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S ILENCES IN M USIC ARE M USICAL NOT S ILENT: A N E XPLORATORY S TUDY
OF C ONTEXT E FFECTS ON THE E XPERIENCE OF M USICAL PAUSES
E LIZABETH H ELLMUTH M ARGULIS
University of Arkansas
SILENCES IN MUSIC ARE DISTINGUISHED acoustically
along only one dimension: the length of time they
occupy. However, like pauses in speech, they are distin-
guished syntactically along many dimensions, depend-
ing on the context in which they occur. In two
experiments, one using musical excerpts from commer-
cially available recordings, and the other using simpler
constructed excerpts, participants’ reactions to silences
were assessed. Participants pressed a button when they
heard a period of silence begin and end, moved a slider
to indicate perceived changes in musical tension across
the course of each excerpt, and answered a series of
questions about each silence, including questions about
its duration, placement, salience, and metric qualities.
Musical context, especially tonal context, affected the
response to silence as measured by all three tasks.
Specifically, silences following tonal closure were identi-
fied more quickly and perceived as less tense than
silences following music lacking such closure.
Received December 16, 2005, accepted February 7, 2007.
Key words: pauses, silence, syntax, tension, tonality
M
USIC ENGAGES LISTENERS IN complex and
myriad ways. The acoustic signal does not
transform transparently into heard experi-
ence; rather, the acoustic signal meets and partners with
perceptual principles, listening histories, and perhaps a
“musical grammar” (Jackendoff & Lerdahl, 2006) to
produce an experience that engages the body (Janata &
Grafton, 2003; Urista, 2003), the intellect (Webster &
Rodriguez, 1997), and the emotions (Juslin & Sloboda,
2003). Much research has explored the ways that con-
text can transform the experience of an individual
acoustic element. For example, a tone of a particular
pitch, loudness, and duration can be experienced as
accented in one (metric) context and unaccented in
another (Parncutt, 1994). Similarly, a tone of a particu-
lar pitch, loudness, and duration can be experienced as
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Silences in Music 485
stable and conclusive in one (tonal) context, and unsta-
ble and implicative in another (Krumhansl, 1990). Yet
little research has addressed the ways in which context
mediates the experience of perhaps the most obviously
context-dependent acoustic element: silence.
Acoustically, silences can be defined as periods during
which the acoustic signal descends below some thresh-
old of detectable volume. Acoustic silences are com-
putable automatically by a program designed to analyze
sound signals and extract spans during which the signal
falls below the criterion level. In this study, the criterion
level was double the lowest amplitude in the excerpt.
The moment the excerpt fell below that cutoff was con-
sidered to be the silence onset, and the moment it went
back above it was considered to be the silence offset.
The duration of the acoustic silence was the time from
onset to offset, as determined by the criterion.
Acoustic silences can be thought of as one-dimensional
gaps consisting purely of duration; the duration from
the end of the previous sound to the start of the next.
Yet silences are experienced as anything but one-dimen-
sional; in fact, musicians often speak of silences as par-
ticularly important loci of expressivity.1 Perceived silences
depend inextricably on musical context. The same
acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can
be perceived dramatically differently. Impressions of
the music that preceded the silence seep into the gap, as
do expectations about what may follow. These impres-
sions and expectations can cause two identical acoustic
silences to seem like they occupy different lengths of
time, or carry different amounts of musical tension, or
function differently in other ways. This paper explores
the transformation from acoustic to perceived silence.2
What aspects of the surrounding context impinge upon
the silent period and make it seem to actually sound dif-
ferent? Reaction times, tension slider movements, and
1
An abundance of well-known quotations address the expressive
importance of musical silence. One example, from pianist Artur
Schnabel: “The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the
pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides.”
2
Nakajima (1987) makes a similar distinction between physical
and subjective pauses, and Zellner (1994) between physical and per-
ceived pauses.
ISSN 0730-7829, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1533-8312 © 2007 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA . ALL
DOI:10.1525/MP.2007.24.5.485
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486 E. H. Margulis
FIGURE 1. Excerpt from Schubert Moment Musicaux Op 94 No 4. The silence at the fermata interrupts the expected progression to a downbeat tonic
chord in C-sharp minor.
question responses were used to gauge the nature of the
perceived silence that listeners constructed out of the
combination of the acoustic silence and the surrounding
context.
Consider Figure 1, an excerpt from Schubert’s Moment
Musicaux Op 94, No 4, and Figure 2, an adapted version
of the same excerpt. In the original version (Figure 1),
the silence interrupts the expected resolution to a
downbeat cadence on a tonic C-sharp minor chord. In
the adapted version (Figure 2), the silence follows
cadential resolution on a downbeat C-sharp minor
chord. Acoustically, the silences differ only in length
(and perhaps not even that, if a performer chose to sus-
tain both silences for the same duration, invoking the
freedom permitted by the fermata). Perceptually, how-
ever, the silences differ markedly. The silence in Figure 1,
by virtue of occurring in place of an expected continu-
ation, draws attention to itself. The silence in Figure 2 is
inconspicuous, falling at a grouping boundary after
cadential closure. The silence in Figure 1 seems marked at
its onset, but the silence in Figure 2 emerges subtly out of
the decay of the preceding chord. The silence in Figure 1,
following an open gesture, seems tense and forward-
leaning, but the silence in Figure 2, following a closed
one, seems relaxed and at rest. (Indeed, the expectant
tension permeating the silence in Figure 1 makes the
subsequent turn to the major modality more effective).
Context, in short, can transform the same acoustic
silence into very different perceived silences.
London (1993) explores the anticipatory metric
mechanisms that can make a rest (an acoustic silence)
sound loud (a perceived quality). He quotes Cooper
and Meyer’s (1960) observation that the downbeat of
measure 280 in the first movement of Beethoven’s
Eroica Symphony is “the loudest silence in musical liter-
ature” (p. 139), occurring at the moment of a projected
downbeat on the largest scale. As London describes it,
“at the very moment where we expect the culmination
of a tissue of musical processes, all we get is the ‘default’
articulation of the downbeat as we count along. With
so much riding on that moment, the little metric “click”
we hear/create in our heads is deafeningly loud indeed”
(p. 2). Meter is perhaps the most explored of the musi-
cal phenomena that can transform acoustic silences
into musically significant perceived silences, but other
parameters such as form and tonal structure can have
similar effects.
Kraemer, Macrae, Green and Kelley (2005) used func-
tional magnetic resonance imaging to scan participants
while they listened to familiar and unfamiliar pieces of
music, where short sections (2-5 s) were replaced by
silent gaps. Participants showed more activation in the
auditory association areas during silent gaps in familiar
pieces than during gaps in unfamiliar pieces; in other
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 487
FIGURE 2. Excerpt from Schubert Moment Musicaux Op. 94 No. 4, adapted so that the silence at the fermata follows the cadence on the tonic
C-sharp minor chord.
words, brain activity during otherwise identical
acoustic silences differed depending on the context in
which the silence was embedded. “Simply muting short
gaps of familiar music was sufficient to trigger auditory
imagery—a finding that indicates the obligatory nature
of this phenomenon. Corroborating this observation,
all subjects reported subjectively hearing a continuation
of the familiar songs, but not of the unfamiliar songs,
during the gaps in the music” (p. 158). Context can
transform an acoustic silence into a perceived silence
that is filled with imagined music.
The complex time course of musical processing
means that silences are invariably imbued with the lin-
gering perception of past events as well as the anticipa-
tion of future ones. Tekman and Bharucha (1998)
showed that for chords, priming effects (the facilitation
of processing for chords that are typical consequents,
and the enhancement of their perceived consonance)
persist through silent periods of as long as 2,450 ms.
These priming effects are triggered and persist even
when the prime is as short as 50 ms, suggesting a quick
rise and slow decay for priming effects across silences.
Kallman and Massaro (1979, 1983) likewise illustrates
that although the presentation of an intervening audi-
tory stimulus significantly decreases recognition mem-
ory, silent retention intervals only slightly decrease
recognition memory for tones. Dureau (2005) recorded
Silences in Music 487
infants’ heart rate and behavior through alternating
periods of music and silence. She found that the arousal
from the initial auditory stimulus lasted through the
subsequent silent period, preventing the measures from
returning to baseline. These results speak to the degree
to which the preceding musical context can influence
the experience of empty periods.
Pauses serve to segment all kinds of sequential mate-
rial (Restle, 1972), including language, where the length
of the pause correlates with the hierarchical level of the
segment ending (Goldman-Eisler, 1972). Linguists, in
fact, make a distinction between physical pauses and
perceived pauses (Zellner, 1994)—a distinction which is
approximately equivalent to the distinction made in
this study between acoustic and perceived silences, where
perceived pauses are dependent on linguistic context. In
speech, pauses tend to be long and frequent between
words that don’t group together, and short and less fre-
quent between words that are interdependent (Grosjean,
Grosjean, & Lane 1979). Mean durations of silent
pauses in speech are comparable to the durations of the
musical pauses used in this study; in an interview, mean
pauses by speakers were 520 ms, in describing a cartoon
(a relatively more complex task), mean pauses were
1320 ms (Grosjean & Deschamps, 1975).
Deutsch (1980) showed that pauses segment melodies,
determining which melodic groups get remembered as
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488 E. H. Margulis
chunks. According to Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983), it
is interonset interval, rather than silence per se, that
contributes to the determination of group boundaries.
One of the theory’s grouping preference rules
(Slur/Rest) advocates locating a boundary at spots
where the time from the end of one note to the start of
the next is longer than the value of surrounding end-to-
start spaces, but another (Attack-point) advocates
locating a boundary at spots where the time from the
start of one note to the start of the next is longer than
surrounding start-to-start durations. The Attack-point
rule does not distinguish between held notes (where a
note is sustained from one attack-point to the next) and
pauses (where a rest follows the attack point of the first
note). In an empirical test of grouping strategies, Fran-
kland and Cohen (2004) found that the Attack-point
rule accounted for boundary placement better than any
of the other rules tested, and that the Slur/Rest rule was
only invoked by participants in response to one of the
stimulus melodies. These data suggest that under some
circumstances, silences and sustained notes can func-
tion in syntactically similar ways. Sloboda and Gregory
(1980) distinguished between physical markers for
phrase boundaries, such as a note of relatively long
duration or a relatively long pause, and structural
markers for phrase boundaries, such as cadences (stan-
dardized harmonic progressions that often occur at
phrase ends). The study examined click migration, the
tendency for clicks to be misremembered as occurring
closer to phrase boundaries than they occurred in real-
ity, a phenomenon that characterizes both music and
language. Click migration shows that structural cues are
sufficient to create anticipation for phrase boundaries,
and suggests that the psychological endpoint of phrases
may be at the beginning of the final, elongated, closural
pitch, rather than at the pitch’s end. If this is the case, the
psychological difference between a short final note fol-
lowed by a silence and a final note held for the length of
the silence may be negligible.
The present study uses estimated duration as one
measure of contextual effects on silence. There is a large
literature on time estimation in psychology, ranging
from studies on the “watched-pot phenomenon” (Block,
George, & Reed, 1980; Cahoon & Edmonds, 1980) – the
overestimation of time periods in which the estimator
is expectantly waiting for something to happen—to
studies on “turn-taking” in spoken language—the
extraction of temporal regularities in speech that allow
people in ordinary conversation to neither interrupt
nor enter too late after their partner’s utterance (Jaffe &
Feldstein, 1972). Block and Zakay (1997) review the
time estimation literature. Theories of time estimation
have been put forth by Fraisse (1984), who suggested
that expectancies increase experienced duration by
drawing attention to the passage of time, and by Orn-
stein (1969), who suggested that expectancies increase
experienced duration by encouraging the perceiver to
attend more closely to the environment, increasing the
amount of information encoded into memory, and
thus inflating the amount of time that seems to have
passed.
Jones and Boltz (1989) outline a framework for
understanding how structure guides different modes of
attending that yield different time estimation strategies.
According to this framework, if the end of an event
comes later than expected, the event will seem long and
its duration will be overestimated; whereas if the end of
an event comes earlier than expected, the event will seem
short and its duration will be underestimated. However,
if the structure of the stimulus does not afford the for-
mation of clear temporal expectancies, duration estima-
tion will be based on the number of changes or segments
within the event, as described by Ornstein (1969).
Boltz (1989) asked participants to compare the dura-
tions of folk songs ending with different degrees of
tonal resolution. Melodies ending on the leading tone
(thus lacking tonal resolution) were judged to be
shorter than those ending on the tonic (thus possessing
tonal resolution). Boltz hypothesized that the expecta-
tion for an impending tonic made the leading tone end-
ings seem too early, causing the tune duration to be
underestimated. In Jones, Boltz, and Klein (1993), par-
ticipants heard melodies with a phrase structure of high
temporal regularity, and were asked to judge the melody
length. In some melodies, the final phrase was extended
or contracted so that the final note occurred too early or
too late in comparison to the previously established
phrase regularities. When the final note occurred too
early, participants underestimated the melody’s dura-
tion, and when it occurred too late, participants overes-
timated the duration.
In Boltz (1991), participants over or underestimated
durations for the same stimulus, depending on the
coherence of the level of structure attended to (either
the temporally predictable higher level phrase structure
or the temporally predictable lower level contour
changes among adjacent notes). Participants attending
to the phrase structure over or underestimated the
stimulus duration based on the expected endpoint, but
participants attending to the contour over or underes-
timated the duration based on the number of contour
changes (where more changes yielded longer estima-
tions). In Boltz (1993), participants judged the dura-
tion of a music perception task, and the duration of a
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waiting period within an experiment. They used the
same strategies to under or overestimate durations as
the participants in the music studies. These findings
provide strong support for a general, domain inde-
pendent relationship between expectancy and time esti-
mation. However, they concern the estimation of
relatively long periods: on the order of several seconds
or more. The silences used in the present study are
much shorter, falling well within the range of the per-
ceptual present. The estimation of such short durations
might rely on different cognitive processes than the esti-
mation of longer ones. Nakajima (1987) investigated
the estimation of shorter durations, specifically empty
durations between 40 and 600 ms, marked on either
end by short sound bursts. He found that the estimated
duration of periods within this range were proportional
to the physical duration plus a constant of ~80 ms. His
model distinguishes between physical duration, the
measured time between the two sound bursts, and sub-
jective duration, the perceived time between the two.
This distinction parallels the distinction made in this
paper between acoustic and perceived silences.
Mattys, Pleydell-Pearce, Melhorn, and Whitecross
(2005) also worked with short silences and found that
detection latencies for 200 ms pauses inserted into the
last word of spoken sentences depended on the lexical-
semantic context of the preceding sentence. Similarly,
reactions to pauses in music are likely to depend on the
surrounding context. Silences in music occur norma-
tively at phrase boundaries (Deliege, 1987; Huron,
2006; Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983; Temperley, 2001;
Wertheimer, 1923/1938), where they contribute to a
gestalt separation that splits the music into two chunks:
one presilence, and one post. David Huron (personal
communication, December 30, 2006) used the software
toolkit Humdrum (Huron, 1995) to perform an analy-
sis of an often-used corpus of Western music: Helmut
Schaffrath’s Essen Folksong Collection (1995). In the
collection’s 687 German ballads, there are 27,664 notes
and 1,192 rests in 3,088 explicitly marked phrases. Of
the rests, 1,130 (95%) occur at the ends of phrases, and
only 62 (5%) occur within phrases.
Silences in music most often follow closure. Indeed,
as in speech, where the length of the pause correlates
with the hierarchic level of the structure achieving clo-
sure, longer silences in music tend to follow instances of
tonal closure on a larger scale (e.g., the final cadence of
a section versus the final cadence of a phrase, Berry,
1985). Yet silences can also occur midphrase for expres-
sive effect, at points of dramatic tension or interruption,
before tonal closure has been achieved. This study
hypothesizes that listeners will perceive silence differently
Silences in Music 489
when it follows closed and open musical gestures; specif-
ically, that listeners will: (1) identify a silence more
quickly when it follows a closed gesture; (2) perceive
more tension in silence following an open gesture: and
(3) respond systematically differently to direct questions
about silence when it follows open and closed segments.
In Experiment 1, participants were played excerpts
from commercial recordings that contained an instance
of musical silence. They were asked to perform three
tasks in relation to the excerpts (with one task per stim-
ulus presentation). First, they were asked to indicate
when the silent periods started and ended. Second, they
were asked to move a slider to indicate their perception
of fluctuations in tension across the course of the
excerpt (cf. Frederickson, 1995; Schubert, 2004; Vines,
Krumhansl, Wanderley, & Levitin, 2006). Third, they
were asked to answer a series of questions regarding
their experience of the silence and the excerpt. In
Experiment 2, participants were asked to perform the
same tasks in relation to constructed musical excerpts
that were isochronous (except for two excerpts featur-
ing an accelerando and two featuring a ritardando),
monophonic, and unitimbral. Experiment 1 provided a
more ecologically valid study, in which listeners were
likely to respond more closely to the way they would in
nonlaboratory listening, but Experiment 2 provided a
controlled study, in which certain musical parameters
were held constant and others varied to permit the iso-
lation of the impact of factors theorized to influence the
results for Experiment 1. Participants without musical
training were selected for both experiments, so that
responses to the silences would reflect reactions to
music, rather than assessments based on prior training.
Experiment 1
Method
PARTICIPANTS
Twenty-five participants were recruited from “Intro-
duction to Music,” a class at Northwestern University
with no prerequisites, intended for non-music majors.
The goal was to recruit participants without substantial
training in music. As compensation participants were
given extra credit in the class and $5. The study took
about one hour to complete.
Eight out of the 25 participants (32%) reported no
musical training whatsoever. Another nine (36%) repor-
ted five or fewer years of instrumental lessons. Seven
(28%) reported between six and ten years of instru-
mental lessons, and the remaining participant reported
13 years of lessons. Five of the participants (20%)
reported some training in music theory, but all except
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490 E. H. Margulis

