Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Essay by Fred Lerdahl}}

'''"Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems"''' is an essay by [[Fred Lerdahl]] that cites [[Pierre Boulez]]'s ''[[Le Marteau sans maître]]'' (1955) as an example of "a huge gap between compositional system and cognized result," though he "could have illustrated just as well with works by [[Milton Babbitt]], [[Elliott Carter]], [[Luigi Nono]], [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], or [[Iannis Xenakis]]". (In [[semiotics|semiological]] terms, this is a gap between the [[esthesic and poietic]] processes.) To explain this gap, and in hopes of bridging it, Lerdahl proposes the concept of a musical grammar, "a limited set of rules that can generate indefinitely large sets of musical events and/or their structural descriptions". He divides this further into compositional grammar and listening grammar, the latter being one "more or less unconsciously employed by auditors, that generates mental representations of the music". He divides the former into natural and artificial compositional grammars. While the two have historically been fruitfully mixed, a natural grammar arises spontaneously in a culture while an artificial one is a conscious invention of an individual or group in a culture; the gap can arise only between listening grammar and artificial grammars. To begin to understand the listening grammar, Lerdahl and [[Ray Jackendoff]] created a theory of musical cognition, ''[[Generative theory of tonal music|A Generative Theory of Tonal Music]]'' (1983; {{ISBN|0-262-62107-X}}). That theory is outlined in the essay.

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* {{cite journal|last=Boros|first=James|year=1995|title=A 'New Totality'?|journal=[[Perspectives of New Music]]|volume=33|number=1/2|pages=538–553}}

* {{cite journal|last=Boros|first=James|year=1996|title=A Response to Lerdahl|journal=Perspectives of New Music|volume=34|number=1|pages=252–258|doi=10.2307/833505 |jstor=833505 }}

* {{cite book|last=Cook|first=Nicholas|author-link=Nicholas Cook|year=1994|chapter=Perception: A Perspective from Music Theory|title=Musical Perceptions|editor1=Rita Aiello|editor2=[[John Sloboda|John A. Sloboda]]|pages=64–95|___location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press}}

* {{cite book|last=Cook|first=Nicholas|year=1999|chapter=Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis|title=Rethinking Music|editor1=Nicholas Cook|editor2=[[Mark Everist]]|pages=239–261|___location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press}}

* {{cite thesis|last=Croft|first=John|year=1999|title=Musical memory, complexity, and Lerdahl's cognitive constraints|type=Master of Music thesis|publisher=Department of Music, University of Sheffield}}

* {{cite journal|last=Denham|first=A. E.|date=September 2009|title=The Future of Tonality|journal=[[British Journal of Aesthetics]]|volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=427–450|doi=10.1093/aesthj/ayp031 }}

* {{cite thesis|last=Dibben|first=Nicola|year=1996|title=The Role of Reductional Representations in the Perception of Atonal Music|type=Unpublished doctoral dissertation|publisher=Department of Music, University of Sheffield}}

* {{cite book|last=Grant|first=Morag Josephine|year=2001|title=Serial Music Serial Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe|series=Music in the Twentieth Century|others=[[Arnold Whittall]], general editor|___location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}

* {{cite thesis|last=Heinemann|first=Stephen|year=1993|title=Pitch-class Set Multiplication in Boulez's 'Le Marteau sans maitre' with [Original Composition]|type=Doctor of Musical Arts thesis|publisher=Department of Music, University of Washington}}

* {{cite journal|last=Heinemann|first=Stephen|year=1998|title=Pitch-Class Set Multiplication in Theory and Practice|journal=[[Music Theory Spectrum]]|volume=20|number=1|pages=72–96|doi=10.2307/746157 |jstor=746157 }}

* {{cite book|last=Mosch|first=Ulrich|author-link=Ulrich Mosch|year=2004|title=Musikalisches Hören serieller Musik: Untersuchungen am Beispiel von Pierre Boulez' «Le Marteau sans maître»|___location=Saarbrücken|publisher=Pfau-Verlag}}

* {{cite web|last=Scruton|first=Roger|author-link=Roger Scruton|year=2016|url=http://www.futuresymphony.org/the-clothes-have-no-emperor|title=The Clothes Have No Emperor|website=Future Symphony Institute|access-date=12 December 2021}}