Composers work very hard on their craft, especially when it comes to motivic development. The development of these motives often comes in altering melodic fragments and placing them in counterpoint or a recombination of the parts to create a new sonic object. Why does this work for our ears though? How does greater organization in a piece and auditory pattern recognition bloom out of altered motives? One part of the answer to these questions is that our ears are far better at recognizing general contour of melodies than the actual intervals. This allows us to extend our aural comparisons to great lengths.
An interesting article by Trehub, Bull and Thorpe discusses how infants are able to recognize different melodies, but without sufficient experience in our world cannot differentiate between melodies that have been transposed or melodies in which the pitch contour is the same, but the pitches have been altered. This belies a basic tendency for humans to recognize contour of melody rather than specific pitch intervals. This confirmed by WJ Dowling’s research on contour, who says in discussion of melody recognition memory tests:
The results of a number of experiments show the listeners usually find it easy to respond positively to all comparison melodies which share contour, and respond negatively to melodies with different contours.
Think about Beethoven’s 5th symphony in the first movement. The most famous motive ever written begins as a major third from G to Eb, three eighth notes and then a half note, then again with the same rhythm but this time a minor third (Eb-C. Finally after the bold opening statement, the violins sneak in with the same motif, but instead of a descent of thirds, it is seconds. All the while, the audience recognizes each of these ideas as similar. I will concede that much of this motivic recognition is due to the rhythmic aspect, but I will give you a better example here.
Listen to this melody:
Recognize it? Try this one, it will play the real melody and then the one above again:
I thought that in light of the most recent holiday, it would be appropriate to demonstrate this idea.