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Oxford handbook of music psychology, 2009
Music Perception, 2010
Music Theory Online, 2016
Contour recursion, a pattern of ups and downs found at multiple indices in an ordinal pitch series, is proposed as a basis for melodic segmentation and a computational method. The continuous C+ matrix (CONTCOM) is introduced with a moving window of degrees of adjacency that accommodates analysis of unsegmented pitch series. CONTCOM converts an ordinal pitch series into contour slices in an abstraction of pitch space that uses contour levels instead of contour pitches. Using a CONTCOM, an algorithm implemented in MATLAB searches for recursive patterns, recognizes transformations, and compares segments of different cardinalities. An analysis of Schoenberg’s op. 19, no. 4 is offered as a demonstration of these methods.
2011
Abstract The present paper explores a novel way of characterising the contour of melodic phrases. Melodic contour is represented by a curve that can be derived from fitting a polynomial equation to the pitch values given the note onsets. To represent contour numerically, we consider the coefficients of the polynomial equation as well as the time limits of the melodic phrase.
Musicae Scientiae, 2007
PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University 2016
Based on data from two years of fieldwork in Nigeria, a new methodology for contour analysis is presented with two motivations: 1) extend contour theory into an applied computational approach appropriate for a wide range of symbolic and recorded music; 2) develop a new discretization of pitch, similar to solmization but without an association to a scale or tonal qualia, that can be used to measure pitch prominence (or markedness) in both music and speech. As an alternative to the conventional contour matrix for a segment of cardinality n which compares pitches at all degrees of adjacency up to n-1, a continuous matrix is introduced, with unspecified cardinality and a fixed number of degrees of adjacency. The continuous matrix is a series of contour slices. Each slice compares a pitch to the pitch before and after up to the degrees of adjacency. The elements in each contour slice (a column in the continuous matrix) can be summed creating a measure of relative pitch height, a contour level. The analysis implementation is based on a relationship between contour recursion and segmentation of pitch series. Thematic unity, as provided by contour recursion, is presumed to be intentional on the part of the producer and salient to the receiver. Nonoverlapping iterations of a highly recursive contour are both semiotically and structurally important in a wide variety of monophonic signals. The analysis is made more robust by iii searching for transformations and using reductive processes that make it possible to compare segments of different cardinalities. Contour level analysis is applied to the phenomenon of “tone-and-tune”, wherein a single pitch series carries both linguistic and musical or paralinguistic communication. First the concept of a toneme (a pitch contrast in speech) is explored. Phoneticians and phonologists have described the toneme with paradigmatic (context-independent) and syntagmatic (context-dependent) features, but neither seems to satisfactorily formalize phonological equivalence of tone. Shortly before he died, prominent linguist Nick Clements asked “Do we need tone features?”, concluding that if we do, the ones we have are not working. A cue is taken from the folk heuristic and widely used pedagogical device for the Yorùbá language: Low-Mid-High tones are called Do-Re-Mi. It quickly becomes clear that the comparison with solmization has nothing to do with a tonal system and everything to do with relative pitch. Contour levels are proposed as a formal heuristic for the toneme that captures the relevant pitch relativity of the do-re-mi folk heuristic, while freeing it from the misleading Western tonality association. The rich oral poetry tradition of Southwestern Nigeria is explored using this approach.
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Preprint (Draft) , 2024
Global Journal of Management, Social Sciences and Humanities, 2019
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