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Schemographe: Application for a New Representation Technique and Methodology of Analysis in Tonal Harmony

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9027))

Abstract

A recent development of music theory focuses basically on neo-riemannian angle of harmonic analysis with the use of Tonnetz as a space for harmonic change representation. However the Tonnetz does not cover the functional relations between accords within tonality and is feebly suitable to capture the features of neo-tonal postmodern music based on a new use of tonal functionality. This work presents an alternative method for music harmony progressions representation and analysis which uses two levels of representation. The first level is represented as a system of horizontal and vertical triads of graphs where each graph is an exo-frame filled out by information of specified degree of the scale. The graph pattern in this system represents the specified segment of harmonic progression taken from harmonic analysis of the musical composition. The pattern is then schematized for the second level of representation which examines its structural resemblance to the other schemas received similarly from the segments of harmonic progression. In order to facilitate the understanding of a new methodology and encourage its use in tonal harmony analysis an Android application for tablets called Schemographe has been created. The application presents the possibilities of the system on the two described levels of representation on example of three vocal pieces by neo-tonal postmodern composer Valentin Silvestrov.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Certain structural resemblance may be seen in the \(A_3\) structure, presenting invention of the \(Intro\) structure. However, the subdominant environment instead of tonic decides for \(A_3\) structure to be in the \(A\) group of structures.

  2. 2.

    On the second level of representation the degree still appear even if it is presented only by its dominant. In such a way the problem of elliptic chains representation is solved.

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Correspondence to Anna Shvets .

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Shvets, A., Desainte-Catherine, M. (2015). Schemographe: Application for a New Representation Technique and Methodology of Analysis in Tonal Harmony. In: Johnson, C., Carballal, A., Correia, J. (eds) Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design. EvoMUSART 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9027. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16498-4_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16498-4_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16497-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16498-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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