one of these five reported that the training was rudi- each clicked the appropriate onscreen box to indicate
mentary and lasted one year or less. None of the partic- when they heard periods of silence begin and end. Since
ipants characterized themselves as musicians, and none reaction time was the measure of interest, it was impor-
were music majors. tant that participants respond quickly. Although each
The participants reported listening to music between excerpt contained only one silence, multiple boxes were
1 and 34 hours per week (M = 11; SD = 10), and attend- included to prevent participants from indulging in the
ing between 0 and 20 concerts a year (M = 3; SD = 4). extra calculation time that might be necessary to decide
No participant data was summarily excluded. whether what seemed like the start of a silence was
really the start of the main silence in the excerpt; in
MATERIALS
other words, including multiple boxes permitted them
Stimuli consisted of 20 musical excerpts taken from
to register false alarms. After the presentation of each
commercial recordings of tonal repertoire by composers
excerpt, to further encourage fast responding,
from Bach to Mussorgsky, featuring ensembles ranging
onscreen text reminded participants to be sure to
from solo piano to full orchestra (see Appendix A). No
“respond as quickly and accurately as possible.” Par-
vocal music was included, to avoid the complicating
ticipants were given two practice excerpts. After the
factor of text (one excerpt came from a choral work, but
practice trials, they heard the 20 musical excerpts in
the excerpt itself was entirely instrumental). Each
random order, then the same 20 excerpts in a different
excerpt featured a period of silence. This silence
random order.
occurred naturally on the recording and was not artifi-
Participants were asked to take a short break and were
cially introduced. The intent of the stimuli collection
then presented with Stage 2 or Stage 3 of the study (the
was to sample as wide a variety of musical contexts for
order of these stages was randomized). In Stage 2, par-
these silences as possible. The excerpts ranged in length
ticipants heard a series of musical excerpts and were
from 5.9 to 23.5 s (M = 14.1, SD = 4.7). The silences fea-
asked “to move a joystick to indicate the changes in ten-
tured in the excerpts ranged in length from 0.5 to 3.7 s
sion [they] perceive[d] across the course of musical
(M = 1.3, SD = 0.8). The length of the silences did not
excerpts.” Participants were not informed that the
correlate with the tempo of the excerpts; i.e., long
excerpts would be the same as those heard in Stage 1.
silences were found in both fast and slow excerpts, as
Participants moved the joystick forward to indicate
were short silences. Excerpt and silence timings were
increasing tension and back to indicate decreasing ten-
established with a short program written in MATLAB.
sion. They were encouraged to use the full range of the
This program scanned the excerpts for the lowest ampli-
joystick. They were given two practice trials and then
tude, and then marked the silence onset as the moment
performed the task for each of the 20 excerpts.
the amplitude descended below the criterion level of
In Stage 3, participants responded to a series of ques-
twice the lowest amplitude, and the silence offset as the
tions about the musical excerpts. Again, they were not
moment the amplitude returned to the criterion level.
informed that these would be the same excerpts used in
The recordings were presented over ALESIS point 7
Stages 1 and 2. (In poststudy discussion with the exper-
speakers with a shielded reference monitor, 4 ohms
imenter, many participants reported being unaware
impedance in a Wenger V-Ready Anachoic Chamber.
that they had heard any excerpt in more than one stage.)
The questions were presented and responses were col-
Participants heard each of the 20 musical excerpts fol-
lected in MediaLab (Stages 2 and 3) and Direct RT
lowed by the different questions in random order.
(Stage 1) (Jarvis, 2004) on an IBM Thinkpad T23
Halfway through the questions, they heard the excerpt a
running Windows 2000 Professional. DirectRT per-
second time. Participants responded using the key-
mits a timing resolution of 1 ms, and the latency due
board. The questions consisted of the following:
to the mouse did not change from excerpt to excerpt,
making precise timing comparisons possible. Tension n Did you hear a period of silence during the excerpt?
slider responses were collected with a Logitech
(Participants selected yes or no)
Extreme 3D Pro joystick moving in 1 dimension (for- n About how many seconds did the EXCERPT last?
ward to back).
(Participants entered a number)
PROCEDURE n About how many seconds did the SILENCE last?
Participants began the experiment by responding to a (Participants entered a number)
questionnaire about their musical background. n Where was the silence located within the excerpt?
In Stage 1 of the study, following an instruction set, (Participants indicated a rating on a 7-point scale
participants heard a series of musical excerpts and for from “at the start” to “at the end”)
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Silences in Music 491

