Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Composition and Cognition Reflections On Contemporary Music and The Musical Mind 1St Edition Lerdahl Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
Composition and Cognition Reflections On Contemporary Music and The Musical Mind 1St Edition Lerdahl Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
https://ebookmeta.com/product/musical-portraits-the-composition-
of-identity-in-contemporary-and-experimental-music-joshua-s-
walden/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/reflections-on-contemporary-values-
beliefs-and-behaviours-the-adventures-of-an-enquiring-mind-1st-
edition-prasanna-gautam/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/thinking-in-and-about-music-
analytical-reflections-on-milton-babbitts-music-and-thought-1st-
edition-zachary-bernstein/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/between-hope-and-
despair-100-ethical-reflections-on-contemporary-india-rajeev-
bhargava/
Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism Morrison
Comegys Boyd
https://ebookmeta.com/product/elizabethan-music-and-musical-
criticism-morrison-comegys-boyd/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/elizabethan-music-and-musical-
criticism-morrison-comegys-boyd-2/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/contemporary-reflections-on-
business-ethics-2nd-edition-ronald-duska/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/concepts-frames-and-cascades-in-
semantics-cognition-and-ontology-7-language-cognition-and-
mind-7-sebastian-lobner-editor/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/music-time-and-its-other-aesthetic-
reflections-on-finitude-temporality-and-alterity-1st-edition-
roger-w-h-savage/
Composition and Cognition
Fred Lerdahl
Fred Lerdahl
Oakland, California
Lehdahl.
29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
53
77
105
References 131
Index 141
PrefaCe
Despite these inhibitions, I have felt all along the need to explain
how, for me, composing and theorizing are complementary and
indeed ix
x / Preface
five chapters for five lectures, none very long. The tone of the book,
like that of the lectures, is often informal and personal. Chapter 1
gives an account of my early compositional crisis and subsequent
turn to cognitive music theory in order to build a fresh foundation for
compositional thinking. Chapter 2 provides an overview of my
cognitive theories of tonal music, using a short piece by Schubert as
illustration. Chapter 3
I have tried to keep the discussion from becoming too technical and
made the accompanying musical figures as uncomplicated as
possible.
Even so, nonprofessional readers may find parts of the book difficult
to follow, in particular chapters 2 and 5. Although the book has an
overall arc, each chapter stands to some extent on its own, and for
those readers it may be advantageous to focus on the other
chapters.
Audio tracks for my compositions that are discussed in the book can
be found at the book’s University of California Press webpage at
www
https://www.bridgerecords.com/collections/catalog-all/Fred-Lerdahl.
In addition, many of my pieces, as well as works by other composers
referred to in the book, are accessible at general internet sites such
as iTunes, Spot-ify, and YouTube.
aCknowledgments
Joel Gressel, Huck Hodge, Ray Jackendoff, Louise Litterick, Eric Moe,
Matthew Ricketts, and David Temperley read the book manuscript
and made valuable suggestions that improved its content and style.
At the University of California Press, I am grateful to Raina Polivka,
Madison Wetzell, Francisco Reinking, and Dawn Hall. David Bird
assisted in the final preparation of some of the musical figures.
xi
Fred Lerdahl
Conventions
abbreviations
xiii
Ch a P t e r on e
2 / Chapter One
sub.
sub.
5f
fp
pp
>
3
&4
58
34
b œ œn 58
bϪ 3
>4˙Œ
#˙™
œœœ™œœ œ œ
# ™ œ#™ œ œ #œ œj œ J œJ œœœ
>
>œ œ
But
toms
will
till
3
b
5œ
bQ 3
¢&4
8œ
Q nœ 8
#œ
œ œ #œ #œ
œ #-œ
œ -Q
4 / Chapter One
One thinks of the minimalists and Steve Reich’s statement that his
interest was “in a compositional process and a sounding music that
are one and the same thing” (Reich 2004, 35). A few years later, a
similar impulse led the spectralists Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail
to try to build musical form directly from the acoustic features of
sound.
Furthermore, the old avant-garde had found its direction and energy
by taking previously forbidden stylistic steps, but after Cage there
were no more rules to break. Anything was possible. The loss of
historical narrative caused a variety of postmodern reactions. Some
responded with irony and pastiche; others sought comfort in the
past, often through quo-tation; others persisted in pursuit of a
private utopia; still others trans-ferred the appetite for artistic
experimentation to technological innovation. Among composers, as
far as I know, only Leonard Bernstein and I turned seriously to
generative linguistics for enlightenment.
6 / Chapter One
What was needed was both a center and degrees of distance from it,
so that the music could depart and return, tense and relax; further, it
must be possible to establish subsidiary centers. The experience also
told me
Vc
Bn
3 Fl
Va
Cl
Hn
Ob Vc
Tb Fl Va
U Cl Tp Ob
Hn
Va Fl
&4
24b b
34b
24 jb
bŒb3
œœj œœ
8 j j 34 ‰b ™ j
˙˙
b ™™
b˙˙ bœœœ œœ ‰ œ™ œœ
œœ
œœ
œœ
11
Tb Vc Tp U (etc.)
