Beneath (or beyond) the surface: Discovering voice-leading patterns with skip-grams. Issue 3 (2nd September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sears, David R. W.; Widmer, Gerhard
• Is Part Of: Journal of mathematics and music. Volume 15:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 209
• Page End: 234
• Publication Date: 2021-09-02
• Subjects: Skip-gram -- n-gram -- pattern discovery -- voice-leading pattern -- cadence -- cadential six-four -- collocation -- multi-word expression -- tonal music; Music theory -- Periodicals; Music -- Mathematical models -- Periodicals; Music -- Mathematics -- Periodicals; 781.2
• DOI: 10.1080/17459737.2020.1785568
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-9737

Abstract

Abstract : Recurrent voice-leading patterns like the Mi-Re-Do compound cadence (MRDCC) rarely appear on the musical surface in complex polyphonic textures, so finding these patterns using computational methods remains a tremendous challenge. The present study extends the canonical n -gram approach by using skip-grams, which include sub-sequences in an n -gram list if their constituent members occur within a certain number of skips. We compiled four data sets of Western tonal music consisting of symbolic encodings of the notated score and a recorded performance, created a model pipeline for defining, counting, filtering, and ranking skip-grams, and ranked the position of the MRDCC in every possible model configuration. We found that the MRDCC receives a higher rank in the list when the pipeline employs 5 skips, filters the list by excluding n -gram types that do not reflect a genuine harmonic change between adjacent members, and ranks the remaining types using a statistical association measure.