n Did you experience a sensation of beats (or imag-
ined head nods, or hand claps) during the silence?
(Participants selected yes or no)
n How unnoticeable or noticeable was your experi-
ence of beats during the silence? (Participants indi-
cated a rating on a 7-point scale from “very unnotice-
able” to “very noticeable”)
n Estimate the number of beats you imagined during
the silence (Participants entered a number)
n How expected or surprising was the SILENCE
itself? (Participants indicated a rating on a 7-point
scale from “very expected” to “very surprising”)
n How expected or surprising was the music that
immediately FOLLOWED the period of silence?
(Participants indicated a rating on a 7-point scale
from “very expected” to “very surprising”)
n How badly or well did the silence fit within the con-
text of the excerpt? (Participants indicated a rating
on a 7-point scale from “very badly” to “very well”)
n How unnoticeable or noticeable was the silence?
(Participants indicated a rating on a 7-point scale
from “very unnoticeable” to “very noticeable”)
n How relaxed or tense did the silence seem? (Partic-
ipants indicated a rating on a 7-point scale from
“very relaxed” to “very tense”)
Results and Discussion
RTS (STAGE 1)
Boxplots were produced for the reaction times to the
silence onset and offset in each excerpt, and extreme
cases (extremely early or late responses presumed to be
due to participant error) were removed. Boxplot edges
were Tukey’s hinges and extreme cases were identified
as values more than three interquartile ranges from the
edge of a box. Using these criteria, an average of 2 out of
the 25 responses to each silence onset were discarded
for each excerpt. Since the order of presentation (first or
second hearing) did not affect reaction times to silent
onsets or offsets, F(1, 19) = 1.01, p = .46, reaction times
from both presentations were pooled and included.
Across all excerpts, the mean reaction time to silence
onsets was 148 ms (SD = 458 ms). The mean reaction
time to silence offsets was 421 ms (SD = 413 ms). Stan-
dard deviations were large because there was little consis-
tency from excerpt to excerpt in terms of orchestration,
dynamics, phrase structure, or tempo, leaving much
unpredictability in the stimuli. Additionally, participants
often responded early to silence onsets when the preced-
ing event was sustained and faded gradually (see Table 1).
(Experiment 2 featured sharp note releases and more
predictability from excerpt to excerpt, significantly

TABLE 1. Mean reaction times and standard error to silence onsets for excerpts in Experiment 1.

