Klarinet Archive - Posting 000492.txt from 2004/06
From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] "Tunes create context like language"
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:56:50 -0400
Joseph=A0Wakeling wrote:
> It's certainly true that the data set is much
> larger for language than for music. [snip]
> Were one to really look at music from the
> point of view of the pitches *performed* by
> musicians
Performance issues complicate the matter for *both* music and language.
Wouldn't it be apples-vs-oranges to do this for music but not for
language, or vice versa?
Example: "Bob didn't say he stole money" can have six different meanings
depending on how you read it aloud: (1) _BOB_ didn't say he stole
money; (2) Bob _DIDN'T_ say he stole money; (3) Bob didn't _SAY_ he
stole money; (4) Bob didn't say _HE_ stole money; (5) Bob didn't say
he _STOLE_ money; and (6) Bob didn't say stole _MONEY_.
I maintain that, since a single word has meaning by itself, but a
musical note has 'meaning' only when combined with other notes, a
further statistical study should address this difference as its primary
issue.
> Do we simply link C to each C', D', E'
> (i.e. linking any pair of notes that occupies the
> same horizontal space) or do we also respect
> the melodic patterns, e.g. also linking C'-D',
> D'-E'?
The example that occurred to me was a melody accompanied by a drone.
In addition to instruments such as bagpipes and sitars, which have
'drone hardware', there are compositions for non-droning instruments
wherein a certain note is repeated on a rhythmic basis and effectively
serves a drone. If each repetition of the 'drone' was included in the
tabulation of 'rank', what would happen to the math? I presume it
would corrupt the 'straight line' aspect. And since bagpipes and
sitars have more than one drone.... Yet to ignore the drone's presence
would certainly misstate the music's 'context'.
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