Background and Audio

In music, proximity may refer to elements’ being close together in pitch, time, or space (Tan et al., 2010). For example, notes that are similar in pitch may be grouped together. Notes are also grouped together if they are played together in time or if they come from the same instrument or section of a larger musical group. To get a sense for the idea of proximity, imagine a person playing a piano. Typically, the right hand plays notes that are higher in pitch than the left hand. Also, most often, it is the right hand that plays the melody, whereas the left hand plays the bass line or accompaniment. Even though all of the notes are played in close spatial proximity and at approximately the same time, we hear the notes from the right hand emerging as melody because they are grouped together with respect to pitch (Figure 13.12). Similarly, in some of Bach’s famous solo music for violin, the violinist essentially creates two streams of music by simultaneously playing both high and lower notes. Perceptually, we group the high notes together and group the low notes together, so we hear it as polyphonic or as two lines of music. You can hear an example of the role of proximity in music in Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E, which you can play below.

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