Search

Transformational music theory, pioneered by the work of Lewin, shifts the music-theoretical and analytical focus from the "object-oriented" musical content to an operational musical process, in which transformations between musical elements are emphasized. In the original framework of Lewin, the set of transformations often form a group, with a corresponding group action on a given set of musical objects. Klumpenhouwer networks have been introduced based on this framework: they are informally labelled graphs, the labels of the vertices being pitch classes, and the labels of the arrows being transformations that maps the corresponding pitch classes. Klumpenhouwer networks have been recently formalized and generalized in a categorical setting, called poly-Klumpenhouwer networks. This work proposes a new groupoid-based approach to transformational music theory, in which transformations of PK-nets are considered rather than ordinary sets of musical objects. We show how groupoids of musical transformations can be constructed, and an application of their use in post-tonal music analysis with Berg's Four pieces for clarinet and piano, Op. 5/2. In a second part, we show how groupoids are linked to wreath products (which feature prominently in transformational music analysis) through the notion of groupoid bisections, Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; comments welcome more...

International audience; Despite a long historical relationship between mathematics and music, the interest of mathematicians is a recent phenomenon. In contrast to statistical methods and signal-based approaches currently employed in MIR (Music Information Research), the research project described in this paper stresses the necessity of introducing a structural multidisciplinary approach into computational musicology making use of advanced mathematics. It is based on the interplay between three main mathematical disciplines: algebra, topology and category theory. It therefore opens promising perspectives on important prevailing challenges, such as the automatic classification of musical styles or the solution of open mathematical conjectures, asking for new collaborations between mathematicians, computer scientists, musicologists, and composers. Music can in fact occupy a strategic place in the development of mathematics since music-theoretical constructions can be used to solve open mathematical problems. The SMIR project also differs from traditional applications of mathematics to music in aiming to build bridges between different musical genres, ranging from contemporary art music to popular music, including rock, pop, jazz and chanson. Beyond its academic ambition, the project carries an important societal dimension stressing the cultural component of 'mathemusical' research, that naturally resonates with the underlying philosophy of the “Imagine Maths”conference series. The article describes for a general public some of the most promising interdisciplinary research lines of this project. more...

What is music… if not, at the end of the day, an accessible, fun and expressive way to engage with mathematics and language? Oumupo (Ouvroir de Musique Potentielle, a Workshop for Potential Music) is a group where musicians and theorists can explore this open question through different exercises and experiments. more...

International audience; In the field of transformational music theory, which emphasizes the possible transformations between musical objects, Klumpenhouwer networks (K-Nets) constitute a useful framework with connections in both group theory and graph theory. Recent attempts at formalizing K-Nets in their most general form have evidenced a deeper connection with category theory [7, 8, 9]. These formalizations use diagrams in sets, i.e. functors C ! Sets where C is often a small category, providing a general framework for the known group or monoid actions on musical objects. However, following the work of Douthett and Cohn, transformational music theory has also relied on the use of relations between sets of the musical elements. Thus, K-Net formalizations have to be further extended to take this aspect into account. This work proposes a new framework called relational PK-Nets, an extension of our previous work on Poly-Klumpenhouwer networks (PK-Nets), in which we consider diagrams in Rel rather than Sets. We illustrate the potential of relational PK-Nets with selected examples, by analyzing pop music and revisiting the work of Douthett and Cohn. more...

International audience; In the following article the author will compare a musical and a tactile score in the specific case study represented by Rieko Suzuki's tactile score transcription of Friedrich Chopin's posthume Nocturne n° 20 in C sharp minor. In the intention of the author this comparison will show its correlations between sound, movement and musical representation and will highlights the common features of musical and the tactile notation. To conduct this analysis it will be compared the movement indicated by the musical score and the ones prescribed by the tactile score applying and expanding Denis Smalley's spectromorphological analysis towards a spectro-gestural-morphological analysis. For this reason the author invite the reader to refer to Smalley's explanation of spectromorphological analysis (Smalley 1997). This research must be considered as a contribution related with the actual debate on sonification (Hermann, Hunt, Neuhoff 2011) musical cognition (Launay 2015, Schaefer 2015) and mediation (Leman 2007) and will implicitly suggest a possible artistic application of tactile scores as basis of new compositional techniques. 1. Tactile scores Tactile scores were created by Rieko Suzuki in order to describe and design tactile sense. Those scores are used to notate actions oriented to massage and to transmit those informations in order to create a repertory of " massage pieces ". They are used to transcribe musical works in massage's scores (in the case of tactile scores based on preexisting music), to compose music, to develop emotional engineering and haptic design (Suzuki, Suzuki 2014). Tactile scores are the result of a long process of elaboration based on trials and errors that brings to define the most important massage's parameters: dimension, pressure and speed. During this period, in which Rieko Suzuki tried new massage's strategy with her customers, tactile scores became more detailed, from hieroglyphic-like inscription to diastematic notation, and progressively reveal common features with musical scores expressing a certain proximity between tactile and musical experience. In fact, as Rieko Suzuki wrote: […] counts and rhythm are important in tactile perception; a single circular stroke could not be distinguished from a mere rubbing, while more than double strokes would be recognized as massage. By giving rhythm on a tactile sense, we can create " impressions " ; a rhythm of touching gives a " theme " on the impression provoked by tactile sense, where the theme is the expression through tactile sense such as small-large, fast-slow, line-curve and so on; in a sequence of massage strokes starts from small circles then moves to large circles and small circles again, à subject would feel small and large (Suzuki more...

International audience; The paper explores the hybridization of notation and instrument as a cognitive movement from representation to enaction. Features of such hybridization are latent in every notation, as a mix of descriptive and prescriptive functions. Current advances in the fields of computer music representation (interactive scores) and New Interfaces for Musical Expression, with precedents in graphic and action- oriented scores, are turning notation into a shared multimodal platform between composer and performer, liquidizing the limit between notation and instrument. We will present this dynamic rapport between scores and interfaces (haptic interactions, INScore, GesTCom, post-Klaus K. Hübler tablature notations of decoupled action-structures) in the light of theoretical models (enaction defined as navigation of affordances from the field of embodied and extended cognition, Leman’s action-reaction cycle extended from instrument-making into notation, Veitl’s conception of software as tablature, Atau Tanaka’s definition of instruments as open-ended systems etc.). We are following an explicit line from new interfaces involving notation back to graphic and action-oriented scores, considering them in the theoretical framework of enaction. more...

Stephen Davies distinguishes two kinds of musical works: works for performance and works that are not for performance. He argues that electroacoustic music belongs to the latter kind. I will question this distinction by considering the case of electroacoustic music. Granted that electroacoustic music is played in concert, is this a case of presentation of a musical work, as Davies holds? I will argue that the musical act of sound engineers can be seen as an interpretative activity. I will try to understand the object of this interpretation, proposing a possible reformulation of Davies' categorisation., Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico, Vol. 6 No. 3 (2013): Vol 6 (2013) Special Issue – Ontologie musicali more...