ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on event perception and discusses some of the available information about the kinds of experiences that are relevant for perceiving melodies. Melodies are played in a key, which means that the frequencies of the notes that can make up the melody are those of a particular scale. Most adults have heard and sung familiar melodies in a variety of keys. Hence, adults’ recognition of transposed familiar melodies might reflect their specific experience with those particular melodies rather than revealing the general basis for how they are perceived. By the early school years, children are already sensitive to some of the constraints of the music that is present in their ordinary listening environments. Melodies are heard rather than seen, they share many properties with visible events, and the most important of these is change over time.
