music-research@bartok.Eng.Sun.COM (08/25/90)
Music-Research Digest Sat, 25 Aug 90 Volume 5 : Issue 77
Today's Topics:
A new distributor gets ready to throw the switch
Categories of Musicological Analysis (3 msgs)
music notation by email
Trading Music (Reply to S. Boylan's Article in MRD 5(76)) (2 msgs)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 00:03:07 BST
From: The Moderator (Stephen Page) <music-research-request@uk.ac.oxford.prg>
Subject: A new distributor gets ready to throw the switch
To: music-research
Message-ID: <9008242303.AA02481@msc0.prg.ox.ac.uk>
As readers will remember, Brad Rubenstein will sadly be leaving his post
soon as redistributor of the Digest to everywhere outside the UK.
Peter Marvit, at Hewlett-Packard, has generously volunteered to become
the new redistributor and owner of the Archive. He is working on getting
the system running, and will shortly be issuing a test message to readers
outside the UK. This message may also find its way into Usenet.
We welcome Peter, and look forward to announcing a new source of messages.
The change should be transparent to readers, as all requests are directed to
me first at the address shown at the head of the Digest.
------------------------------
Date: 20 Aug 90 20:56:26 GMT
From: Rob Murtha - Lotus <news%lotus@net.uu.uunet>
Subject: Categories of Musicological Analysis
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <1990Aug20.205626.10491@lotus.com>
How about dynamics? Rarely does any musical thought pattern lack dynamics or
changes in volume, and or sound velocities.
rmurtha@voyager.lotus.com
------------------------------
Date: 21 Aug 90 18:02:19 GMT
From: Stephen Smoliar <smoliar%venera.isi.edu%usc%zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu@edu.ohio-state.cis.tut>
Subject: Categories of Musicological Analysis
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <14638@venera.isi.edu>
In article <9956@life.ai.mit.edu> mrsmith@rice-chex.UUCP (Mr. P. H. Smith)
writes:
>
>Do you think that "rhythm, melody, harmony, and lyrics" are "Western
>musical procedures?" I don't, and I don't think any non-western
>musician would agree with you, if you arrogantly claim that rhythm,
>melody, harmony, and lyrics are Western musical procedures.
Let me try to come to Linda's defense here. I do not think her intent was to
be quite as arrogant as you are assuming. The way I interpreted her original
claim was as an assertion that TERMS such as "rhythm," "melody," "harmony,"
and "lyrics" need not necessarily have clean maps to concepts in all
non-Western civilizations. You are probably too young to remember McLuhan's
old saw about there being no word for "art" in Bali because "we do everything
the best we can."
There are a variety of schools of thought (some of which are even consistent
with current research in artificial intelligence) based on the premise that
concept formation is a highly idiosyncratic process. It is unclear that you
and I deal with a concept like "melody" the same way, let alone whether or not
your concept is consistent with one of McLuhan's Balinese (to choose a random
example about which, I confess, I know precious little). The odds are better
in our case because we probably have a lot of cultural similarities, but my
guess is that I could come up with at least one critical aspect in which we
differ.
=========================================================================
USPS: Stephen Smoliar
USC Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001
Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695
Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu
"It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet
------------------------------
Date: 21 Aug 90 22:47:49 GMT
From: Linda Ann Seltzer <lseltzer%phoenix@edu.princeton>
Subject: Categories of Musicological Analysis
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <2006@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
In article <14638@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>In article <9956@life.ai.mit.edu> mrsmith@rice-chex.UUCP (Mr. P. H. Smith)
>writes:
>>
>>Do you think that "rhythm, melody, harmony, and lyrics" are "Western
>>musical procedures?" I don't, and I don't think any non-western
>>musician would agree with you, if you arrogantly claim that rhythm,
>>melody, harmony, and lyrics are Western musical procedures.
>
>Let me try to come to Linda's defense here. I do not think her intent was to
>be quite as arrogant as you are assuming. The way I interpreted her original
>claim was as an assertion that TERMS such as "rhythm," "melody," "harmony,"
>and "lyrics" need not necessarily have clean maps to concepts in all
>non-Western civilizations. You are probably too young to remember McLuhan's
I'll make some more specific comments. First I never said that rhythm,
melody, harmony, and lyrics are Western procedures only. The division
into those categories implies a Western bias.
Harmony is certainly a characteristic of Western music. Harmony
exists to some degree in the Japanese sho, an instrument with 15 pipes,
but in other Japanese music, where heterophony is a more relevant
principle. Harmony is not an important concern in the ragas of India,
nor is it importnt in most music of Korea, China or Africa.
