Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems: Difference between revisions

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"My second aesthetic claim in effect rejects this ["progressivist"] attitude in favor of the older view that music-making should be based on "nature". For the ancients, nature may have resided in the music of the spheres, but for us it lies in the musical mind."

==Sources Reception ==

Lerdahl's paper has elicited responses from a number of individuals. Nicholas Cook has written: "The idea that music is a process of communication in which listeners decode structures that composers have encoded... is... based on several disputable assumptions: that people choose to listen grammatically; that there is, or ought to be, an equivalance between compositional and listening grammars; and, most fundamentally, that there is such a thing as musical grammar." ([[#Cook1994|Cook 1994, 88]]) He writes that Lerdahl

<blockquote>...assume(s) that there should be a more or less linear relationship between the manner in which a composer conceives a composition and the manner in which a listener perceives it. ...Lerdahl's aim is to specify the conditions that must be fulfilled if there is to be conformity between 'compositional grammar' and 'listening grammar'. And... he ends up by measuring existing music against the stipulations of his theory, using this as a basis for aesthetic evaluation. The result is to write off not only the Darmstadt avant-garde and minimalism, but also huge swathes of non-Western and popular music. ([[#Cook1999|Cook 1999, 241]])</blockquote>

He asks:

<blockquote>What... does an article like Lerdahl's 'Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems' actually do? By subordinating the production and reception of music to theoretically defined criteria of communicative success, it creates a charmed hermeneutic circle that excludes everything from critical musicology to social psychology. It slips imperceptibly from description to prescription, so reinforcing the hegemony of theory. In this way, while the literary genre of Lerdahl's article is the scientific paper - a genre predicated on the transparent representation of an external reality - its substance lies at least equally in its illocutionary force. ([[#Cook1999|Cook 1999, 252]])</blockquote>

(See further discussion in ([[#Cook2007|Cook 2007, 252]]).)

On a related note, Vincent Meelberg has written:

<blockquote>Lerdahl relates musical comprehension to the reconstruction of compositional methods. As soon as the listener finds out how a piece is composed, Lerdahl argues, s/he has comprehended the music. In other words: he seems to claim that there is a single, true grasp of music, namely the knowledge of the compositional method. Yet, while knowledge of these methods might be helpful, it is by far not the only means by which the listener can structure the music, and in so doing gains musical comprehension. Rather, musical comprehension can be established through... a process which allows for many different ways to comprehend the same musical piece. Musical comprehension depends on the relation between the (individual) listener and the musical work. Hence, the individual listener has a decisive influence on the way that work is grasped, which in turn results in the existence of many different musical structures by which the music can be grasped and comprehended. ([[#Meelberg2006|Meelberg 2006, 29]])</blockquote>

Morag Josephine Grant has written: "The paradox of Lerdahl's argument... is that while it is perfectly acceptable to adopt the composer's own system when dealing with compositional-technical analysis, it seems equally acceptable to revert to musical thinking of a quite different type when the aural result comes to be analysed." ([[#Grant2001|Grant 2001, 218]]) She continues: "Lerdahl's argument that musical language, like spoken language, is generative in structure excludes the possibility of other, non-hierarchical methods of achieving musical coherence... Lerdahl's concentration on the audibility of the row... blinds or deafens him to the simple fact that the use of the row is itself a constraint, not just on the composer, but in the aid of comprehensibility as well." ([[#Grant2001|Grant 2001, 219]])

John Bouz has stated that he: "...finds it concerning that some prominent perception-based theories tend to correlate 'good music' with that which can be used to best showcase the analytical system itself. All too often the application of these theories by theorists is done backwards: the theory is used to determine the value of music (and therefore constrains music), instead of being tested by the music. Lerdahl’s article 'Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems' is an example in which this type of dubious inversion occurs." ([[#Bouz2013|Bouz 2013, 94]])

Robert Rowe has written:

<blockquote>In my view, Fred Lerdahl should not be so surprised that Boulez’s serial technique, his "compositional grammar," is often treated as if it were irrelevant, particularly when he himself notes that much of the interest of the piece comes from the workings of a musical mind operating beyond the scope of the purely formal rules. He cannot have it both ways: he cannot maintain that what makes Le Marteau a great piece of music is Boulez's musicianship, his "intuitive constraints," and maintain at the same time that music cannot be great unless cognition is explicitly coded into the formal system. To say that "the best music arises from an alliance of a compositional grammar with the listening grammar" and at the same time to recognize Le Marteau as a "remarkable" work when no such alliance occurs must mean that the Aesthetic Claim 2 carries little force indeed. ([[#Rowe1992|Rowe 1992, 105]])</blockquote>