Mean RT to Standard
Excerpt Silence Onset (ms) Error

1. Bach St. Matthew Passion No. 36 233 69

2. Beethoven Op. 10 No. 3, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 422 67
3. Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131, Presto, Excerpt 2 –184 71
4. Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131, Presto, Excerpt 1 552 65
5. Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 10 No. 3, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 617 67
6. Chopin Nocturne Op. 32 No. 1 86 66
7. Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 No. 1 –696 65
8. Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration) No. 7 The Market 35 65
9. Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 126, Mvt. 1 96 66
10. Haydn Symphony No. 104, Minuet 449 72
11. Haydn String Quartet Op. 103, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 1 –693 66
12. Haydn String Quartet Op. 77 No. 1, Mvt. 2 300 66
13. Haydn String Quartet Op. 103, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 435 65
14. Mozart Fantasy in C Minor, Excerpt 1 –69 65
15. Mozart Fantasy in C Minor, Excerpt 2 748 72
16. Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration) 171 69
No. 10 The Great Gate of Kiev
17. Schubert Moment Musicaux Op. 94 No. 4 333 67
18. Schubert Moment Muiscaux Op. 94 No. 2 –195 65
19. Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, Mvt. 1 49 65
20. Wagner Prelude to Tristan and Isolde 693 71
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492 E. H. Margulis
reducing the standard deviations for the reaction times,
see discussion below).
To assess the effect of preceding context on the speed
with which silences were recognized as such, an
ANOVA was performed with onset reaction times as the
dependent variable, and pieces (20) and subjects (25) as
variables. Reaction times varied significantly across
pieces, F(19, 452) = 13.99, p < .001. A priori post-hoc
contrasts were performed to assess the specific effects of
tonal, metric, and rhythmic context on onset reaction
times.
If the part of the excerpt immediately preceding the
silence ended with a tonic chord, reaction times were
significantly faster than otherwise, F(1, 483) = 7.82, p <
.01. Contrastingly, if the part of the excerpt immedi-
ately preceding the silence ended with a predominant
chord, reaction times were significantly slower than
otherwise, F(1, 483) = 7.25, p < .01. These results are
consistent with the hypothesis that untrained listeners
react quickly when silence follows a closural harmony
(tonic), but slowly when silence follows an implicative
harmony (predominant). Participants’ responses to
tonal features reflected their responses not to har-
monies in isolation, but to harmonies as they are typi-
cally embedded within phrase structures; tonic
harmonies are much more typical of phrase endings
than predominant harmonies.
When the prevailing metric framework convinces a
listener to expect strong metric accent at a particular
time point, it is particularly surprising if no note attack
occurs there (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983). In other
words, it is more likely that a note attack will occur at a
metric downbeat than at an upbeat, and thus less likely
that a silence will begin on a metric downbeat than on
an upbeat. If the silence started on a metric downbeat,
reaction times were significantly slower than otherwise,
F(1, 483) = 22.87, p < .001. Presumably, listeners’ expec-
tation for a note attack on the downbeat delayed their
response to the silence that occurred instead. This result
is consistent with the hypothesis that metric structure
shapes silence perception.
Rhythmically, long notes contribute to the creation of
closure, and are more normatively followed by silences
than are short notes (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983). If the
silence followed a long note (defined as a note at least
four times longer than the average duration of the pre-
ceding notes), reaction times to silence onsets were sig-
nificantly faster than otherwise, F(1, 483) = 43.15, p <
.001. Long notes are representative of durational clo-
sure (Narmour, 1990), and are more likely to end a
phrase than short notes. Closure, whether tonal or
durational, speeded silence identification.
TENSION (STAGE 2)
Stage 2 of the experiment assessed participants’ experi-
ence of musical tension during the silent periods. Par-
ticipants moved a joystick forward and back while each
excerpt progressed to indicate increasing and decreas-
ing tension. Since silences in this experiment lasted for
different lengths of time, but no silence lasted for less
than 500 ms, to facilitate comparison the quantitative
analysis examined only the joystick movements during
the first 500 ms of each silence.
To assess the consistency with which participants
applied the concept of tension, results from Stage 2 were
compared with results from Stage 3. As one part of
Stage 3, participants were asked after the completion of
each excerpt to estimate how tense the silence had
seemed on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 signified
“extremely relaxed” and 7 “extremely tense.” Correla-
tions between the average joystick position in Stage 2
during the first 500 ms of each excerpt’s silence and the
rating of the silence’s tension in Stage 3 were high, r(19)
= .75, p < .001. The high correlations between real time
assessments of tension via the joystick in Stage 2 and
post excerpt assessments of tension via the ratings in
Stage 3 suggest that participants were consistent about
the way they applied the concept of tension; that the
responses during the first 500 ms of the silence were rep-
resentative of the overall impression of the silence (or
that the qualities of the silence’s beginning were more
salient in retrospect), and that participants were paying
attention in both stages of the experiment.
An ANOVA was performed with the mean joystick
positions during the first 500 ms of each silence as the
dependent variable, and pieces (20) and subjects (25) as
factors (see Table 2). Mean joystick positions (repre-
senting tension levels) varied significantly across pieces,
F(1, 19) = 282.63, p < .001. A priori post-hoc contrasts
were performed to assess the effect of harmonic con-
text. If a tonic chord preceded the silence, the silent period
was perceived as less tense than otherwise, F(1, 24) =
10.27, p < .005. On the other hand, if a predominant
chord preceded the silence, the silent period was per-
ceived as more tense than otherwise, F(1, 24) = 13.18,
p < .001. These results suggest that the harmonic ten-
sion of the preceding chord carried over strongly into the
ensuing silence.
The preceding analysis compared responses during
the first 500 ms of each silence, but a visual inspection
of the shape of tension responses across the course of
entire silences yielded an additional interesting obser-
vation. As an example of the differences in perceptions
of tension during the silences in the different excerpts,
compare the mean slider positions across the entire
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Silences in Music 493

TABLE 2. Mean tension ratings and standard error to first 500 ms of silences for excerpts in Experiment 1.

Mean Tension Rating for Standard

Excerpt first 500 ms of Silence Error

1. Bach St. Matthew Passion No. 36 73 20

2. Beethoven Op. 10 No. 3, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 65 14
3. Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131, Presto, Excerpt 2 60 16
4. Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131, Presto, Excerpt 1 57 13
5. Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 10 No. 3, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 60 13
6. Chopin Nocturne Op. 32 No. 1 58 12
7. Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 No. 1 64 16
8. Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration) No. 7 The Market 80 24
9. Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 126, Mvt. 1 78 16
10. Haydn Symphony No. 104, Minuet 80 15
11. Haydn String Quartet Op. 103, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 1 61 14
12. Haydn String Quartet Op. 77 No. 1, Mvt. 2 53 5
13. Haydn String Quartet Op. 103, Mvt. 1, Excerpt 2 81 19
14. Mozart Fantasy in C Minor, Excerpt 1 65 19
15. Mozart Fantasy in C Minor, Excerpt 2 87 17
16. Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration) 80 20
No. 10 The Great Gate of Kiev
17. Schubert Moment Musicaux Op. 94 No. 4 67 16
18. Schubert Moment Muiscaux Op. 94 No. 2 82 18
19. Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, Mvt. 1 56 12
20. Wagner Prelude to Tristan and Isolde 59 14

silence in two excerpts from Haydn String Quartets: an
unclosed excerpt from Op. 77, No. 1 (with a silence of
1400 ms), and a closed excerpt from Op. 103 (with a
80
Mean Tension
silence of 1700 ms). These excerpts are particularly use-
ful for comparison, because they contrast presilence
closure and openness in excerpts from the same genre
by the same composer with comparable silence lengths.
Figure 3 and 4 present mean tension responses, aver-
aged across all participants, for the entire course of each
silence. Figure 3 shows that the tension from the inter-
rupted predominant chord suffuses most of the silence in
Op. 77, No. 1, with no significant decrease perceived until
after a full 1000 ms of silence. Contrastingly, Figure 4
shows that after the tonic chord in Op. 103, the silence

70
is not only perceived to start at a lower level of tension,
but is also perceived to decrease dramatically right
away: mean slider positions move steeply downward
across all 1700 ms of the silence. The difference in the
shape of tension responses during the two silences sug-
60
gests that not only the absolute value, but also the time
course of musical reactions might differ depending on
tonal context.

