The objective of this paper is to scrutinize the theoretical assumption of tonal practice that harmonic tension can increase globally by changing which chord exerts the Tonic function (a process called modulation), and decrease it when the original chord reassumes the Tonic function. This implies that a listener should be able to recognize simultaneously the local Tonic and the main Tonic after a modulation. Results from experimental researches are divergent, some corroborating the existence of this cognitive ability (Lerdahl & Krumhasl, 2007), some questioning it (Cook, 1987; Bigand & Parncutt, 1999; Marvin & Brinkman, 1999; Farbood, 2016). In this paper, we hypothesize that main tonic retention over modulatory passages in tonal music is only possible for subjects capable of retaining in memory some form of absolute pitch information, and that this ability is employed conjointly with relative memory for pitch.
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