Klarinet Archive - Posting 000477.txt from 2004/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] "Tunes create context like language"
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 21:45:03 -0400

Joe Wakeling wrote:

> [snip of interesting stuff]

The following is an observation, I don't know if it proves anything:

The "add a random item" example that you cited may tend toward a
different level of skewed-ness with music than with language --- simply
because there are fewer items in music's vocabulary of pitches than in
language's vocabulary of words.

I think (?) this would be true even if you include duration as part of a
note's definition. And the 'starting condition' probably can have a
dramatic effect.

However, if you were to analyze *intervals* between notes, this bias in
the case of music would be weaker because the possible permutations
would increase so quickly. 12 tones = 12^12 permutations, and perhaps
we can add octaves, etc.

========
My point is: perhaps (?) some of the 'contextual associations' that the
computer found among four pieces of music would disappear in this case?
========

And if we begin to consider instruments that can play chords.....

There would be a basic inconsistency, of course, in comparing the
frequency of 'connections' between two adjacent notes with the frequency
of individual words. Even if a computer compared the frequencies and
ranks of note-pairs with the frequencies and ranks of word-pairs,
there's no obvious numerical method to describe the semantic connection
between two adjacent words (as there is between two pitches).

But the thoughts engendered by your posts are interesting. Thank you.

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