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David Temperley, The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures

David Temperley, The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures David Temperley , The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures ( Cambridge, MA : MIT Press , 2001 ). xvi + 404 pp . £30.95 . ISBN 0‐262‐20134‐8 (hb) . Although the musical structures investigated in this book are described as ‘basic’, there is nothing simple about a project that aims to describe the cognition of music. The title of Temperley's volume consequently promises much. The principal question concerns how we ‘extract basic kinds of musical information ... from music as we hear it’ (p. ix), by which Temperley intends metre, phrase structure, counterpoint, pitch spelling, harmony and key. The study is generally restricted to ‘common‐practice’ music, that is to say Western tonal music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is an important emphasis on cognition through hearing, as opposed to the static analysis of the global structure of an entire piece of music. Temperley adopts a computational approach, through the elaboration of ‘preference rules’ devised to describe and evaluate different musical analyses. As will be seen later, it is this preference‐rule system that allows a focus on the active extraction of musical information. No definitive answer is given to the central question of the book, though plausible http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Music Analysis Wiley

David Temperley, The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures

Bailes, Freya
Music Analysis , Volume 25 (1‐2) – Mar 1, 2006
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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0262-5245
eISSN
1468-2249
DOI
10.1111/j.1468-2249.2006.00240.x
Publisher site
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Abstract

David Temperley , The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures ( Cambridge, MA : MIT Press , 2001 ). xvi + 404 pp . £30.95 . ISBN 0‐262‐20134‐8 (hb) . Although the musical structures investigated in this book are described as ‘basic’, there is nothing simple about a project that aims to describe the cognition of music. The title of Temperley's volume consequently promises much. The principal question concerns how we ‘extract basic kinds of musical information ... from music as we hear it’ (p. ix), by which Temperley intends metre, phrase structure, counterpoint, pitch spelling, harmony and key. The study is generally restricted to ‘common‐practice’ music, that is to say Western tonal music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is an important emphasis on cognition through hearing, as opposed to the static analysis of the global structure of an entire piece of music. Temperley adopts a computational approach, through the elaboration of ‘preference rules’ devised to describe and evaluate different musical analyses. As will be seen later, it is this preference‐rule system that allows a focus on the active extraction of musical information. No definitive answer is given to the central question of the book, though plausible

Journal

Music Analysis – Wiley

Published: Mar 1, 2006

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