Listening to Polyphonic Music

Listeners heard short extracts of polyphonic music, and had to decide whether or not a subsequent melody was present in the polyphonic excerpt. For many of the excerpts accuracy of recognition was high, suggesting that the different melodic lines in polyphony can be perceived simultaneously. If one melody was at a higher pitch than another it was more easily recognised, and there were differences in the recognisability of individual melodies. When these factors were held constant, recognition was more accurate if the melodies were closely related in key, in the same pitch range, had simul- taneous note onsets and were differentiated in timbre. Within the same pitch range melodies having the same tempo were better recognised, but in different pitch ranges then differences in tempo improved recognition accuracy. Three melodic lines seemed to be as easily discriminated as two in the excerpt studied.