Richard Parncutt

Parncutt studied music and physics at the University of Melbourne, and physics at the University of New England, Australia. In 1987 he was awarded a PhD from the University of New England. He was a guest researcher under Ernst Terhardt (Munich), Johan Sundberg (Stockholm), Annabel Cohen (Halifax, Canada), Al Bregman (Montreal), Helga de la Motte-Haber (Berlin) and John Sloboda (Keele, England). From 1996 to 1998 he held a position as a lecturer in psychology at Keele University, UK.

Parncutt's research addresses the perception of musical structure (pitch, consonance, harmony, tonality, tension, rhythm, metre, accent), the psychology of music performance (especially piano performance), and the psychological origins of tonality.

The psychoacoustic model of harmony proposed by Parncutt in 1989Parncutt, R. (1989). [http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/hapa.html Harmony: A psychoacoustical approach.] Berlin: Springer-Verlag. was adapted from the more general pitch algorithm of Ernst Terhardt, published in 1982.Terhardt, E., Stoll, G., & Seewann, M. (1982). Algorithm for extraction of pitch and pitch salience from complex tonal signals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 71(3), 679–88. The model assumes that the auditory system treats all acoustic input similarly, whether it is a single tone or a musical chord. That is, the "input" to the model is a spectrum that can be a single complex tone, or any simultaneity such as a chord. The psychoacoustic effects of auditory masking are then taken into account before a "template" of the harmonic series is compared with the input spectrum.

In Parncutt's approach this comparison yields a number of properties of the sound, including tonalness, multiplicity, and salience. Tonalness is the degree to which a sound evokes the sensation of a single pitch. Individual tones, octave dyads, and major chords are quite high in tonalness. Multiplicity is the number of tones a listener spontaneously hears in the sound. Intriguingly, for most chords multiplicity values are less than the actual number of constituent tones—a prediction that has been validated empirically.{{fact|date=December 2024}}

Pitch salience is the clarity or prominence of a pitch sensation. The root of a major chord in root position has greater pitch salience than other tones in that chord. Empirical research has confirmed the prediction that typical musical chords evoke pitch classes of low salience that are not notated; for example, the A-minor triad ACE evokes F and D.Parncutt, R., Sattmann, S., Gaich, A., & Seither-Preisler, A. (2019). Tone profiles of isolated musical chords: Psychoacoustic versus cognitive models. Music Perception, 36(4), 406–30

Parncutt also considers how we perceive successions of sounds, such as chord progressions.Parncutt, R. (1993). Pitch properties of chords of octave-spaced tones. Contemporary Music Review, 9, 35–50 He argues that the tonic (or main psychological pitch reference) in major–minor music is generally a chord rather than a tone or a scale; the theory is consistent with Heinrich Schenker's idea that a passage of a music is a prolongation of its tonic triadThe tonic as triad: Key profiles as pitch salience profiles of tonic triads. Music Perception, 28, 333–65. doi: 10.1525/mp.2011.28.4.333 as well as Carol Krumhansl's key profiles.Krumhansl, C.L. (1990). Cognitive foundations of musical pitch. Oxford University Press. Theoretical considerations of the consonance and dissonance of individual tones in unaccompanied melody, when perceived relative to a prevailing diatonic scale, can explain why leading tones in tonal music tend to rise rather than fall.Parncutt, R. (2019). Pitch-class prevalence in plainchant, scale-degree consonance, and the origin of the rising leading tone. Journal of New Music Research. doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2019.1642360

His research has also yielded testable predictions about the consonance and dissonance of musical sonorities.Parncutt, R., Reisinger, D., Fuchs, A., & Kaiser, F. (2018). Consonance and prevalence of sonorities in Western polyphony: Roughness, harmonicity, familiarity, evenness, diatonicity. Journal of New Music Research, 48(1), 1–20.Parncutt, R., & Hair, G. (2011). Consonance and dissonance in theory and psychology: Disentangling dissonant dichotomies. Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, 5(2), 119–66. doi: 10.4407/jims.2011.11.002 In a psychoacoustic approach, the consonance/dissonance of a chord (or harmonic sonority) in Western music is a combination of three quasi-independent factors: roughness (originating in the inner ear), harmonicity (originating in the brain), and familiarity (a cultural aspect).

Underlying this is the idea that a musical interval is a fundamentally psychocultural entity—not a mathematical or physical one as has often been assumed in the history of music theory. The size of a musical interval—and hence good musical intonation—is generally variable, approximate, context-dependent, and learned from musical experience; it typically deviates systematically from theoretical frequency ratios.Parncutt, R., & Hair, G. (2018). A psychocultural theory of musical interval: Bye bye Pythagoras. Music Perception, 35(4), 475–501.

In research on the origins of music, Parncutt suggested that the emotional connotations of pitch–time–movement patterns in music originated from the relationship between a mother and her fetus or infant. Research on "motherese", or infant-directed speech, already suggests that the mother–infant relationship could account for aspects of the origin of music, since this kind of communication is similar to music in many respects (melody, rhythm, movement). The emotional vocabulary of motherese could in part be learned before birth as the fetus is exposed to the internal sounds of the mother's body (voice, heartbeat, footsteps, digestion), all of which depend on the emotional state of the mother.Parncutt, R. (2009). [http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/publications/Pa09_prenatal_MS.pdf Prenatal and infant conditioning, the mother schema, and the origins of music and religion.] Musicae Scientiae, Special issue on Music and Evolution (Ed. O. Vitouch & O. Ladinig), 119–50.