50
QUESTIONS (STAGE 3)

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400
Milliseconds from Start of Silence
FIGURE 3. Mean tension slider positions for all participants during the
silence in an excerpt from a Haydn String Quartet (Op. 77, No. 1, Move-
ment 2, measure 29). A predominant chord (no tonal closure) precedes
this silence.
In Stage 3, participants were asked a number of direct
questions about their experience of each excerpt. First,
they were asked whether or not they detected a silence
in the excerpt. On average, participants detected a
silence 95% of the time. The average detection rates for
only two excerpts were under 90%: the rate for the
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494 E. H. Margulis

on a tonic or dominant harmony immediately before

the silence, F(1, 24) = 56.75, p < .001. Reaction time data
from Stage 1 of the experiment show that participants
80 were late responding to the start of silences when they
followed predominant harmonies. Thus, for excerpts
featuring a predominant harmony before the silence,
listeners may not realize they are experiencing a silence
Mean Tension

70 until some portion of it passes, resulting in an experi-

ence of silence that seems overall shorter. In contrast,
the dynamic level preceding the silence did not seem to
affect the response time to silence starts. The increase in
60
overestimation generated by forte dynamics may stem
not from an earlier recognition that silence is occurring,
but rather from the greater contrast between the
acoustic content of the silence and the preceding period.
Specifically, the larger decrease in dynamics may have
50
marked the silence more dramatically, resulting in a
sensation of longer duration.
400
200

600
500

800

900
300

700
100

1000

1100

1200

1300

1400

1500

1600

1700

Milliseconds from Start of Silence Participants were also asked to estimate the duration
of the entire excerpt. These estimates were divided by
FIGURE 4. Mean tension slider positions for all participants during the the actual duration of each excerpt, producing a vari-
silence in an excerpt from a Haydn String Quartet (Op. 103, Movement 1,
measure 70). A tonic chord (tonal closure) precedes the silence.
able representing the ratio of estimated to actual
excerpt duration. On average, participants underesti-
mated excerpt lengths; the average estimate-to-actual-
excerpt from the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde (80%), duration ratio was 0.70. When the estimates of silence
and the rate for the excerpt from the beginning of length were divided by the estimates of excerpt length,
Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 62 No. 1 (88%). Both excerpts the data reveal that on average participants remem-
feature a long, sustained note that fades into the silence, bered the silences as taking up 32% of the length of the
suggesting that listeners may imaginatively project such excerpt. In reality, the average silence took up 9% of the
notes further when they are followed by periods of duration of the excerpt. Whether this durational infla-
acoustic silence. Some participants seemed to concep- tion is a consequence of the focus on silence implied by
tualize silence following long notes as a quiet continua- the experiment, or would occur in more ecologically
tion of the previous sound, rather than an actual valid settings remains open to question. The result may
silence. This speaks to the influence of context on such also be an artifact of the already short duration of the
basic sensations as: did I hear a silence or not? silences, which may have made underestimating less
Participants were also asked to estimate the duration likely than overestimating.
of the silence in each excerpt (see Block & Zakay, 1997, In addition to estimating the duration of the silences
for an overview of the time estimation literature). These and the excerpts, participants were asked to estimate the
estimates were divided by the actual duration of each location of the silence within the excerpt on a scale from
silence, producing a variable representing the ratio of 1 to 7, where 1 signified “at the start” and 7 signified “at
estimated to actual silence duration: if above 1, the par- the end.” The actual location of the silence was measured
ticipant overestimated its length, if below 1, the partici- by dividing the excerpt duration up to the midpoint of
pant underestimated it. On average, participants the silence from the excerpt duration in its entirety; the
overestimated silence lengths; the average estimate-to- higher this ratio, the closer the silence occurred to the
actual-duration ratio was 1.48. Contextual factors end. Then, a ratio of estimated to actual silence location
affected these duration estimates. The lengths of was produced by dividing the participant’s response by
silences following music in a forte dynamic were over- the actual silence location. The greater this ratio, the
estimated (by 31%) in comparison to silences following more participants misremembered the silence as occur-
music in a piano dynamic, F(1, 24) = 50.33, p < .001. ring closer to the end; the smaller this ratio, the more
Additionally, the lengths of silences following music participants misremembered the silence as occurring
that arrived on a predominant harmony were underes- closer to the beginning. When the silence followed a
timated (by 28%) in comparison to music that arrived predominant chord, participants misremembered it as
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 495
having occurred closer to the start of the excerpt than it
in reality did, F(1, 24) = 40.65, p < .001. When the
silence occurred following a tonic chord, participants
misremembered it as having occurred closer to the end
of the excerpt than it in reality did, F(1, 24) = 37.68, p <
.001. Since tonic chords often end musical units, and
predominant chords often occur nearer to their begin-
nings, these shifts in remembered location might sig-
nify a representational realignment, where the excerpt is
remembered as closer to syntactically normative than it
actually was.
To assess the metric quality of the different silences,
participants were asked whether or not they experi-
enced a sensation of beats (or imagined head nods or
hand claps) during the silence.3 On average, 32% of
participants experienced a sensation of beats during the
silent period. For only one excerpt did more than 50%
(in this case, 57%) of participants report a sensation of
beats: the excerpt from Beethoven’s Hammerklavier
Sonata. In this excerpt, a sequence had been established
before the silence, consisting of a forte rhythmic gesture
followed by a pianissimo echo of the gesture. The
silence follows a forte rhythmic gesture, in the space
that would normally be occupied by its pianissmo echo.
Since this missing gesture is highly rhythmic and clus-
ters around a metric downbeat, it is not surprising that
its absence during the period in question resulted in
many listeners imaginatively supplying a missing pulse.
Similarly, there were only two excerpts for which
fewer than 20% (in both of these cases, 17%) of partic-
ipants reported a sensation of beats: the excerpt from
Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 131, and the excerpt
from Schubert’s Moment Musicaux Op. 94, No. 4. In
both of these excerpts, the performer decelerates into
the rest, which is notated with a fermata. The decelera-
tion has the effect of gradually effacing the regularity of
the beat, making it more difficult to mentally project
across the course of silence. Moreover, a fermata often
indicates a sort of beatless pause before the regular
pulse resumes; observe that in the Beethoven excerpt,
the fermata is over a barline rather than over any
notated duration. This placement highlights the extra-
metric quality of that silence.
If participants responded that they had experienced a
sensation of beats during the silence, they were also
asked to rate how salient the beats seemed on a scale
from 1 to 7, and to enter the number of beats they imag-
ined. The overall mean salience rating was 4.8, and the
only individual excerpt mean below 4.0 was that for
3
Head nods or hand claps were used in case participants were
unfamiliar with the concept of a beat.
Silences in Music 495
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, (3.2). This is not surprising,
because that silence falls on the weakest (third) beat of
the triple meter, and this beat had not been articulated
by a note attack in the melody at any preceding point in
the excerpt. Listeners were sensitive to the metrically
“unmarked” quality of this silence. Contrastingly, the
only individual excerpt mean above 5.5 was that for the
Prelude to Tristan and Isolde (5.6). Since that silence
followed only two notes, the first short and the second
quite long, this result was surprising. One theory about
the high beat salience in this excerpt might be that lis-
teners, with only one pitch change to cue a beat, count
it forward mentally across the long following sustained
note and silence, in an effort to make sense of an
ambiguous stimulus. The extra effort exerted to attempt
to locate a beat in such circumstances (London, 2004)
may have been reported by participants as an elevation
in beat salience.
Participants were asked to assess how expected the
silence was, given the music up to that point. Participants
rated the silence as more expected if it was preceded by a
chord capable of cadential closure (tonic or dominant),
and less expected if it was preceded by another harmony
(predominant), F(1, 24) = 16.45, p < .001. This result is
consistent with the idea, suggested also by the results
from Stages 1 and 2 of the experiment, that listeners
were sensitive to the normative position of silence after
points of tonal closure.
Participants were also asked to assess how expected
the music after the silence was, using a scale from 1 to 7
where 1 represented “very expected” and 7 “very unex-
pected.” The mean rating was 3.5. There were only two
ratings under 2.5: that for Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan
and Isolde and Mozart’s C Minor Fantasy. In the Wag-
ner excerpt, the music after the silence constitutes a
sequential repetition of the music before the silence. In
the Mozart excerpt, the music after the silence consti-
tutes a literal repetition of the music before the silence.
Listeners seemed to be sensitive to this patterning, and
appeared to interpret it as fulfilling expectations.
Silence has a function in grouping (Lerdahl & Jackend-
off, 1983), serving to demarcate group ends and begin-
nings. After the end of one group, a fundamental process
of expectation might project repetition of that group.
No ratings over 4.5 were given; however one excerpt was
assigned a rating of 4.4, indicating that the music after
the silence was quite unexpected. In this excerpt from
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the music after
the silence features an entirely different tempo, orches-
tration, dynamic level, and pitch and rhythmic pattern
than the music before the silence. Again, listeners
seemed to be sensitive to this distinction.
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496 E. H. Margulis
In addition to being asked about the expectations
they had sustained during the excerpt, participants were
asked to give a retrospective assessment of how well the
silence had fit within the excerpt, using a scale from 1 to
7 where 1 represented “very badly” and 7 “very well.”
The average fit rating across all excerpts was 4.6. Only 2
excerpts received a rating as low as 3.6; one from
Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 131 and Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion. In both excerpts, participants may
have been reacting to the silences’ unusual emphasis of
the measure’s weakest beat, and especially to the delay
of the subsequent strong beat.
Overall, the results from Stage 3 contribute more evi-
dence to the notion that silence perception is shaped in
multidimensional ways by the surrounding musical con-
text. The questions to which participants responded are
exploratory in nature, and merely hint at the complex
processing that likely underlies the musical experience of
silence. Future studies dedicated specifically to beat per-
ception in silences, for example, or to duration estimates
of empty periods, might provide more robust and
detailed accounts of the perceptual mechanisms
involved. These data simply suggest that the footprint of
musical context can be seen with other measures than
reaction times and tension ratings. Future studies will
hopefully explore this further.
Experiment 2
Method
PARTICIPANTS
Twenty-eight participants were recruited from “Introduc-
tion to Music” at Northwestern University, as in Experi-
ment 1. The study took about one hour to complete.
Eleven of the 28 (39%) participants reported no
music training. Another 12 (43%) reported five or
fewer years of instrumental lessons. The remaining five
(18%) reported between six and ten years of instru-
mental lessons. Only two of the participants (7%)
reported some training in music theory. None of the
participants characterized themselves as musicians, and
none were music majors.
The participants reported listening to music between
2 and 28 hours per week (M = 10; SD = 7), and attend-
ing between 0 and 12 concerts a year (M = 3; SD = 3).
No participant data was summarily excluded.
MATERIALS
The apparatus was the same as in Experiment 1. How-
ever, Experiment 2 used different stimulus materials
(see Appendix B). Instead of excerpts from commercial
recordings, excerpts were 23 monophonic, diatonic
melodies produced expressly for this study using Adobe
Audition. Excerpts lasted between 4 and 9 s (M = 6.6).
The silences featured in the excerpts were 0.5 or 1 s
long. Excerpts were isochronous with note durations of
0.5, 1, or 1.5 s, except for two excerpts featuring a ritar-
dando into the silence, two excerpts featuring an accel-
eration into the silence, and one excerpt featuring
staccato articulations: 200 ms notes interspersed by 500
ms silences. Each individual note in the melody had the
same distribution of energy among its frequency com-
ponents, as well as the same amplitude envelope. In an
attempt to induce a single metric interpretation for
each excerpt, notes falling on metric downbeats were
played subtly louder than the other notes (specifically,
these notes received a 3 dB boost).
PROCEDURE
Procedures were identical to those used in Experiment 1,
with one exception. Because the examples were both
more uniform (all using the same synthetic timbre, for
example, versus the diversity among piano, chamber
ensembles, and full orchestra in Experiment 1; all using
the same monophonic texture vs. the diversity among
textures in Experiment 1; all using the same two dynamic
levels vs. the diversity of dynamics in Experiment 1), and
less inherently engaging (synthetic excerpts vs. real musi-
cal contexts), it was a concern that participants might not
attend musically to the stimuli. To encourage them to pay
as close attention to the musical content as possible,
“checkup” questions were interspersed throughout the
reaction time part of the session. These questions asked
participants about the contour of the excerpt, the place-
ment of its highpoint, and whether the excerpt was new
or they had heard it earlier in the session. These questions
were intended not to provide data for analysis, but simply
to encourage participants to attend to the music rather
than simply to scan for the silent period.
Results and Discussion
RTS (STAGE 1)
Boxplots were produced for the reaction times to the
silence onset and offset in each excerpt. Extreme cases
(very late or early responses due to presumed participant
error, see criteria for Experiment 1) were removed—on
average 2 of the 28 participant responses to each
excerpt. One subject (number 6), who complained of
exhaustion during the session, performed particularly
poorly, and a disproportionate amount of his data was
removed. Since the order of presentation (first or sec-
ond hearing) did not affect reaction times to silent
onsets or offsets, F(1, 24) = 0.01, p > .05, reaction times
from both presentations were pooled and included.
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Silences in Music 497

