Thelonious Monk\u27s Prototypical Style: Close and Distant Readings of Jazz Stylings

Thelonious Monk’s style has been considered non-conformist, modernist, technically stilted, intentionally unconventional, even incompetent. His performing is idiosyncratic, to say the least. However, by what metric is his performing idiosyncratic, or, framed another way, in what ways do Thelonious Monk’s performances deviate from the prototypical performance? Situated within family resemblance theories of prototypicality, I utilize supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches to categorize jazz solos based on their melodic usage of standard jazz language (novel corpus of 530 jazz solo improvisations). Using these distant readings to determine which solos are prototypical, I perform a close reading of these prototypical solos via voice-leading reductions. This allows for an empirically grounded discussion of how Monk relates to the genre he was so influential upon. In chapter 1, I define prototypicality and discuss various difficulties in doing so in a manner that produces real-world prototypes. Using these premises, I define my goals of studying how prototypical Thelonious Monk is as a performer, and how that determination is important when labeling a performer as a non-conformist, modernist, etc. In chapter 2, I employ statistical methodologies to determine which variables are salient in defining prototypicality, and these variables are used to create my algorithms for solo categorization. In chapter 3, I explore from a music theoretical perspective the most prototypical solos in my corpus as identified in chapter 2, ultimately concluding that these solos find their meaning in deeper middle ground structures. Chapter 4 examines in detail the three most prototypical Thelonious Monk solos in my corpus. I conclude that Thelonious Monk’s solos are less about deep structure and more about developing foreground motives. Chapter 5 is a case study of the tune “Bloomdido,” in which I analyze the solos of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk on the same recording. I conclude the dissertation with an epilogue entitled “What About Time Feel?”. In this epilogue I introduce future research and caveats concerning the importance of time feel and rhythmic usage when discussing performance practice

Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope: reflections, applications, perspectives

This edited volume is the first scholarly tome exclusively dedicated to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope. This concept, initially developed in the 1930s and used as a frame of reference throughout Bakhtin’s own writings, has been highly influential in literary studies. After an extensive introduction that serves as a ‘state of the art’, the volume is divided into four main parts: Philosophical Reflections, Relevance of the Chronotope for Literary History, Chronotopical Readings and Some Perspectives for Literary Theory. These thematic categories contain contributions by well-established Bakhtin specialists such as Gary Saul Morson and Michael Holquist, as well as a number of essays by scholars who have published on this subject before. Together the papers in this volume explore the implications of Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope for a variety of theoretical topics such as literary imagination, polysystem theory and literary adaptation; for modern views on literary history ranging from the hellenistic romance to nineteenth-century realism; and for analyses of well-known novelists and poets as diverse as Milton, Fielding, Dickinson, Dostoevsky, Papadiamandis and DeLill

Modelling Motivic Processes in Music: A Mathematical Approach

This thesis proposes a new model for motivic analysis which, being based on the metaphor of a web or network and expanded using the mathematical field of graph theory, balances the polar concerns prevalent in analytical writing to date: those of static, out-of-time category membership and dynamic, in-time process. The concepts that constitute the model are presented in the third chapter, both as responses to a series of analytical observations (using the worked example of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1), and as rigorously defined mathematical formalisms. The other chapters explore in further detail the disciplines and methodologies on which this model impinges, and serve both to motivate, and to reflect upon, its development. Chapter 1 asks what it means to make mathematical statements about music, and seeks to disentangle mathematics (as a tool or language) from science (as a method), arguing that music theory’s aims can be met by the former without presupposing its commonly assumed inextricability from the latter. Chapter 2 provides a thematic overview of the field of motivic theory and analysis, proposing four archetypal models that combine to underwrite much thought on the subject before outlining the problems inherent in a static account and the creative strategies that can be used to construct a dynamic account. Finally, Chapter 4 applies these strategies, together with Chapter 3’s model and the piece’s extensive existing scholarly literature, to the analysis of the first and last movements of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. The central theme throughout – as it relates to mathematical modelling, music theory, and music analysis – is that of potential, invitation, openness, and dialogic engagement

"Wiggles and Volcanos": an Investigation of Children's Graphing Responses to Music