The most problematic term is "lyrics", because it clearly a Western
term. "Lyrics" is a term normally used in Western popular music
and implies procedures and goals which might not be present in
the non-Western musician's mind. The closest one can come in
non-Western music is in the Chinese k'un-chu opera, in which the
composer had the reponsibility of composing poetry for existing
tunes, although the coposer did treat the existing tunes very freely.
But the opposite procedure in Hindustani music - taking a sentence
(e.g. from a proverb) and peforming improvisations in which other
syllables are inserted, or in which the word's syllables are treated
freely as phonetic elements - is not similar to the procedures
or intentions experienced by a Western composer of "lyrics".
In Western music, we do not expect lyrics to be great poetry. In
Chinese k'un-chu opera, the texts are more important than the music
and are treated as literature.
Rhythm - Recurring beats, even in an irregular meter, do not occur in
all forms of music. Most notably - the old shakuhachi pieces and
some Tibetan Buddhist chanting. But I haven't encountred a culture
which doesn't employ rhythm at all.
When I think about it more, I can find more Western types of music for
which the notion of rhythm is problematic, for example, computer music
based on speech processing.
The only culture I can think of that may not have melody is Eskimo
music.
If one restricts categorization to these four elements, then one loses a
great deal of perspcetive concerning such matters as timbre and
organization of lines into larger structures.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 14:03:49 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@mil.brl>
Subject: music notation by email
To: Steve.Boylan@com.wang.office
Cc: Music-Research@prg
Message-ID: <9008221403.aa00376@VMB.BRL.MIL>
Apparently the MIDI notation is not suitable for sending via email?
The now-defunct PLATO system at U of Del had a program called "musi-
matic" where the note pitches and durations, plus the tempo in metro-
nome (or some derivative thereof) notation, were typed in. A later
feature of this notation was the ability to change tempos within the
song. Also, there were up to 4 voices available. The only problem
with this approach is that the octaves were denoted using the super
and sub keys, which themselves were non-printing. (By the way, could
someone point me to some primer on MIDI notation? I have a disk for
an IBM machine -- made up from my PLATO music files before that machine
had its plug pulled -- and have no equipment for trying to play it via
MIDI. I'm not in very much of a mood to buy equipment just now; at
least part of this is due to resentment at having PLATO pulled out from
under me with little guidance as to where I was to go with my old files
from there.)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 20:20:33 PDT
From: Stephen Travis Pope <stp@com.parcplace>
Subject: Trading Music (Reply to S. Boylan's Article in MRD 5(76))
To: Music-Research@prg
Message-ID: <9008230320.AA08685@central.parcplace.com>
I would like to respond to Steve Boylan's questions about "Trading Music" and
about portable, sharable music formats.
There was a panel discussion which should be cited which took place at the 1989
International Computer Music Conference on the topic of "Meta-Issues in Music
Representations." It followed a presentation by members of the ANSI group which
is trying to standardize a music description language, the current draft of which
they call the Standard Music Description Language, or SMDL (AKA Mus/PL-1).
The panel discussion was organized by Guy Garnett of the CNMAT center at U. C.
Berkeley and included Curtis Roads, Roger Dannenberg, Lounette Dyer, and myself.
Each of us had position statements printed in the proceedings of the ICMC.
The two important points I would raise in response to Mr. Boylan's queries are:
(1) the difference between the issues involved in the design of:
representations,
description languages, and
interchange formats; and
(2) the diverse requirements of the various clients/users of a "standard"
music representation/description language/interchange format.
With respect to the first point, I feel it is important to note that, historically
in our field, most composers and computer scientists have been concerned with the
development of powerful, flexible and scalable music description languages.
This lead to the "music input languages" of the 1970's and 1980's (SCORE, PLA, etc.).
It is more recently (perhaps since the increase in interest in artificial intelligence
in the early 1980's), that the representational issues have had much airplay.
Work on the abstraction and representation of musical structures is still in a
fairly rudimentary state (I'm not sure anybody besides me really cares).
The calls for widely-supported portable interchange formats is much more recent,
starting with the increase in interest in artificial intelligence
in the early 1980's), that the representational issues have had much airplay.
Work on the abstraction and representation of musical structures is still in a
fairly rudimentary state (I'm not sure anybody besides me really cares).
The calls for widely-supported portable interchange formats is much more recent,
starting with the wide availability of personal computers and MIDI equipment (and
the general trend towards greater awareness of portability issues during the latter
part of the 1980's).
With respect to the second point, it should be considered that composers, music
publishers, performers, theorists, and those wishing to share music via the Internet,
all have slightly divergent requirements of the system of representation/description/
interchange that they use. Trying to design one system to suit all of them, especially
before any of them has really been satisfied by any existing system). seems rather
naive. This is however, the approach being taken by the ANSI SMDL group--to
design an ATAP (All Things to All People).
