Towards a general computational theory of musical structure

• Main Author: Cambouropoulos, Emilios
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1998
• Subjects: 780
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.642335

The <I>General Computational Theory of Musical Structure (GCTMS) </I>is a theory that may be employed to obtain a structural description (or set of descriptions) of a musical surface. This theory is independent of any specific musical style of idiom, and can be applied to any musical surface. The musical work is presented to <I>GCTMS</I> as a sequence of discrete symbolically represented musical events (e.g. notes) without higher-level structural elements (e.g. articulation marks, time-signature etc.) - although such information may be used constructively to guide the analytic process. The aim of the application of the theory is to reach a structural description of the musical work that may be considered as 'plausible' or 'permissible' by a human music analyst. As style-dependent knowledge is not embodied in the general theory, highly sophisticated analyses (similar to those an expert analyst may provide) are not expected. The theory gives, however, higher rating to descriptions that may be considered more reasonable or acceptable by human analysts and lower to descriptions that are less plausible. As <I>GCTMS</I> is based on general cognitive and logical principles the analytic descriptions it provides have cognitive relevance at least as far as the output is concerned; this is not necessarily the case for the exact process by which the output is calculated. In this sense the analytic outcome may be said to relate to and may be compared to the intuitive 'understanding' a listener has when repeatedly exposed to a specific musical work. The proposed theory comprises two distinct but closely related stages of development: a) the development of a number of individual components that focus on specialised musical analytical tasks, and b) the development of an elaborate account of how these components relate to and interact with each other so that plausible structural descriptions of a given musical surface may be arrived at.