Hi Lukas, Am Sonntag, den 21.06.2020, 19:10 +0200 schrieb Lukas-Fabian Moser: > Hi Urs, > > > The use case is the following: The example I attached shows a few > > ways > > to visualize the harmonic structure of (dodecaphonic) polyphonic > > music. > > But I would like to have this as a kind of live preview when > > working > > out counterpoints (with students). Therefore I don't need an > > analysis > > toolkit like Humdrum. Although: There actually might be tools to > > analyze the resulting MIDI files from a LilyPond compilation, and > > it > > would be possible to write a script that takes the Humdrum output > > to > > generate some LilyPond code that is then compiled. Hm, while > > writing > > the previous sentence this looks like an intriguing idea, but it's > > way > > too short for being able to use that on Wednesday :-( > > But I think it would be desirable to avoid using MIDI as an > intermediate > step at all costs: For, as far as I know, MIDI only knows > "chromatic" > pitches and has no way of distinguishing enharmonic equivalents.
Oh, that's a good point. Probably a major reason why the "keyscapes" I created look only partially convincing. I'll redo these after converting the Midi files to Humdrum (which seems reasonably possible with two very short songs). > > This might be sort-of acceptable for dodecaphonic music (I tend to > disagree: Dodecaphonic music has always been written by composers > with a > strong background in classical diatonic theory, and it should not be > taken for granted that they just tossed a coin when deciding on the > enharmonic spelling of a given pitch), but it's obviously a no-go > for > pieces governed by classical tonality. > > > Moreover, your initial example manifestly exhibits what is known as > the > "segmentation problem" in many flavours of musical analysis: Which > notes > are to be grouped together in ordner to obtain a meaningful analysis > of > harmony/voice leading/etc.? > > For instance, it's quite hard to (algorithmically) decide which notes > in > the attached Chopin are to be considered when analysing "the > harmonic > progression" of the piece - except of course if you claim > (erroneously, > I think) that "harmony" only lives in the lower staff here. > > As another example, there's the famous bar in the first prelude of > the > Well-Tempered Clavier (see attachmend) where, for the first (and > basically only) time in the piece, squashing all the pitches in a > given > bar together does not yield a meaningful chord. (And in fact, there > is > some debate on which pitch should be considered as part of the > underlying chord here: Many people say b, but there a strong reasons > to > instead consider the c as a chord tone instead, hence regarding the > harmony as a 43 instead of a 642.) > > Also, Schönberg gave (in his Harmonielehre) funny examples of > "impossible" sonorities taken from Bach's Motetten by just stopping > the > music at the right (or wrong?) time, together with equally funny > jibes > against the "aestheticians", or from Mozart's symphonies (also > attached). > > > Maybe all I'm saying here is that any such automated tool for > "musical > analysis" would have to be highly configurable. Very valid points, indeed. However, it seems I'm persistently not making myself clear. I'm not looking for musical interpretation/analysis, just for a visualization of what is sounding at the same time, to get a visual idea about the harmonies resulting from polyphonic settings. Urs > > Lukas >
