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Computers in the Analysis of Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1977

Ian Bent  and
John Morehen
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Extract

In The Times of 24 April 1963 there appeared a headline which read: ‘The Computer as Composer?’. A mathematics lecturer in Bristol had been reading into a computer the elementary rules of melodic construction, in order that the computer should be able to compose, in return, well-constructed melodies. The lecturer had spoken of programming the characteristics of the great composers, as to melody and harmony, and of getting back ‘original compositions in their style’. We in this, the first paper to be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association on computers and their applications to music, are not going to make such extravagant propositions. We aim to give an introduction to the ways in which a computer may be used for musical analysis, and at the same time to convey the ‘feel’ of working with a computer. We shall present two analytical projects which have been designed specially for demonstration in this paper. But before presenting our analytical projects, a few preliminary words must be said about the computer and how we use it. We shall speak very briefly about the nature of a computer, about the way in which we submit work to it, about the way in which we present music for it to ‘read’, and about the way in which we tell the computer what it is to do with that music.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 104 , 1977 , pp. 30 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

NOTES

1 See Criswold, R. E., J. F. Poage and I. P. Polonsky, The SNOBOL4 Programming Language (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 9/1971); also R. E. Griswold and M. T. Griswold, A SNOBOL4 Primer (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1973). See also A. P. McCann and R. B. K. Dewar, MACRO SPITBOL – ICL 1900 Version, Technical Report no. 90 (University of Leeds, Centre for Computer Studies, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Computational work in the field of the Notre Dame organa has been carried out on the two-part Magnus liber See Karp, T., ‘A Computer Program to Test for the Presence of Melodic Formulae within the repertoire of the Notre Dame Organa Dupla’ (Research Report, University of California at Davis, 1967); ‘A Test for Melodic Borrowings among Notre Dame “Organa Dupla”’, The Computer and Music, ed. H. B. Lincoln (Ithaca and London, 1970), 193–5; R. Erickson, Rhythmic Problems and Melodic Structure in Organum Purum. a Computer-assisted Study (diss., Yale U., 1970).Google Scholar

3 ‘Benedicamus Domino IV’, bars 43–50, Die drei- und vιerstιmnauen Notre-Dame-Organa, ed. H. Husmann, Publikauonen älterer Musik, xi (Leipzig, 1940, R/1967), 128.Google Scholar

4 See Erickson, R., DARMS: a Reference Manual (typescript. Queens College, City University of New York, 1976); “The Darms Project”: a Status Report', Computert and the Humanities, ix (1974–5), 291–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Forte, A., Syntax-based Analytical Reading of Musical Scores, Project Report MAC-TR-39 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Journal of Music Theory, x (1966), 330–64 as ‘A Program for the Analytic Reading of Scores’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Piece 1: ‘Descendit. V. Tamquam’, bars 1–9, ed. Husmann, p. 4; piece 2: ‘V. Vidimus stellam’, bars 144–50, ed. Husmann, p. 51; piece 3: ‘Gaude Maria. V. Gabrielem’, bars 1–7, ed. Husmann, p. 53; piece 4: ‘Stirps Jesse. V. Virgo dei’, bars 1–7, ed. Husmann, p. 74.Google Scholar

7 See Harran, D., ‘New Light on the Question of Text Underlay Prior to ZarIino’, Acta Musicologica, xlv (1973), 24–56; D. Harran, ‘Vicentino and His Rules of Text Underlay’, Musical Quarterly, lix (1973). 620–32; E. E. Lowinsky, ‘A Treatise on Text Underlay by a German Disciple of Francisco de Salinas’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler (Leipzig, 1961), 231–51.Google Scholar

8 E. E. Lowinsky (ed.), ‘Medici Codex’, Monuments of Renaissance Music, iii (Chicago and London, 1968), part 3, ch. 2, 90–107.Google Scholar

9 London, 1977.Google Scholar

10 W. Gerstenberg (ed.), Musica Nova (Rome, 1957).Google Scholar

11 ibid.Google Scholar

12 Roman Flury (ed.), Gioseffo Zarlino, Dreι Motetten (Wolfenbüttel, n.d., ?1959), 5.Google Scholar