Book

Computational Analysis and Musical Style

Francis Knights and Pablo Padilla

In recent years, established techniques from disciplines like mathematics and statistics have successfully been applied to music analysis, helping us to understand style, chronology and many other components of composition. Using examples drawn from a variety of musical types and styles, especially classical music, this book explains how to use some of these techniques and how they can be applied to various musical genres. This is supported by a series of specialist case studies provided by expert researchers, together with suggestions as to other types of questions that can be asked and answered using these methods.

Chapter 1. Introduction

Scope, History of Music analysis, Automatable processes

Chapter 2. Musical Concepts

Musical Style, The making of a composer, Authorship, attribution and reconstruction,   
Mathematical models of musical stylistic components, Case study questions

Chapter 3. Computational Tools

Programming environments, Midi toolbox, Music software

Chapter 4. Methods

Musical components, Formal grammars, Transition networks, Probabilistic tools, Principal Component Analysis

Chapter 5. Case Studies, by Alberto Alcalá, Alessandro Bravetti, Patricio Calatayud, Octavio Chavez, Ben Grant, Matthew Jones, Blas Ko, Ed Liebrecht, Jaime Lobato, Martin Mijangos, Susana Patiño, Ivan Paz, Mateo Rodriguez, Roberto Sánchez and others

Chapter 6. Conclusions and future research

320 pages

Publication date: 1 April 2025