TABLE 3. Mean reaction times and standard error to TABLE 4. Mean reaction times and standard error to
silence onsets for excerpts in Experiment 2. silence offsets for excerpts in Experiment 2.

Mean RT to silence Standard Mean RT to silence Standard

Excerpt onset (ms) error Excerpt offset (ms) error

1. Accelerando closed 359 22 1. Accelerando closed 471 31

2. Arpeggios 430 22 2. Arpeggios 411 32
3. Accelerando open 494 23 3. Accelerando open 461 31
4. Long notes closed 419 22 4. Long notes closed 462 32
5. Long notes open 485 22 5. Long notes open 402 31
6. Closed long silence 412 22 6. Closed long silence 329 34
7. Repeated notes 425 22 7. Repeated notes strong 404 32
strong beat silence beat silence
8. Closed short silence 455 23 8. Closed short silence 542 34
9. Closed 368 22 9. Closed 454 33
10. Repeated notes short 437 23 10. Repeated notes short 614 31
strong beat silence strong beat silence
11. Open long silence 452 22 11. Open long silence 599 32
12. Open short silence 495 22 12. Open short silence 414 33
13. Ritardando closed 350 22 13. Ritardando closed 389 31
14. Ritardando open 474 22 14. Ritardando open 356 35
15. Repeated notes short 379 24 15. Repeated notes short 677 33
weak beat silence weak beat silence
16. Repeated notes weak 411 23 16. Repeated notes 375 32
beat silence weak beat silence
17. Repeated notes 392 22 17. Repeated notes 468 31
18. Open 414 21 18. Open 403 32
19. Sequence 437 23 19. Sequence 696 32
20. Repeated thirds 424 23 20. Repeated thirds 411 33
21. Patterned thirds 423 22 21. Patterned thirds 352 32
22. Repeated note triplets 397 23 22. Repeated note triplets 547 33

