Establishing a hierarchy among octave equivalent forms of a 12-tone row

Abstract

The perceptability of tone hierachies in dodecaphonic rows has been well documented in the literature. This study investigates similarity among octave-equivalent variants of a given dodecaphonic row. The aggregate pitch proximity of a given row is represented by a 12-dimensional ‘‘contour vector,’’ the elements of which consist of the intervals (in semitones) of successive members of the row. Participants were asked to perform a series of probe-tone rating tasks in a variety of given contexts according to techniques used by Krumhansl et al. (1987). Test rows varied with respect to the contour vector. Control rows consisted of randomly generated tone rows. It was found that the similarity between contour vectors of a given row is positively correlated with their respective probe tone ratings.