propositional writing

The Hypothesis that Musicality is Determined by the Musicality of Constraints

Philip Dorrell, 27 March 2012

We can see that certain constraints apply to most musical items. For example, all pitch values come from a particular scale, and rhythm is defined by nested regular beats. We can also see that different (but similar) constraints apply to different musical items, for example one tune may be in 3/4 time and another tune may be in 4/4 time, where each time signature is a specific constraint that applies to the whole musical item.

The hypothesis advanced here is that constraints are the only thing that make music musical, that different constraints have different levels of musicality, and that, to a first approximation, the overall musicality of a musical item is the sum of the musicalities of the individual constraints that apply to that item.

It follows from this hypothesis that everything that we don't know about what makes music musical is a consequence of what we don't know about the types of constraints that define individual musical items.

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