The Top-down and Bottom-up Systems of Musical Implication: Building on Meyer's Theory of Emotional Syntax | Zendy

Eugene Narmour | Zendy

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The Top-down and Bottom-up Systems of Musical Implication: Building on Meyer's Theory of Emotional Syntax

Author(s) -

Eugene Narmour

Publication year - 1991

Publication title -

music perception an interdisciplinary journal

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.584

H-Index - 57

eISSN - 1533-8312

pISSN - 0730-7829

DOI - 10.2307/40286156

Subject(s) - syntax , melody , realization (probability) , linguistics , musical , optimality theory , parametric statistics , product (mathematics) , psychology , computer science , cognitive science , phonology , mathematics , philosophy , art , literature , statistics , geometry

The implication-realization model hypothesizes that emotional syntax in music is a product of two expectation systems—one top down, the other bottom up. Syntactic mismatch or conflict in realizations can occur either within each system or between them. The theory argues that interruption or suppression of parametric expectations generated separately by the two systems explains certain types of recurrent aesthetic strategies in melodic composition and accounts for the most common kinds of musical forms (AAA, AAB, ABB, ABC, and ABA).

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