Computer Aided Statistical Analysis of Motive Use and Compositional Idiom

Abstract

This thesis discusses the creation of a means of pitch-based data representation which allows automated logging and analysis of melodic motivic material. This system also allows analysis of a number of attributes of a composition which are not readily apparent to human analysis. By using a numerical data format which treats motivically related material as equivalent, groups of tonally equivalent intervals (n-tuples) can be logged and have statistical procedures carried out on them. This thesis looks at four applications of this approach: measuring the most commonly occurring motivic material; creating a transition matrix showing probabilities of movement between intervals; measuring the extent of disjunct or conjunct writing; and measuring concentration of motivic writing (the extent to which motives are reused). Following the discussion of the data representation system, a set of expositions taken from the piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi are converted to this method of data representation, and results are collected for the above four applications. The implications of the results of this analysis are discussed, and further potential applications of the system are explored