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This activity is the kind of thing music critics normally do when evaluating musical
works. Without really knowing why, they manifest personal, intuitive preferences for
certain works (or parts thereof), authors, or styles. This is precisely what you will
be invited to do. Without any music score, name of author, or other indication of
what is going on, you are asked to manifest your preference between a few musical
examples (from as little as 2 to as many as 4). You send us your evaluation and we
tabulate the average of the results. One could compare this to a blindfold test between
a well-known brand and the ubiquitous "Brand-X", with the all-important difference
that we do not expect any specific choice to win. We really want to know what the
popular preference is.
It sounds great ! All of us know pieces of music which "sound great". The aim of this game is to progress
from the uni-level "sounds great" to the multi-level "sounds greater". When 2 similar
but not identical passages are compared, which one "sounds greater" than the other
? This is not always an easy thing to accomplish and several hearings, possibly spread
out over several days, are occasionally required before reaching a decision. It is
not advisable to try this in a hurry, or in a state of stress. Like everything else,
one becomes better with experience and the desire toquantify qualitygradually becomes addictive. This process of evaluating is what Tasting Polls and
Analysis are all about.
How does this work ?
1. From the list below, in which a short description is given of the material involved,
you choose the Poll which tickles your fancy and click on its name to reach its
specific page.
2. On that page you will find the choice of several similar examples
indicatedSpade,Heart,Club, andDiamond
(which originally indicated the values 1, 2, 3, and 4).
You will hear the example by clicking on the image.
3. You are asked to inscribe these examples in order of increasing satisfaction,
starting with the least desirable (on the left) and ending with the most desirable
(on the right).
Just the initials (S, H, C, D) will suffice.
In case of indecision (as little as possible), place 2 adjacent letters
in parentheses.
Points will be attributed 0, 1, 2, 3, as required, from left to right,
cases of indecision accorded the average point,
then transformed into percentage proportions.
4. You send us your evaluation and we thank you cordially by return email.
You will then have access to the Revised Page of that specific Poll on which
you will find -
the average of the evaluations,
with the music scores of the examples and possibly certain comments
which will enable you to better understand what the Poll was all about.
List
Poll 1.A short 4-bar antecedent Chord Pattern with 4 choices
Poll 2.An 8-bar popular antecedent chord Pattern with 3 choices
Poll 3.Harmonizing a popular consequent descending scale with 2 choices
Poll 4.Ending a classical cA on the DOMINANT with 3 choices
Poll 5.Ending a classical development on the DOMINANT with 2 choices
Poll 6.A TONIC pedal in Bars 5-8 with 3 choices
Poll 7.The strongest Consequent with 4 choices
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