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in selected children's Graphing Response Patterns to elemental changes in compositions in theme and variation form. The research problems were (1) to determine points and degrees of elemental change in the compositional structure of the musical examples; (2) to determine number, degree, and nature of changes in subjects' graphing response pattern to aurally presented musical examples; (3) to determine percentages of agreement between changes in graphing response patterns and points of elemental change within the compositional structures; (4) to determine the relationship of changes in subjects' graphing response pattern to the quality and magnitude of elemental change within the compositional structure. Twenty second- and fourth-grade children were individually videotaped as they listened to and graphed a series of aurally-presented musical examples. Each musical example was analysed according to such parameters as timbre, range/interval size, texture, tempo/meter, attack/rhythmic density, key/mode, dynamic level, and melodic presentation. Change in each parameter was scored using an interval scale reflecting change/no change and degree of change. Changes in graphing response pattern were determined by an interval scale which reflected the presence of change/no change and amount of change, using as analytical units speed, size, shape, type, and pause. The following conclusions were made: findings showed an observable, quantifiable relationship between changes in children's graphing response patterns and elemental changes in music parameters. This relationship encompassed not only change/no change judgements but also magnitude of response. Overall, frequency and magnitude/degree of student response was proportionate to the frequency and magnitude of change in the music parameter/s. Results indicated the existence of high-ranking correlations between student response and certain parameters regardless of the degree-of-change/points-of-change ratio. Findings showed that one degree of change in a single music parameter was not sufficient to cause an observable change in the attention of the young listener

Curvature Sets Over Persistence Diagrams

We study an invariant of compact metric spaces which combines the notion of curvature sets introduced by Gromov in the 1980s together with the notion of Vietoris-Rips persistent homology. For given integers $k\geq 0$ and $n\geq 1$ these invariants arise by considering the degree $k$ Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams of all subsets of a given metric space with cardinality at most $n$. We call these invariants \emph{persistence sets} and denote them as $D_{n,k}^\mathrm{VR}$. We argue that computing these invariants could be significantly easier than computing the usual Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams. We establish stability results as for these invariants and we also precisely characterize some of them in the case of spheres with geodesic and Euclidean distances. We identify a rich family of metric graphs for which $D_{4,1}^{\mathrm{VR}}$ fully recovers their homotopy type. Along the way we prove some useful properties of Vietoris-Rips persistence diagrams

International Congress of Mathematicians: 2022 July 6–14: Proceedings of the ICM 2022

Following the long and illustrious tradition of the International Congress of Mathematicians, these proceedings include contributions based on the invited talks that were presented at the Congress in 2022. Published with the support of the International Mathematical Union and edited by Dmitry Beliaev and Stanislav Smirnov, these seven volumes present the most important developments in all fields of mathematics and its applications in the past four years. In particular, they include laudations and presentations of the 2022 Fields Medal winners and of the other prestigious prizes awarded at the Congress. The proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians provide an authoritative documentation of contemporary research in all branches of mathematics, and are an indispensable part of every mathematical library

Bakhtin’s Theory of the Literary Chronotope: Reflections, Applications, Perspectives

This edited volume is the first scholarly tome exclusively dedicated to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the literary chronotope. This concept, initially developed in the 1930s and used as a frame of reference throughout Bakhtin’s own writings, has been highly influential in literary studies. After an extensive introduction that serves as a ‘state of the art’, the volume is divided into four main parts: Philosophical Reflections, Relevance of the Chronotope for Literary History, Chronotopical Readings and Some Perspectives for Literary Theory. These thematic categories contain contributions by well-established Bakhtin specialists such as Gary Saul Morson and Michael Holquist, as well as a number of essays by scholars who have published on this subject before. Together the papers in this volume explore the implications of Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope for a variety of theoretical topics such as literary imagination, polysystem theory and literary adaptation; for modern views on literary history ranging from the hellenistic romance to nineteenth-century realism; and for analyses of well-known novelists and poets as diverse as Milton, Fielding, Dickinson, Dostoevsky, Papadiamandis and DeLillo

Methodological contributions by means of machine learning methods for automatic music generation and classification

189 p.Ikerketa lan honetan bi gai nagusi landu dira: musikaren sorkuntza automatikoa eta sailkapena. Musikaren sorkuntzarako bertso doinuen corpus bat hartu da abiapuntu moduan doinu ulergarri berriak sortzeko gai den metodo bat sortzeko. Doinuei ulergarritasuna hauen barnean dauden errepikapen egiturek ematen dietela suposatu da, eta metodoaren hiru bertsio nagusi aurkeztu dira, bakoitzean errepikapen horien definizio ezberdin bat erabiliz.Musikaren sailkapen automatikoan hiru ataza garatu dira: generoen sailkapena, familia melodikoen taldekatzea eta konposatzaileen identifikazioa. Musikaren errepresentazio ezberdinak erabili dira ataza bakoitzerako, eta ikasketa automatikoko hainbat teknika ere probatu dira, emaitzarik hoberenak zeinek ematen dituen aztertzeko.Gainbegiratutako sailkapenaren alorrean ere binakako sailkapenaren gainean lana egin da, aurretik existitzen zen metodo bat optimizatuz. Hainbat datu baseren gainean probatu da garatutako teknika, baita konposatzaile klasikoen piezen ezaugarriez osatutako datu base batean ere