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The 'Concealed' Motif
The 'Concealed' Motif
The 'Concealed' Motif
Motifs are never explicitly indicated by the composer of the score and this lack of indication gives to
the very motif a mysterious character [3] as if it
were a secret that listening and analysis have the assignment to reveal (fig. 2) [4].
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times [6].
The sequence must be clear, in its different manifestations, that is it must always be equally presented
even if it is subject to non retrogradous translation
or inversion (see figure 3 ) [7], insofar as retrogradous transformations make the theme hardly recognizable, most of all at the beginning, i.e. when the
listener is not yet able to remember it well: if we
were then to take into account the length of the
theme, at times not even its continuous repetition in
the original state, as it is the case with fugues, allows its recognition if retrograded.
BWV 772. The sequence of notes (beat 1) is represented on the first staff, its transposition is represented on the second staff (beat 2) and its inversion
on the third staff (beat 3).
The identification of a motif by the various algorithms, by virtue of the considerations in the preceding paragraph, occurs only if the notes making it up
are sequential, that is one after the other (fig. 6).
Musical grammar, nevertheless, provides the composer with a series of tools allowing him to vary,
within the same musical piece, an already presented
melodic line, by inserting notes which are extraneous to harmony [12].
The sounds of a melodic line, in fact, may belong to
the harmonic construction or may be extraneous to
it. The former sounds, which fall in the chordal
components, are called real, while the latter sounds,
which belong to the horizontal dimension, take the
name of melodic figurations (passing tones, turns or
escape tones). They are complementary additional
elements of the basic melodic material that lean directly or indirectly on real notes and also resolve on
them.
The use of melodic figurations, therefore, allows
achieving greater freedom of the melody, bestowing
upon it a better profile, yet at the same time making
it hardly recognizable and, consequently, difficult to
identify (fig. 7) [13].
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++
(the start). Since it is a score that must be analyzed, the duration of the sound will not be expressed in seconds but calculated (automatically
by the algorithm) as a function of the musical
sign (be it either a sound or a rest) having the
smallest duration existing in the musical piece.
The duration of every sign will therefore be a
number (an integer) directly proportional to the
smallest duration (fig. 8 and 9) [9].
Pitch
Duration
Fig. 8: Melodic segment and its related graphic representation. In this example, the sign having the
smallest duration is represented by the eighth note to
which the value 1 is (automatically) associated: it
follows that the quarter note will have the value 2.
A5, 2
In order to be able to search for the presence of motifs hidden inside the score, which were previously
identified through segmentation, one must continue
by building a similarity matrix for every single element [14].
Given a motif M with n sounds, the similarity matrix
is defined as follows:
0
2
4
5
6
Ax , y
These two pieces of data, considered together, represent the coordinates of a point on the Cartesian
plane, where the first sound will have the coordinates 0,0 [15].
The coordinates of the following sounds will be respectively:
x the value corresponding to the number of semitones between the i-th note and the preceding
one: this value will be respectively positive or
negative depending on whether the note is higher
or lower than the preceding note;
y the values corresponding to the duration from
the i-th note and the preceding one to the origin
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0
5
=4
2
0
B5, 2
46
0
...
= ...
...
...
0
2
4
5
6
A)
A1)
Pitch
Duration
B)
C)
A)
Pitch
Duration
B)
C)
5 Conclusions
This article has examined the notion of "motif" and
the criteria for its identification within a certain
score. Then, one of the potential melodic analysis
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References:
[1] M. Della Ventura, Analysis of algorithms implementation for melodical operators in symbolical textual segmentation and connected
evaluation of musical entropy, in In Proceedings of the International Conference on
Mathematics (IAASAT 11) (pp. 66-73). Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania.
[2] M. Della Ventura, Limpronta digitale del
compositore, GDE, Italy, 2010.
[3] Moles, Abraham, Teorie de linformation et
Perception esthetique, Paris, Flammarion Editeur, 1958.
[4] I. Bent, W. Drabkin, Music Analysis, EDT,
Turin, 1990.
[5] F.Lerdhal, R. Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, The MIT Press, 1983.
[6] O. Lartillot-Nakamura, Fondements dun systme danalyse musicale computationnelle
suivant une modlisation cognitiviste de
lcoute, Doctoral Thesis, University of Paris,
2004.
[7] U. Hahn, M. Ramscar, Similarity and Categorization, Oxford University Press, Oxford
(2001).
[8] C. Orff, Schulwerk, elementare Musik, Hans
Schneider, Tutzing, 1976.
[9] M. Della Ventura, Rhythm analysis of
thesonorous continuum and conjoint
evaluation of the musical entropy, in In Proceedings of the International Conference on
Acoustic & Music: Theory & Applications
(AMTA 12) (pp. 15-21). Iasi, Romania.
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