Across all excerpts, the mean reaction time to silence
onsets was 437 ms (SD = 70 ms). The mean reaction
time to silence offsets was 462 ms (SD = 80 ms).
Although mean reaction times to silence offsets were
comparable to those in Experiment 1, mean reaction
times to onsets were longer. It is likely that this differ-
ence is due to the difference in the release characteristics
of notes in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. All notes in
the artificial timbre used in Experiment 2 decayed
quickly; however, many notes in Experiment 1 decayed
slowly, causing participants often to identify a silence
onset before the note had actually ceased completely to
sound. This and the greater predictability from excerpt
to excerpt, including metric probability, also accounts
for the much smaller standard deviation for reaction
times in Experiment 2 (see Table 3).
An ANOVA was performed with onset reaction times
as the dependent variable, and pieces (22) and subjects
(28) as factors. Reaction times varied significantly
across excerpts, F(21, 605) = 3.60, p < .001. A priori
post-hoc contrasts were performed to assess the effect
of tonal and metric context on onset reaction times.
Since stimuli were isochronous, it was not possible to
assess the effect of long notes as in Experiment 1. Some
excerpts featured closural movements to the tonic pitch
immediately preceding the silence, and others featured
more open movements (such as leaps) to nontonic
pitches. If the part of the excerpt immediately preceding
the silence ended with closural movement to the tonic
pitch, reaction times were significantly faster than other-
wise, F(1, 545) = 15.08, p < .001. Although the contexts
were impoverished in comparison to Experiment 1, they
elicited a similar result: reaction times were faster when
tonal closure preceded the silence. Unlike in Experiment
1, the data in Experiment 2 show no significant effect for
the metric placement of the silence. The metric contexts
may have been too simplified to elicit effects.
An ANOVA was also performed with offset reaction
times as the dependent variable, and pieces (22) and
subjects (28) as factors (see Table 4). Reaction times
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498 E. H. Margulis
varied significantly across excerpts, F(21, 590) = 10.04, p
< .001. As for the silence onsets, the order of presenta-
tion did not affect reaction times for silence offsets, F(1,
24) = 0.97, p > .05, so reaction times from both presen-
tations were pooled and included. When the same two
excerpts, differing only in that one achieved tonal clo-
sure before the silence and one did not, were played
with notes of 500 ms duration and silences of either 500
or 1500 ms duration, the reaction times to the silence
offset were significantly faster after silences of 1500
ms, t(26) = 5.47, p < .001. In other words, reaction
times to silence offsets were significantly faster after
longer silences, regardless of whether the music pre-
ceding the silence was open or closed. There are at least
three possible explanations: first, the 500 ms offsets may
have occurred while the participants were still recover-
ing from the onset response. Second, silences lasting
longer than the average note duration may be norma-
tive and thus more expected. Third, participants may
have targeted their attention at 1500 ms when an offset
failed to occur at 500 and 1000 ms.
To distinguish adequately between the possible expla-
nations, further research would be necessary. However,
the present data allow an exploration of the hypothesis
that offset reaction times relate to norms of silence
placement. Tonal closure tends to demarcate the end of
a musical section, and is more often followed by long
silences than are other kinds of events. After a melody
that achieves closure, listeners should anticipate a
longer silence. Although the results are not significant,
the data show a trend in this direction. When 500 ms
silences were preceded by music that achieved closure,
responses to the silence offset were slower than when
the 500 ms silences were preceded by music that
remained open, t(26) = 1.98, p = .06. However, when
1500 ms silences were preceded by music that achieved
closure, responses to the silence offset were faster than
when the 1500 ms silences were preceded by music that
remained open, t(23) = 1.19, p = .08. This marginally sig-
nificant trend suggest that listeners responded more
quickly to long silence offsets when they followed clo-
sure, but that they responded more quickly to short
silence offsets when they followed openness. This, in
turn, suggests that listeners might be sensitive to the nor-
mative length of silences in different musical contexts.
Excerpts featuring 500 ms notes and 500 ms silences
were contrasted with excerpts featuring 1000 ms notes
and 1000 ms silences. The responses to silence offsets
were faster for the excerpts where both notes and silences
lasted 1000 ms, t(26) = 4.69, p < .001. The same pattern
held true for responses to silence onsets, although the
trend did not rise to significance; responses were faster
when notes were 1000 versus 500 ms long, t(27) = 1.89,
p = .07. Both these findings are consistent with esti-
mates of preferred synchronization rates (Parncutt,
1994). Overall, when the silence length matched the
note length (500 or 1000 ms), participants responded
faster to the offsets for silences following open music,
t(25) = 3.20, p < .005, suggesting that listeners expected
silences to be as short as note durations only when clo-
sure had not yet occurred.
Analyses were conducted to determine whether the
metric placement of a silence (starting and/or ending
on or off the beat) affected reaction times to onsets or
offsets, as well as whether the meter of the excerpt
affected reaction times. No significant effects were
found. This supports the idea that pitch contributes
more to the conceptualization of silence than meter, but
it remains possible that another set of more metrically
engaging stimuli, with notes and silences of different,
less predictable lengths and more intricate melodic pat-
terns would reveal metric effects.
Two of the excerpts featured a ritardando into the
silent period. One excerpt achieved closure at the end of
the ritardando, and the other remained open. Reaction
times to the silence onset for the excerpt whose ritar-
dando arrived on the tonic pitch before the silence were
faster than reaction times to the silence onset for the
excerpt whose ritardando did not, t(26) = 4.38, p < .001.
Similarly, two of the excerpts featured an accelerando
into the silent period. One excerpt achieved closure at
the end of the accelerando, and the other remained
open. Reaction times to the silence for the excerpt
whose accelerando arrived on the tonic pitch before the
silence were faster than reaction times to the silence
onset for the excerpt whose accelerando did not, t(26) =
6.05, p < .001. Although ritardandos tend to point to
closure, and accelerandi tend to point to continuation,
in both cases the arrival of tonal closure seemed suffi-
cient to produce an effect, even when temporal evi-
dence countered the closural impression (as in the case
of the accelerando).
Not only were reaction times to silence onsets faster
for tonally closed excerpts regardless of whether the note
duration values were constant, increased, or decreased,
but also increasing or decreasing the duration values
had no discernable effect on the reaction times. In other
words, examining just tonally closed excerpts, there was
no significant effect on reaction time to the silence
onset of approaching it with steady, accelerating, or
decelerating note values. This finding suggests that the
tonal schema for silence location is strong enough to
override the effects of temporal entrainment (Jones &
Boltz, 1989), which would predict that participants
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 499
would react faster to silence onsets in temporally regu-
lar contexts.
TENSION (STAGE 2)
Since the stimuli in Experiment 2 were more impover-
ished, it was uncertain whether systematic tension
responses would be elicited. Although the results are
not significant, there is a trend in the direction found in
Experiment 1, suggesting that basic tonal cues in a rela-
tively simple context are enough to activate perceptions
of closure and openness. The first 500 ms of the silence
were perceived as less tense if the excerpt arrived on the
tonic pitch immediately before the silence, t(26) = 2.03,
p = .05.
Since some note durations were systematically varied
in Experiment 2, it was possible to examine the effect on
tension of sustaining a note versus following it by a
silent period (see Figure 5).
For excerpts ending in an open leap, sustaining the
final note over an additional 500 ms elicited a percep-
tion of greater tension increase than when the same 500
ms period was silent, t(25) = 2.70, p < .05. (This may
also have been a function of the slower tempo). For
excerpts ending in a closed arrival on the tonic, no sig-
nificant difference emerged between sustained and
silent excerpts. This difference in the effect of sustaining
a note vs. following it with silence for open and closed
excerpts suggests that the time-course over which peo-
ple respond to closed and open moments is different. It
seems that as soon as the attack for a tonic arrival
occurs, participants perceive the tension to drop (com-
pare with Figure 4 from Experiment 1). It is equivalent
to them whether the tonic note is held or whether
silence replaces the hold: in both cases, participants
report the tension to drop. When there is an implicative
note, continuing to sound it systematically increases the
tension. But replacing some of the note’s duration with
silence does not preserve the effect: the tension fails to
FIGURE 5. 1000 ms tone and the same tone with a 500 ms duration
followed by a 500 ms silence The two were more perceptually inter-
changeable after tonal closure, and less before it.
Silences in Music 499
continue to increase. This finding relates to Frankland
and Cohen’s (2004) observation that the Attack-point
rule, which does not distinguish between held notes and
interspersed silences, accounted for boundary place-
ments better than any other grouping rule in Lerdahl
and Jackendoff (1983). It also relates to the finding from
Stage 3 of Experiment 1 (reported above) that listeners
were most likely to miss a silence if it followed a long
sustained note; there is clearly some blending between
perceptions of long notes and silences in some contexts.
The two most strongly contrasting excerpts—the
excerpt in which the music decelerated to a tonic pitch
before the silence (Figure 6), and the excerpt in which
the music accelerated to the leading tone (an open
pitch) before the silence (Figure 7)—can be compared
in terms of the mean positions of the tension slider for
all participants across the full 1000 ms of the silence.
Not only is the position of each curve different—low
for the closed, decelerating excerpt, and high for the
open, accelerating excerpt—but also the shape of the
curves is different—steeply descending for the closed,
decelerating excerpt, and gently arched for the open,
accelerating excerpt. After the closed arrival on the
tonic in the excerpt represented in Figure 6, listeners
reported an immediate decrease in tension, which was
sustained across the course of the silence. However,
100
90
Mean Tension
80
70
60
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Milliseconds from Start of Silence
FIGURE 6. Mean tension slider positions for all paricipants during the
silence in an excerpt featuring a ritardando to a tonic pitch (closure)
before the silence.
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 500
500 E. H. Margulis
100
90
Mean Tension
80
70
60
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Milliseconds from Start of Silence
FIGURE 7. Mean tension slider positions for all participants during the
silence in an excerpt featuring an accelerando to the leading tone (no
closure) before the silence.
after the open arrival on the leading tone in the excerpt
represented in Figure 7, listeners perceived the tension
to continue to increase across the first half of the
silence, but gently curve back down to its preceding
level in the second half. These results echo those from
Experiment 1, shown in Figures 3 and 4.
QUESTIONS (STAGE 3)
Participants first reported whether they heard any silent
period in the excerpt. On average, participants reported
hearing a silence 92% of the time. In one excerpt, 500
ms silences were interspersed among 200 ms notes,
making the silences seem more like articulations (con-
ferring a staccato, truncated quality on the notes) than
like marked rests (although in other contexts, the 500
ms silence functioned clearly as rests). For this excerpt,
far fewer participants (14%) reported hearing a silence,
t(27) = 9.95, p < .001. As in Experiment 1, context was
able to modulate whether participants perceived a
silence or not.
As in Experiment 1, participants were asked to rate
how well the silence fit within the excerpt. Silences fol-
lowing an arrival on the tonic pitch were perceived as bet-
ter fits than silences following melodies that remained
open, t(22) = 2.83, p = .01. Moreover, when note lengths
remained the same, longer silences were perceived as
poorer fits, t(27) = 4.21, p < .001.
Participants were asked whether they experienced a
sensation of beats during the silent period. More partic-
ipants reported hearing beats during the silence when
the excerpt consisted exclusively of repeated notes, t(27)
= 2.91, p < .01. Presumably, the absence of complex
tonal information permitted a reallocation of attention
to the basic rhythmic qualities of the excerpt. Moreover,
because the melodic content in these excerpts was com-
pletely predictable (merely repetitions of a single note),
participants may have imaginatively extended it across
the course of the silence. These imagined notes may
have marked time in a way that led to the reporting of a
salient sensation of beats.
Participants rated silences as more tense when they
followed a tonally open segment even if the tempo was
changing (i.e., the music was accelerating or decelerat-
800 900 1000 ing), t(26) = 3.01, p < .01. The same effect held for
excerpts where the silence was 1000 ms and the notes
were 500 ms, t(24) = 2.43, p < .05. The same direction
of effect occurred for all other excerpts, but was not
significant. It may be that the 1000 ms silence allowed
more time for the difference in tension to noticeably
emerge, particularly given the results from the ten-
sion portion of the study suggesting that the time
scale of tension changes differs after closed and open
excerpts.
Participants were asked to estimate the duration of
the silence. These estimates were divided by the actual
silence durations to produce ratios reflecting the degree
of over or underestimation. Because all excerpts except
the four featuring a ritardando or accelerando were
isochronous, it was hypothesized that temporal infor-
mation would be clearer and estimates would be more
accurate. Indeed, estimates were more accurate than in
Experiment 1, but still reflected an inflation of the
silence’s duration in memory. On average, participants
estimated silences to be 1.16 times as long as they actu-
ally were (as opposed to 1.48 times in Experiment 1). As
in Experiment 1, silences occurring immediately after
the arrival of tonal closure were estimated as lasting
longer than silence occurring after music that remained
open, t(22) = 2.14, p < .05. Given the results from the
reaction time portion of the study, this difference is the-
orized to arise out of the fact that it takes listeners some
time to acknowledge that a silent period has actually
begun when no closure has yet occurred.
In comparison to Experiment 1, participants were
also more accurate in judging the lengths of excerpts,
slightly underestimating them as .97 times the length
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 501
they actually were. When the estimates of silence length
were divided by the estimates of excerpt length, the data
reveal that on average participants remembered the
silences as taking up 26% of the length of the excerpt. In
reality, the average silence took up 15% of the duration
of the excerpt. As in Experiment 1, these data show an
inflation of comparative silence length in memory,
though not as extreme an inflation.
Overall, results from Stage 3 in Experiment 2 mirror
those from Stage 3 in Experiment 1, but without as
much richness and subtlety; a consequence of the
starker, simpler musical contexts.
General Discussion
Several general trends emerged across both experi-
ments. First, and most generally, musical context affects
the perception of silent periods, themselves devoid of
any presently sounding stimulus. Second, silence is
affected not only by the temporal context surrounding
it, but also by the pitch context preceding it (although
silences themselves contain only temporal information:
the length of their duration). Third, the occurrence or
nonoccurrence of tonal closure (in the form of a
melodic descent to the tonic pitch, or a cadential arrival
on the tonic chord) immediately before the silence is
perhaps the most significant factor in the shaping of
that silence’s sound.
Silences often occur at phrase boundaries in both lan-
guage and music, allowing time for listeners to shift
attention from one syntactic unit to the next (Knösche
et al., 2004). Yet they can also occur mid-phrase, at
points of dramatic tension or interruption (Dougherty,
1981). This study shows that listeners responded differ-
ently to these silences, reacting to them more slowly,
and experiencing a different flow of musical tension
across their duration. Overall, it provides additional
evidence that the time course of musical engagement is
complex; elements from the past (e.g., preceding musi-
cal context) impact significantly on the experience of
the present (e.g., a presently sounding silence), such
that a silence within one context is not really experi-
enced as the same event as that silence in another con-
text. It remains an intriguing topic for further inquiry
how precisely this web of remembering and expecting
applies in musical listening, and in experience at large.
These results also add support to the growing body of
evidence that listeners implicitly extract stylistic norms
from the corpuses of music they encounter. Participants
in this study had little or no musical training, and yet
Silences in Music 501
proved highly sensitive to subtleties regarding the con-
textual placement of silence. Statistical learning has
been proposed as a mechanism to account for this kind
of implicit enculturation (Saffran, Johnson, Aslin &
Newport, 1999). It is particularly noteworthy that
responses reflective of stylistic norms were elicited not
only by full musical excerpts, but also by starkly impov-
erished excerpts possessing only the barest rudiments of
tonal structure. Precisely what (or how little) is required
to persuade listeners to “respond musically” (where
“respond musically” means cognitively to activate a
particular set of schemas and expectations, and physio-
logically to activate particular neural circuitry)?
People have hypothesized that part of the nature of a
“musical” response is its partial ineffability (Raffman,
1992). The responses to silence made during this study
were complex and consistent across a population of
untrained participants, yet ordinary conversation
would likely not reveal that these moments had partic-
ularly engaged the listeners. Indeed, as Bent (1981)
observes, even the terminology trained musicians use to
discuss silence implies that it is little more than a
nonentity, a blank canvas on which the notes are drawn.
The results from this study, however, suggest that
silences are loci of active musical engagement. What
cognitive mechanisms underlie the projection of musi-
cal expectations that produce stable measures (such as
reaction time and tension assessments) of active pro-
cessing during silent spans but seem not to rise to the
level of direct reportability? What does it mean that
people seem to respond musically even when they don’t
know they’re doing so?
Silent periods embody an opportunity to study the
active, participatory nature of musical engagement.
Although very little empirical literature has so far
exploited their potential, silent periods could provide a
unique chance to study the way that past musical events
shape expectations about future ones, and the way that
underacknowledged, often taken for granted musical
elements (such as rests) are actually suffused with the
full extent of “musical” listening. The Duc de la
Rochefoucauld made a telling observation about speech:
silences might be “eloquent,” “mocking,” or “respectful,”
he said, and mastery of such “airs and tones” is only
“granted to a few” (“The Chattering Classes,” 2006). Just
as the keys to the social relationships in a 17th century
salon might be unlocked only by careful attention to the
most inconspicuous of conversational elements—the
pause—the keys to the nature of musical attending
might be found most readily in the places where the
notes stop.
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 502
502 E. H. Margulis
Author Note
The author would like to thank the Northwestern Univer-
sity School of Music for support of this project during
the data collection stages, when the author was on the
School of Music faculty. The author would also like to
thank Christopher Rhoads for statistical consultation
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Appendix A

