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In article <11805@cs.yale.edu> beck-chris@CS.YALE.EDU (Chris
Beck) writes:
>I have a philosophical question for anyone outhere:
>
>I was wondering if anyone could recommend some books, or, preferably, had
>some of their own thoughts, about possible representations for music that
>can be understood by a computer (other than standard notation and MIDI).
>
>What constitutes a musical event?  What would be a good strategyfor 
>representing not only the music itself but also all (if
possible) aspects 
>of a given musical performance? 
> 
>- Chris

This question is obviously very complicated. 

The first suggestion I can offer is to look at the quarterly,
Computer Music Journal, published by MIT press. There is some
fascinating work being done by its contributors on how to more
completely define a sonic or musical event and how to place it in
time. It's very speculative but it is based in practice.

I am working on project which relates somewhat to this question:

I am trying to design a powerful (ie. high level), yet flexible,
music composition environment based on David Betz's XLISP for the
IBM PC. In order to do this I have to do just what Chris is
curious about - I have break *music* down into what I feel are
its representative elements. 

The first major problem I have encountered in this process is how
to structure time in a composition. I figure...

Let's assume each musical event has a number of basic
characteristics: fundamental pitch (for tonal events), timbre,
volume (ie. loudness), duration and so on... Each event must also
have an *absolute* starting time within the piece, that is, each
*note* must start at an easily identifiable time relative to the
beginning of a composition. This is where my problem begins.

In traditional notation the composer and musician are required to
count bars, consisting of x number of beats, in order to track
their position in a piece. The counting of the bars is obviously
relative to the beginning of the piece and the biggest thing
differentiating one bar from another is its number. This system
is fine and has worked for a very long time but one always has
the feeling that this is not the most intuitive, and therefore
easiest, way of working with music. 

I believe that humans perceive each sonic event as a distinct
experience - each creating an individual feeling or sensation in
the listener. In conjunction with their placement next to one
another, a series of notes creates the experience of music. But
each note/event is fundamentally perceived on its own.

Traditional notations and composition techniques *anonimyse*
individual notes and sonic events in a piece by placing too much
emphasis on their start time and position.

The musician makes mistakes while playing anonymous notes. After
all when a *note* is not considered a unique event, but as
something to be played at such and such a count, it is a simple
matter to miscount and play it at the wrong time.

Composition should be the process of intuitively identifying one
sonic event from the next and arranging each accordingly. Each
event should not lose its identity within the structure of a
piece.

In MIDI notation, a system very similar to traditional notation
has been adopted. Bars and beats are preserved but each beat now
consists of a quantum number of *ticks*. Now you can not only
find where you are in a piece by counting the bar number but also
by looking at the number of *ticks* elapsed. This is a good
system to use from a computer's perspective because now there is
a quantifiable time referent for each note. However the problem
with this system remains the disproportional consideration of
timing.

In computer composition, because abstraction can be more creative
(eg. unique visual note/event symbols - see Coda's Finale and
some of the new software for the NeXT), a composition system can
be developed to allow more easily recognisable and intuitive
note/event *tags*. Imagine each note/event as single-hue Leggo
block...

If all music was monophonic, then the problem of absolute note
placement in time (as the chief *anonimyzer* of sonic events)
would be less serious. All events would follow one after another
and would only require a duration, or note length, to place them
in a piece. Silences between notes would be musical events
similar to rests in traditional notation. Picture a stack of
different coloured Leggo blocks...

A musician playing such a piece would still have to count time,
to play for the correct duration of a note (this seems unavoidable),
and would therefore still suffer the *take it from the top!*,
anonymous note/event timing.

But composing and playing back such a *serial* or *string*
composition on a computer would simply require an arbitrary
choice of time unit (ie. CPU clock cycle, date clock second, MIDI
pulses per quarter note, etc.) that relates to the computer and
that could be assigned as the duration of a note/event. The
composer could gauge the length of a note/event by listening and
let the computer take care of figuring out the timing. A point
and click, stretchable Leggo block... Each sonic event would be
unique. Each note wouldn't need a *starting time* relative to the
beginning of the piece. 

The apparent problem is that music is not this simple. It is not
monophonic, it is polyphonic. Notes *occur* in *parallel* as well
as *serial* streams. What to do? 

How can we deal with time in music and make it simpler and more
intuitive? In a computer environment we have the freedom to
(conceptually) overcome this problem. I invite your suggestions,
comments, thoughts and snottiness (:-)).


- Thanks for reading. | Let's have more ideas!
- Be seeing you.      | These are powerful tools for powerful times.
- Scott.              | New tools require new techniques for using them.