A memetic analysis of a phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian perspectives on similarity and lexicon-abstraction. (May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jan, Steven
• Is Part Of: Psychology of music. Volume 44:Number 3(2016:May)
• Page Start: 443
• Page End: 465
• Publication Date: 2016-05
• Subjects: Beethoven -- Hexagonal Cloning Theory (HCT) -- lexicon -- memetics -- museme; Music -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; 781.11
• DOI: 10.1177/0305735615576065
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-7356

Abstract

This article discusses some general issues arising from the study of similarity in music, both human-conducted and computer-aided, and then progresses to a consideration of similarity relationships between patterns in a phrase by Beethoven, from the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110 (1821), and various potential memetic precursors. This analysis is followed by a consideration of how the kinds of similarity identified in the Beethoven phrase might be understood in psychological/conceptual and then neurobiological terms, the latter by means of William Calvin's Hexagonal Cloning Theory. This theory offers a mechanism for the operation of David Cope's concept of the lexicon, conceived here as a museme allele-class. I conclude by attempting to correlate and map the various spaces within which memetic replication occurs.