Re: Auditory wheel (Linda Seltzer )


Subject: Re: Auditory wheel
From:    Linda Seltzer  <lseltzer@xxxxxxxx>
Date:    Sat, 1 Oct 2011 10:44:56 -0700
List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>

Kindly excuse my posting on an old topic, but I am currently going through a great deal of old e-mail. There are definitely circularities or wheels in music theory. With respect to the circle of fifths, the interval of the fifth implies a dominant-tonic relationship in harmony. Moving from G to C, the progression is V-I. If you have V/V - V- I, then you have three points in the circle of fifths. Harmony provides other chord progressions that work aurally other than the dominant-tonic relationship. The exploration of such circularities is the basis for the composition of the first movement of the symphony. It starts in the tonic, moves to the dominant or the relative key, and works its way back trough a series of modulations. The originality of the construction of the loop gives the symphony its individuality. Another way to form loops is via the scale networks described in papers and a recent book by Dmitri Tymoczko. Here the scales are related by means of adjacencies (scales that differ by one note are adjacent) and these are arranged into geometrical structures. These are related to rule-based definitions of scales (such as no consecutive minor seconds, or no major thirds). My analysis of Act. IV, Sc. IV of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande shows the presence of some of these network adjacencies and their use in projecting the meaning of the text. My third comment is that one could contruct loops or circles anywhere in the vector space of a multidimensional scaling result. You would gradually progress to areas that are perceptually different and then back to the starting point. Linda Seltzer


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