A Transformational Approach for Musical Variation

This article is associated with a broad research addressing musical variation, whose main objective is the systematization of the analysis through the elaboration of an original analytical model. A new version of this model proposes a formal approach based on principles of the transformational theory. The present article is focused in the notion of variation isolated from a contextual framework (that is, out of temporal perspectives), setting the basis for further explorations. .Some original concepts, like derivative work, derivative space, attributes, among others, provide means for measurement of similarity relations between referential and derived musical ideas, as well as graphic representation for these relationships.This article is associated with a broad research addressing musical variation, whose main objective is the systematization of the analysis through the elaboration of an original analytical model. A new version of this model proposes a formal approach based on principles of the transformational theory. The present article is focused on the notion of variation isolated from a contextual framework (that is, out of temporal perspectives), setting the basis for further exploration. Some original concepts, like derivative work, derivative space, attributes, among others, provide means for measurement of similarity relations between referential and derived musical ideas, as well as graphic representation for these relationships

Variation and Developing Variation under a Transformational Perspective

The present article introduces the current version of an analytical model, which proposes a transformational conception for musical variation. According to this perspective, an archetypical variation is considered as a generic function capable to transform a referential musical idea into another one to which is related by some degree of similarity. The study addresses a number of co-related concepts, classifications, and assumptions whose interaction aims at consolidating this new theoretical formulation. The last section presents a typology for Schoenberg's principle of developing variation under the transformational point of view

The Reception and Dissemination of European Music Theories in Brazil. Riemann, Schenker, and Schoenberg

The history of music theory in Brazil is still not adequately represented in Brazilian musicology. When the Brazilian Association for Music Theory and Analysis (Associação Brasileira de Teoria e Análise Musical – TeMA) was founded in 2014, it took upon itself the task of redressing this imbalance by creating a study group dedicated to the “Historiography of Brazilian Music Theory and Analysis” (“Produção teórica e analítica no Brasil: trajetórias e identidades”). This article represents the group’s first step toward developing a historiographical and critical literature related to theoretical and analytical music studies in Brazil. It aims at historicizing the absorption and development of European theories in the country and at showing how the idiosyncratic use of European theories in Brazil has been informed by pedagogical and research practice. Mostly dedicated to Brazilian musical contexts, theoretical-analytical studies developed in Brazil have creatively deployed imported theoretical models for pedagogical, analytical, or compositional purposes. European theories, such as those of Hugo Riemann, Heinrich Schenker, and Arnold Schoenberg, have been subject to distinctive interpretations in Brazilian academic research. // Die brasilianische Musikwissenschaft ist bislang der Geschichte der Musiktheorie in Brasilien nicht gerecht geworden. Als die Brasilianische Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie und Musikanalyse (Associação Brasileira de Teoria e Análise Musical – TeMA) im Jahr 2014 gegründet wurde, nahm sie sich vor, diesem Defizit entgegenzuwirken und gründete die Studiengruppe “Historiographie der brasilianischen Musiktheorie und Analyse“ (“Produção teórica e analítica no Brasil: trajetórias e identidades”). Dieser Aufsatz stellt den ersten Schritt der Gruppe zur Entwicklung einer historiographischen und kritischen Literatur zu den musiktheoretischen und -analytischen Studien in Brasilien dar. Er zielt darauf ab, die Rezeption und Entwicklung von europäischen Theorien in Brasilien nachzuzeichnen und zeigt dabei, wie Pädagogik und Forschung einen eigenständigen Gebrauch dieser Theorien bestimmt haben. Die in Brasilien erarbeiteten theoretischen und analytischen Studien, die hauptsächlich brasilianischen musikalischen Kontexten gewidmet sind, haben in kreativer Weise eingeführte theoretische Modelle für pädagogische, analytische oder kompositorische Zwecke weiterentwickelt. Unter den Theorien europäischer Herkunft haben diejenigen von Hugo Riemann, Heinrich Schenker und Arnold Schönberg in der brasilianischen Forschung eine spezifische Prägung erhalten

Mathematics and New Technologies at the service of Music Education

En el siguiente artículo realizamos una revisión bibliográfica sobre las últimas investigaciones llevadas a cabo sobre las implicaciones de las matemáticas y las nuevas tecnologías en la educación musical, en el que varios autores nos muestran la manera de utilizarlas como herramientas creativas, y como elementos de análisis de formas musicales; al mismo tiempo podremos entender mejor los procesos de aprendizaje de representación matemática a través de la variación de la frecuencia del sonido en el tiempo.In the following article, we conducted a bibliographical review on the latest research carried out on the implications of mathematics and new technologies in music education, in which several authors show us how to use them as creative tools, and as elements of analysis of musical forms; At the same time we will be able to better understand the learning processes of mathematical representation through the variation of sound frequency over time

Sistema-Gr e Parsemat no planejamento e criação de Ciclo Hápticos para Quinteto de Sopros

