Perceived musical qualities like ascending notes reside in experience, not sound waves

Evidence

If I want to tell you about a heartrending piece of music, phenomenology enables me to describe it as a moving piece of music, rather than as a set of string vibrations and mathematical note relationships on which I have pinned a personal emotion. Melancholy music is melancholy; a sweet air is a sweet air; these descriptions are fundamental to what music is. Indeed, we do talk about music phenomenologically all the time. Even if I describe a sequence of notes as going ‘up’ or ‘down’, this has less to do with what the sound waves are doing (which is becoming more or less frequent, and longer or shorter) than with how the music plays out in my mind. I hear the notes climbing up an invisible ladder. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 144

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates the phenomenological stance by showing how everyday music description is already phenomenological.
• XREF: Connects to how phenomenology re-describes any experience — the same move Husserl applied to perception generally. — connects to: Subjective duration, not physical duration, governs rhythm perception in music — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1494; Physiological coding of frequency does not by itself explain perceived pitch. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1196; Perceived pitch depends on listening context, not just the physical spectrum present. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2111 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Physiological coding of frequency does not by itself explain perceived pitch. #expands (0.80) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1196
• Perceived pitch depends on listening context, not just the physical spectrum present. #expands (0.80) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2111
• Subjective duration, not physical duration, governs rhythm perception in music #expands (0.78) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1494
• Sound perception is shaped by the listener’s expectations and context of use #expands (0.78) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2494