He continues:

<blockquote>What is important is the way listeners make sense of music, a sense employed by composers, performers, and listeners alike... Basing aesthetic claims, and establishing constraints on composition, on an incomplete account again amounts to overestimating the theory and shortchanging the mind’s capacity to deal with many different kinds of music. ([[#Rowe1992|Rowe 1992, 105]])</blockquote>

John Croft's Masters Degree Thesis is an in-depth examination of Lerdahl's essay. In his conclusion, he wrote:

<blockquote>...we have plenty of music that does not conform to Lerdahl's grammar: what, then, are people who claim to appreciate such music who claim to find it as interesting as tonal-metrical music actually doing? Either they are deluding themselves, or they are lying, or they have non-human brains. None of these answers seems entirely satisfactory. But if we do not like any of these answers, then we must admit that it is a matter of exposure and acquired understanding after all in which case we are certainly a far cry from innate psychological universals. ([[#Croft1999|Croft 1999, 54]])</blockquote>

He notes

<blockquote>...how easily vague language and tacit assumptions can be brought into the service of conservativism and aesthetic authoritarianism. It points to the misguided nature of attempts to turn the question of the dissemination of post-tonal music from an aesthetic, political, and indeed economic issue into a cognitive-scientific one. In this age when words like 'accessibility' and 'communication' are used too frequently and with too little understanding, it is of some significance that at least one major attempt to give scientific respectability to the conservative side of the debate fails. ([[#Croft1999|Croft 1999, 55]])</blockquote>

For additional opinions and discussion, see ([[#Heinemann1993|Heinemann 1993]]), ([[#Heinemann1998|Heinemann 1998]]), and ([[#Mosch2004|Mosch 2004]]).

== Sources ==

* {{wikicite |ref=Bouz2013 |reference=Bouz, John. 2013. ''Examining the Application of Principles of Auditory Perception to Music Analysis: Building a Perception-based Music Theory to Capture Musical Features of Palestrina’s Missa Aeterna Christi Munera.'' A Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts, Department of Music, University of Calgary.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Cook1994 |reference=Cook, Nicholas. 1994. "Perception: A Perspective from Music Theory." In ''Musical Perceptions'', ed. Rita Aiello with John A. Sloboda, 64-95. Oxford: Oxford University Press.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Cook1999 |reference=Cook, Nicholas. 1999. "Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis." In ''Rethinking Music'', ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, 239–261. Oxford: Oxford University Press.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Cook2007 |reference=Cook, Nicholas. 2007. ''Music, Performance, Meaning: Selected Essays.'' Ashgate Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology Series. Aldershot: Ashgate.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Croft1999 |reference=Croft, John. 1999. ''Musical memory, complexity, and Lerdahl’s cognitive constraints.'' A Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Music, Department of Music, The University of Sheffield.}}

*Lerdahl, Fred (1988). "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems." In ''Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition'', ed. John Sloboda, 231-59. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted in ''Contemporary Music Review'' 6/2 (1992), pp.&nbsp;97–121. [http://www.bussigel.com/lerdahl/pdf/Cognitive%20Constraints%20on%20Compositional%20Systems.pdf]

* {{wikicite |ref=Grant2001 |reference=Grant, Morag Josephine. 2001. ''Serial Music Serial Aesthetics: Compositional Theory in Post-War Europe.'' Music in the Twentieth Century, Arnold Whittall, general editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Heinemann1993 |reference=Heinemann, Stephen. 1993. ''Pitch-class set multiplication in Boulez’s "Le Marteau sans maitre" with [Original composition].'' A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts, Department of Music, University of WA.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Heinemann1998 |reference=Heinemann, Stephen. 1998. "Pitch-Class Set Multiplication in Theory and Practice". ''Music Theory Spectrum'' 20, no. 1: 72–96.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Meelberg2006 |reference=Meelberg, Vincent. 2006. ''New Sounds, New Stories: Narrativity in Contemporary Music.'' Leiden: Leiden University Press.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Mosch2004 |reference=Mosch, Ulrich. 2004. ''Musikalisches Hören serieller Musik: Untersuchungen am Beispiel von Pierre Boulez’ «Le Marteau sans maître».'' Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag.}}

* {{wikicite |ref=Rowe1992 |reference=Rowe, Robert. 1992. ''Interactive Music Systems.'' Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.}}

[[Category:Music cognition]]