Resumo: Este artigo trata do processo de composição de uma obra original para quinteto de sopros (Ciclo Hápticos de Jorge L Santos) elaborada a partir de reflexões e resultados de pesquisa sobre a textura no processo composicional de Pierre Boulez.  Para tal propósito, utilizamos duas ferramentas metodológicas e composicionais.  De um lado, para produção do material melódico-harmônico foi empregado o Sistema-Gr de composição musical, desenvolvido por Carlos Almada (2014), o qual consiste num conjunto de softwares que geram “variantes melódicas” a partir de uma célula básica, Do outro lado, para organização formal, utilizamos o software Partitions - que faz parte do conjunto de programas Parsemat, elaborado por Pauxy Gentil-Nunes (2009) – o qual informa o conjunto total de possibilidades de partições de um dado número.  As estruturas formais das obras Sonatine pour flûte et piano, Avant L'artisan furieux/Le Marteau sans Maître  e Dérives 1 de Pierre Boulez foi  utilizada para espelhamento da forma, distribuindo as partições a partir do perfil textural de cada seção das peças. Também foram extraídos destas obras, as células utilizadas para desenvolvimento melódico-harmônico por meio do Sistema-Gr. Palavras-chave: Composição, Sistema-Gr, PARSEMAT, Quinteto de Sopros, Processos Criativos Gr-System and Parsemat for planning and creation of “Haptic Cycle” for Wind Quintet Abstract: This article aims to describe the compositional process of an original work for wind quintet (Haptics Cycle by Jorge L Santos) created after the reflections and results of a research about texture on Pierre Boulez's compositional thought.  For this purpose, we used two compositional and methodological tools. On the one hand, for the production of melodic-harmonic elements, we employed the Gr-System for musical composition, developed by Carlos Almada (2014), in which a set of softwares generates melodic variations from one basic cell, on the other hand, for the formal design, we employed the software Partitions - that is part of a set of programs named Parsemat elaborated by Pauxy Gentil-Nunes (2009) – which informs the total amount of partitions possibilities of a given number. We also used the Sonatine pour flûte et piano, Avant L'artisan furieux/Le Marteau sans Maître  and Dérives I’s formal structures 1 by Pierre Boulez as a sort of mirrored design of the form for the textural organization of the sections in Haptics. We also extracted from these pieces basic cells to be employed in the melodic harmonic development by Gr-System.  Keywords: Composition, Gr-System, Parsemat, Wind Quintet, Creative Processe

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music by Steven Jan is a comprehensive account of the relationships between evolutionary theory and music. Examining the ‘evolutionary algorithm’ that drives biological and musical-cultural evolution, the book provides a distinctive commentary on how musicality and music can shed light on our understanding of Darwin’s famous theory, and vice-versa. Comprised of seven chapters, with several musical examples, figures and definitions of terms, this original and accessible book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the relationships between music and evolutionary thought. Jan guides the reader through key evolutionary ideas and the development of human musicality, before exploring cultural evolution, evolutionary ideas in musical scholarship, animal vocalisations, music generated through technology, and the nature of consciousness as an evolutionary phenomenon. A unique examination of how evolutionary thought intersects with music, Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music is essential to our understanding of how and why music arose in our species and why it is such a significant presence in our lives

Music Synchronization, Audio Matching, Pattern Detection, and User Interfaces for a Digital Music Library System

Over the last two decades, growing efforts to digitize our cultural heritage could be observed. Most of these digitization initiatives pursuit either one or both of the following goals: to conserve the documents - especially those threatened by decay - and to provide remote access on a grand scale. For music documents these trends are observable as well, and by now several digital music libraries are in existence. An important characteristic of these music libraries is an inherent multimodality resulting from the large variety of available digital music representations, such as scanned score, symbolic score, audio recordings, and videos. In addition, for each piece of music there exists not only one document of each type, but many. Considering and exploiting this multimodality and multiplicity, the DFG-funded digital library initiative PROBADO MUSIC aimed at developing a novel user-friendly interface for content-based retrieval, document access, navigation, and browsing in large music collections. The implementation of such a front end requires the multimodal linking and indexing of the music documents during preprocessing. As the considered music collections can be very large, the automated or at least semi-automated calculation of these structures would be recommendable. The field of music information retrieval (MIR) is particularly concerned with the development of suitable procedures, and it was the goal of PROBADO MUSIC to include existing and newly developed MIR techniques to realize the envisioned digital music library system. In this context, the present thesis discusses the following three MIR tasks: music synchronization, audio matching, and pattern detection. We are going to identify particular issues in these fields and provide algorithmic solutions as well as prototypical implementations. In Music synchronization, for each position in one representation of a piece of music the corresponding position in another representation is calculated. This thesis focuses on the task of aligning scanned score pages of orchestral music with audio recordings. Here, a previously unconsidered piece of information is the textual specification of transposing instruments provided in the score. Our evaluations show that the neglect of such information can result in a measurable loss of synchronization accuracy. Therefore, we propose an OCR-based approach for detecting and interpreting the transposition information in orchestral scores. For a given audio snippet, audio matching methods automatically calculate all musically similar excerpts within a collection of audio recordings. In this context, subsequence dynamic time warping (SSDTW) is a well-established approach as it allows for local and global tempo variations between the query and the retrieved matches. Moving to real-life digital music libraries with larger audio collections, however, the quadratic runtime of SSDTW results in untenable response times. To improve on the response time, this thesis introduces a novel index-based approach to SSDTW-based audio matching. We combine the idea of inverted file lists introduced by Kurth and Müller (Efficient index-based audio matching, 2008) with the shingling techniques often used in the audio identification scenario. In pattern detection, all repeating patterns within one piece of music are determined. Usually, pattern detection operates on symbolic score documents and is often used in the context of computer-aided motivic analysis. Envisioned as a new feature of the PROBADO MUSIC system, this thesis proposes a string-based approach to pattern detection and a novel interactive front end for result visualization and analysis

