Parsons code: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 22:18, 16 May 2022

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{{short description|Notation used to identify a piece of music}}

The '''Parsons code''', formally named the '''Parsons code for melodic contours''', is a simple notation used to identify a piece of music through [[melodic motion]] — movements of the [[pitch (music)|pitch]] up and down.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Parsons Code for Melodic Contours |url=http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html |url-status=dead |website=Musipedia |access-date=2005-05-08 |archive-date=2005-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050522000653/http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html }}</ref> [[Denys Parsons]] (father of [[Alan Parsons]]) developed this system for his 1975 book ''[[A Dictionary of Musical Themes|The Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes]]''. Representing a melody in this manner makes it easier to index or search for pieces, particularly when the notes' values are unknown. Parsons covered around 15,000 classical, popular and folk pieces in his dictionary. In the process he found out that *UU is the most popular opening contour, used in 23% of all the themes, something that applies to all the genres.<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Uitdenbogerd |first=Alexandra L. |last2=Yap |first2=Yaw Wah |date=January 2003 |title=Was Parsons right? An experiment in usability of music |url=http://ismir2003.ismir.net/papers/Uitdenbogerd.pdf |conference=ISMIR 2003 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University}}</ref>

The book was also published in Germany in 2002 and reissued by [[Piatkus]] in 2008 as the ''Directory of Classical Themes''.<ref>{{harvnb|Parsons|2008}}</ref>