Recognition of variations using automatic Schenkerian reduction.

Experiments on techniques to automatically recognise whether or not an extract of music is a variation of a given theme are reported, using a test corpus derived from ten of Mozart's sets of variations for piano. Methods which examine the notes of the 'surface' are compared with methods which make use of an automatically derived quasi-Schenkerian reduction of the theme and the extract in question. The maximum average F-measure achieved was 0.87. Unexpectedly, this was for a method of matching based on the surface alone, and in general the results for matches based on the surface were marginally better than those based on reduction, though the small number of possible test queries means that this result cannot be regarded as conclusive. Other inferences on which factors seem to be important in recognising variations are discussed. Possibilities for improved recognition of matching using reduction are outlined

Optimality Theoretic Analysis of Non-Rhoticity in English

Moreover, the paper demonstrates a way in which r-liaison might be incorporated in the synchronic grammar of non-rhotic accents. Simply put, r-liaison could be perceived as another instantiation of VSpread conspiracy, where vowels tend to spread their melodic content onto the following segments. The OT machinery was also employed to account for the differences between various subtypes of non-rhotic accents, in terms of re-ranking of several constraints. The peculiar phenomena of hyper-rhoticity have, too, been demonstrated to fit the proposal

A Memetic Analysis of a Phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian Perspectives on Similarity and Lexicon-Abstraction

This article discusses some general issues arising from the study of similarity in music, both human-conducted and computer-aided, and then progresses to a consideration of similarity relationships between patterns in a phrase by Beethoven, from the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110 (1821), and various potential memetic precursors. This analysis is followed by a consideration of how the kinds of similarity identified in the Beethoven phrase might be understood in psychological/conceptual and then neurobiological terms, the latter by means of William Calvin’s Hexagonal Cloning Theory. This theory offers a mechanism for the operation of David Cope’s concept of the lexicon, conceived here as a museme allele-class. I conclude by attempting to correlate and map the various spaces within which memetic replication occurs

Extending a network-of-elaborations representation to polyphonic music: Schenker and species counterpoint.

A system of representing melodies as a network of elaborations has been developed, and used as the basis for software which generates melodies in response to the movements of a dancer. This paper examines the issues of extending this representation system to polyphonic music, and of deriving a structural representation of this kind from a musical score. The theories of Heinrich Schenker and of Species Counterpoint are proposed as potentially fruitful bases