Zur Funktion des Wasserleitungssystems und der Entwicklung von Knospen in Schwämmen: morphologische Grundladen einer reversen Genetik

Schwämme stellen das phylogenetisch älteste rezente Phylum der Metazoa dar. Als Schwestergruppe der übrigen Metazoa nehmen sie eine Schlüsselstellung für unser Verständnis der Evolution der vielzelligen Tiere ein. In Folge der Verfügbarkeit vollständiger Genome unterschiedlicher basaler Metazoa sind besonders Entwicklungsgene in den Fokus der evolutionären Entwicklungsbiologie gerückt. Funktionelle genetische Untersuchungen sind derzeit nur in einer sehr begrenzten Anzahl von Arten der basalen Metazoa möglich, jedoch bisher nicht in Schwämmen. Um eine Methode der reversen Genetik in Schwämmen nutzbar zu machen, wurde in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein RNA-Interferenz-Protokoll in einem Vertreter der Demospongiae etabliert. Neben dem Zugang zu einer großen Anzahl an Versuchstieren erfordert dies auch eine detaillierte Kenntnis der Morphologie. Mit dem Ziel der Identifizierung funktioneller Stadien von Jungschwämmen in der tropischen Schwammart Tethya wilhelma, die als funktionelle Äquivalente adulter Individuen in genetischen Untersuchungen dienen können, wurden vier distinkte Stadien im Verlauf der Knospenentwicklung beschrieben, die durch eine sequenzielle Reihe räumlich-zeitlicher Muster charakterisiert sind. Für die in der vorliegenden Arbeit gewählte RNAi-Technik ist ein funktionelles Wasserleitungssystem essenziell. Anhand von 3D-Modellen von Kanalsystemabgüssen konnten quantitative Daten im Kontext der Architektur des Kanalsystems erhoben werden. Die Analysen ergaben, dass die Architektur im Kontext der allgemeinen Morphologie des Schwammkörpers ein hoch effizientes Flüssigkeitstransportsystem darstellt. Die Untersuchungen der Knospenentwicklung und des Kanalsystems bildeten die Grundlage für die Etablierung des RNAi-Protokolls. Dieses konnte anhand der Regulation der Aktin-mRNA-Level verifiziert werden. Damit gelang ein bedeutender Durchbruch, da erstmalig Techniken der reversen Genetik in einem Vertreter der Porifera erfolgreich angewandt wurden

Paradoxien des Digital Turn in der Architektur 1990–2015. Von den Verlockungen des Organischen: digitales Entwerfen zwischen informellem Denken und biomorphem Resultat

Vor dem Hintergrund der Einführung des Computers und der damit verbundenen Digitalisierung in der Architektur mit ihrer breiten Anwendung in den 1990er Jahren geht die Arbeit von der Frage aus, warum es im Formbildungsprozess eine Diskrepanz zwischen informellem Denken und biomorphem Resultat gibt. Es werden Paradoxien aufgedeckt, deren Fehlschlüsse zu einer Vielfalt von digitalen Strömungen bei gleichzeitiger Vereinheitlichung der Ausdrucksmittel führten. Im Mittelpunkt steht eine vergleichende und disziplinübergreifende Gegenüberstellung informeller und biomorpher Ansätze. Der informelle Ansatz findet seinen Ursprung im Konzept des Formlosen bei Georges Bataille in den 1920er Jahren und in der informellen Kunst in den 1950er/1960er Jahren. Der biomorphe Ansatz präsentiert sich in dieser Arbeit durch den Nachweis der Verlockungen, aufgrund derer die Architektur die Natur immer wieder als Vorbild nimmt. Es wird aufgezeigt, wo der aktuelle Architekturdiskurs in der Vermischung beider Ansätze feststeckt. Die Konklusion und der Ausblick bilden den Abschluss, in dem die "Unfreiheit" des Programmierens mit dem Wesen der Unbestimmtheit in einer postdigitalen Ära zusammengedacht wird. Dabei wird eine Antwort auf die Frage gegeben, warum sich das digitale Entwerfen vielfach einer biomorphen Formensprache bedient und wie ein Weg aussehen kann, der aus dieser Sackgasse herausführt