequence: patterning of key pressed sequenced time
• Motor: sequence of finger movements.
• Are these two truly the same?
• Both are being remembered separately. They contribute independently.
• 3 sort of different representations in the mind are movements, pitch, and rhythm.
• timing is just a different ways to think about it.
• So, is all of this imagery in a way?
• People have differences.
• Pianists scored high on imagery tests. So, does imagery ability effect artists performance? Yes. Getting both types of feedback helps the most, but motor didn't matter, auditory did. -Supposed to imagine what they were plating, and it did matter.
• Auditory imagery was significant, not motor
• What information about memory for music comes from pitch ordering skills?
• You have to think ahead, so 3-4 pitches can be remembered in a sequence.
• Older people make mistakes that are farther away.
• Working memory supports musical imagining.
• Errors are not just random.
• the slower the tempo you get a broader range of errors and vise versa.
• errors become more and more about anticipation.
• Older pianists did better than younger, and also showed evidence of a greater working memory capacity that allows them to perform better in sequential memory tasks.
• Kinds of errors made with more experience are anticipatory errors.
• can get evidence of anticipatory movements from finger positions.