Mr. Boylan seems to need both an interchange format for musical data, and a description
language implied by that format which includes some measure of structural information
(no pun intended).
I, for my part, will immediately claim to have designed the perfect system for music
description and interchange, built as a Smalltalk-80 representation library with external
description in terms of events and event lists. The system used to be called the
HyperScore ToolKit, and currently goes by the name MODE (Musical Object Development
Environment). It has been described in numerous articles in the literature, and will be
detailed in an upcoming book on object-oriented programming and music (The Well-
Tempered Object, edited by yours truly, MIT Press, Spring 1991).
I hope that the discussion of this topic brings up other proposals, but must stress the
two important points I hope to have made above.
I generally don't apreciate authors who have cute sayings as their signatures, but will
close with two quotes about music
"La musique est une science qui veut q'on rit et chant et danse." G. de Machaut
Ohne die Musik, waere das Leben ein Unfall." F. Nietzsche
Stephen Travis Pope
computer-music-journal@ParcPlace.com
stp@CCRMA.Stanford.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 90 20:20:33 PDT
From: Stephen Travis Pope <stp@com.parcplace>
Subject: Trading Music (Reply to S. Boylan's Article in MRD 5(76))
To: Music-Research@prg
Message-ID: <9008230320.AA08685@central.parcplace.com>
I would like to respond to Steve Boylan's questions about "Trading Music" and
about portable, sharable music formats.
There was a panel discussion which should be cited which took place at the 1989
International Computer Music Conference on the topic of "Meta-Issues in Music
Representations." It followed a presentation by members of the ANSI group which
is trying to standardize a music description language, the current draft of which
they call the Standard Music Description Language, or SMDL (AKA Mus/PL-1).
The panel discussion was organized by Guy Garnett of the CNMAT center at U. C.
Berkeley and included Curtis Roads, Roger Dannenberg, Lounette Dyer, and myself.
Each of us had position statements printed in the proceedings of the ICMC.
The two important points I would raise in response to Mr. Boylan's queries are:
(1) the difference between the issues involved in the design of:
representations,
description languages, and
interchange formats; and
(2) the diverse requirements of the various clients/users of a "standard"
music representation/description language/interchange format.
With respect to the first point, I feel it is important to note that, historically
in our field, most composers and computer scientists have been concerned with the
development of powerful, flexible and scalable music description languages.
This lead to the "music input languages" of the 1970's and 1980's (SCORE, PLA, etc.).
It is more recently (perhaps since the increase in interest in artificial intelligence
in the early 1980's), that the representational issues have had much airplay.
Work on the abstraction and representation of musical structures is still in a
fairly rudimentary state (I'm not sure anybody besides me really cares).
The calls for widely-supported portable interchange formats is much more recent,
starting with the increase in interest in artificial intelligence
in the early 1980's), that the representational issues have had much airplay.
Work on the abstraction and representation of musical structures is still in a
fairly rudimentary state (I'm not sure anybody besides me really cares).
The calls for widely-supported portable interchange formats is much more recent,
starting with the wide availability of personal computers and MIDI equipment (and
the general trend towards greater awareness of portability issues during the latter
part of the 1980's).
With respect to the second point, it should be considered that composers, music
publishers, performers, theorists, and those wishing to share music via the Internet,
all have slightly divergent requirements of the system of representation/description/
interchange that they use. Trying to design one system to suit all of them, especially
before any of them has really been satisfied by any existing system). seems rather
naive. This is however, the approach being taken by the ANSI SMDL group--to
design an ATAP (All Things to All People).
Mr. Boylan seems to need both an interchange format for musical data, and a description
language implied by that format which includes some measure of structural information
(no pun intended).
I, for my part, will immediately claim to have designed the perfect system for music
description and interchange, built as a Smalltalk-80 representation library with external
description in terms of events and event lists. The system used to be called the
HyperScore ToolKit, and currently goes by the name MODE (Musical Object Development
Environment). It has been described in numerous articles in the literature, and will be
detailed in an upcoming book on object-oriented programming and music (The Well-
Tempered Object, edited by yours truly, MIT Press, Spring 1991).
I hope that the discussion of this topic brings up other proposals, but must stress the
two important points I hope to have made above.
I generally don't apreciate authors who have cute sayings as their signatures, but will
close with two quotes about music
"La musique est une science qui veut q'on rit et chant et danse." G. de Machaut
Ohne die Musik, waere das Leben ein Unfall." F. Nietzsche
Stephen Travis Pope
computer-music-journal@ParcPlace.com
stp@CCRMA.Stanford.edu
------------------------------
End of Music-Research Digest