‰jj
2 27 j r
&
4r#
Œ bœ ‰
œœ
b bœœ
œ ™œœœr œœœ
n œœœ
n ™™ œœœj
œœœ
##
œœœ
# œœœr œœœ
8 / Chapter One
#
bœœ
œœjn j
™ œœ™™
#n œœ n˙˙
&4 ‰ œœ
#™
œœ ™™œœb
™ œœ
œœ n ˙ b
˙bœ
œœ 5 œ
™
4œœ œœn ww
mf
ff
mf
œœ
&4 Ó
œ5
œœ
œœœ
œn
? #n
˙˙
œw
nœJ w
bw
4w
˙™
&4 bw
bœ ˙™
3
bj˙
‰w
4 ˙™
™™
bœ ˙™
˙™
˙™
dim.
ff
cresc.
Œ ‰nœ™
?4
bœ ˙
˙™
4
‰
3‰
&œj ˙™
bœ™ 4 ˙™ œ ˙
˙™ œ™
cresc.
œ ˙™
˙™
˙™
ff
ff dim.
? 4 bw
‰
3
bw
4Œ
Œ ‰ œnj ˙™
bw
bϪ
˙™
˙™
dim.
cresc.
10 / Chapter One
(a) & C ˙
#˙
bœ
.œ .œ .œ b œ
.œ
(b) & C œ fi
œj ‰ fibœ˙
nœj #œ
œ nœ œ bœ
bœ
(c) & C ˙
#˙
b˙
1.4b, or simplify it, as in figure 1.4c, for these steps violate the order
of interval classes. While doing Palestrina-style counterpoint
exercises, I enjoyed finding ways of embellishing contrapuntal lines
within a structural framework. Most music from around the world, be
it Indian raga, Japanese koto, or American jazz, thrives on
embellishment. The syntax of human languages is structured
similarly: one can elaborate a subject and verb at will with
adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, and subordinate clauses.
When studying counterpoint, I had not yet even heard of Heinrich
Schenker, but I instinctively sought an elaborational syntax, a
hierarchy of structure and ornament. The distinction between
permutational and elaborational systems was my first important
theoretical insight. The concept of hierarchical elaboration eventually
became fundamental to my work in composition and theory.
GTTM and TPS have multiple analytic components, each with its own
rule system. Implicitly at work in Chords were the rhythmic
components of grouping and meter and the pitch-domain
components of sensory dissonance and pitch space. Sensory—that
is, psychoacoustic—
12 / Chapter One
Figure 1.6 shows the first phrase of Eros with its alap-like drone and
ornamented melody. Above the melody is a hierarchical analysis
employing both the tree notation and an equivalent slur notation.
(The
(a)
(b)
/œ
œœ
events:
x
y
tensing
relaxing
The idea of double leading tones came from the unfinished study of
Schoenberg’s transitional music from chromatic tonality into
atonality.
Melody and bass were essentially unrelated and did not produce a
coherent syntax of harmonic progression. The variation form was too
derivative of Classical models to be relied on for long. Elaborative
14 / Chapter One
&4
j
#Ϫ bϪ
œ fiœjnœ bœ #œ œ
?4
The
guild
ed
phal
loi
4 Ów
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
bœ
œ œjœ œ
bœ
& œ# bœ œ
b#œ œ
œœ
<>
b#
œ # œjœJ <œœ>
I initially fulfilled these ideas in the First String Quartet (1978). Its
beginning in figure 1.8 lays out expanding variations in an almost
16 / Chapter One
non. vibr.
{ 4&2
22 32
22
b#
2
˙˙ Ó
˙˙ Ó ˙˙ Ó
˙˙ Ó Ó
˙ ˙˙
sempre p
b#˙
? 42 ˙ Ó
˙Ó˙Ó2
2 32
Ó Ó 22
˙2
Var. 1
Var. 2
Var. 3
{˙4
& ˙ Ó Ó 2b
˙˙
b#˙
2
˙˙
˙˙ Ó Ó ˙˙ ˙# Ó
b#˙
? ˙˙
˙ #˙
ÓÓ4˙
˙3
˙2
ÓÓ
Var. 4
Var. 5
{
&b
b#˙
42
#˙˙Ó
˙˙
˙˙
˙œj œ™ Ó
b#˙
? b#˙ ˙
˙ Ó 22
˙3
˙2
42
Var. 6
{ 4&2
˙˙ Ó ˙˙ ˙
2 42
3
b
Ó ˙˙
#w
˙˙
#˙
˙ b˙ #˙œJœ™
b#˙
? 4b˙
˙ #˙
b˙
b
n˙
22 42 ˙ Ó # ˙ ˙ 32 Ó
˙˙#
˙˙