List of repertoire from which excerpts were drawn for use as stimuli in Experiment 1.

Excerpt Silence Silence length as percentage

Piece length (s) length (s) of excerpt length

Bach, St. Matthew Passion, Ach! nun ist mein Jesus hin! 10.94 0.45 4.11
Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op. 10, No. 3, Movement 1 (Excerpt 1) 10.09 1.26 12.49
Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op. 10, No. 3, Movement 1 (Excerpt 2) 13.51 1.17 8.66
Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op. 126, Movement 1 9.39 0.50 5.33
Beethoven, String Quartet Op. 131, Movement 5 (Excerpt 1) 7.73 0.74 9.58
Beethoven, String Quartet Op. 131, Movement 5 (Excerpt 2) 12.86 0.80 6.22
Chopin, Nocturne Op. 32, No. 1 14.77 1.06 7.18
(continued)
Music2405_05.qxd 5/18/07 12:10 PM Page 504

504 E. H. Margulis

(continued)

Excerpt Silence Silence length as percentage

Piece length (s) length (s) of excerpt length

Chopin, Nocturne Op. 62, No. 1 17.14 2.74 15.98

Haydn, String Quartet Op. 77, No. 1, Movement 2 14.72 1.70 11.55
Haydn, String Quartet Op. 103, Movement 1 (Excerpt 1) 15.31 1.42 9.27
Haydn, String Quartet Op. 103, Movement 1 (Excerpt 2) 17.56 1.06 6.04
Haydn, Symphony Op. 104, Movement 3 21.10 1.90 9.00
Mozart, Fantasy in C Minor (Excerpt 1) 9.41 1.01 10.74
Mozart, Fantasy in C Minor (Excerpt 2) 5.90 0.59 10.00
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, (transcribed 11.60 0.92 7.93
for orchestra by Ravel), Limoges—the Market
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, (transcribed for 16.20 0.85 5.25
orchestra by Ravel), Great Gate of Kiev
Schubert, Moment Musicaux Op. 94, No. 2 17.23 3.73 21.65
Schubert, Moment Musicaux Op. 94, No. 4 21.03 1.98 9.42
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, Movement 1 23.47 1.29 5.50
Wagner, Prelude to Tristan and Isolde 11.08 1.30 11.47

Appendix B

Arpeggios

Repeated notes strong beat silence

Repeated notes weak beat silence

Open

Patterned thirds

Repeated thirds

Repeated note triplets

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505 E. H. Margulis Silences in Music 505

(continued)

Repeated notes

Closed

Sequence

Repeated notes short strong beat silence

Repeated notes short weak beat silence

Closed short silence

Open short silence

Open long silence

Closed long silence

(Continued)
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506 E. H. Margulis

(continued)

Long notes open

Long notes closed

Notes increase length (ritardando) up to silence:

Ritardando open

Notes decrease length (accelerando) up to silence:

Accelerando open

Accelerando closed

Notes are 200 ms separated by 500 ms pauses:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.