Since 2008 Parncutt has directed the Centre for Systematic Musicology at the University of Graz. In 2004 he founded the series Conference in Interdisciplinary Musicology, and in 2008 he became founding academic editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies. Parncutt established the antiracist series Conference on Applied Interculturality Research in 2010. The conference is inspired by the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology and is organised on similar lines.{{cite web|url=http://www.uni-graz.at/fAIR/cAIR10/|title=Why cAIR? The background to the conference }} He has also researched the role of music in the construction of migrant identities and the integration of migrant minorities.Parncutt, R., & Dorfer, A. (2011). [http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/publications/PaDo11_integration.pdf The role of music in the integration of cultural minorities.] In I. Deliege & J. Davidson (Eds.), Music and the mind (Essays in Honour of John Sloboda) (pp. 379–411). Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

In a essay on his website entitled "Death penalty for global warming deniers? An objective argument ... a conservative conclusion" dated 25 October 2012,Richard Parncutt: [https://web.archive.org/web/20121225195909/http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/climatechange.html Death penalty for global warming deniers?], 25 October 2012 Parncutt, after declaring his fundamental opposition to the death penalty in all cases including mass murderers such as Anders Behring Breivik, proposed restricting the death penalty to individuals who cause more than one million deaths, and claimed that influential "global warming deniers" could fall into that category if they slow progress toward reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and so cause the deaths of millions of future people. The text included a link to DeSmogBlog's controversial list of climate change deniers. Parncutt suggested that a panel of scientists should decide whether a given individual had caused more than one million deaths. Convicts should also have the chance to reprieve to life imprisonment, if they withdraw, publicly repent and commit themselves to "participate significantly and positively over a long period in programs to reduce the effects of global warming (from jail) – using much the same means that were previously used to spread the message of denial". He continued: "Please note that I am not directly suggesting that the threat of execution be carried out. I am simply presenting a logical argument", but then finished: "At the end of that process, some global warming deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them. The death penalty would have been justified in terms of the enormous numbers of saved future lives." He then doubted his argument, saying "People will be saying that Parncutt has finally lost it"—but in the year 2050 "perhaps the Pope would even turn me into a saint".

Parncutt continued that if the death penalty were limited to individuals causing more than a million deaths it might also apply to popes since the 1980s, whom he claimed to be responsible for millions of AIDS deaths for their failure to change the church's position on contraception in the 1980s and subsequently. The paper remained on the website of the University of Graz until 24 December 2012.

After several people listed by desmogblog cited the text in their blogs, and some of them threatened to take legal action against Parncutt and the university administration,Monckton Foundation: [http://lordmoncktonfoundation.com/blog/view/321/death_penalty_for_legitimate_scientific_dissent_ Threat of legal action against Parncutt and the university administration] December 2012 Parncutt replaced the text by a shorter explanation and then by an unconditional retraction and apology.Richard Parncutt: [http://www.parncutt.org/climatechange.html Parncutt's apology], uni-graz.at, 27–28 December 2012 University officials ordered the removal of all political texts and issued a statement saying:

:The University of Graz is shocked and appalled by the article and rejects its arguments entirely. The University places considerable importance on respecting all human rights and does not accept inhuman statements. Furthermore, the University of Graz points out clearly that a personal and individual opinion which is not related to scientific work cannot be tolerated on websites of the University.University of Graz: [http://on.uni-graz.at/de/universitaet/article/stellungnahme/?cHash=fba9930eb9cfa21fadaaff3ce003712b Statement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304112342/http://on.uni-graz.at/de/universitaet/article/stellungnahme/?cHash=fba9930eb9cfa21fadaaff3ce003712b |date=4 March 2014 }}, uni.on, 28 December 2012

In 2013 a disciplinary process against him was initiated by the University of Graz. Parncutt later responded to criticism on his private homepage [http://www.parncutt.org/dp2.html].

In 2012, based on an analysis of the global financial crisis,{{cite web|url=http://www.johnsloboda.co.uk/#post14|title=peaceuk}} Parncutt proposed a global wealth tax to stabilize and reduce national debts, finance official development assistance to alleviate global poverty, and finance projects to mitigate climate change. A similar idea was proposed by economist Thomas Piketty in his 2013 book Capital in the 21st Century.{{cite web|url=http://www.comitebastille.org/2013/09/limpot-sur-le-patrimoine-peut-nous.html|title=Comite Bastille}} Parncutt supports the introduction of a universal unconditional basic income and proposes combining it with a flat tax on income.{{cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/1rau64/eliminate_poverty_with_universal_basic_income_and/|title=Eliminate Poverty with universal basic income and flat income tax (UBI-FIT): BasicIncome|work=reddit}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/publications/Pa12_BIEN.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=24 December 2014 |archive-date=24 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160424031954/http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/publications/Pa12_BIEN.pdf |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web|url=http://www.parncutt.org/BIFT.html|title=Bring Back Progressive Taxation and Eliminate Poverty by Combining Unconditional Basic Income with Flat Income Tax}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://homepage.uni-graz.at/de/richard.parncutt/ Professional homepage]
• [http://www.parncutt.org/ Political homepage]

{{Music psychology}}

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Category:Academics from Melbourne

Category:Academic staff of the University of Graz

Category:Australian human rights activists

Category:1957 births

Category:Living people

Category:Music psychologists