MCP

Musical schemata

Musical schemata comprise characteristic scale-degree movements in melody and bass, plus harmonies, metric weights, and other contextual information. This combination of attributes makes musical schemata difficult to identify and discover computationally, but that is the aim of our research on the topic.

Here are two examples of the same schema to consider (A and B). A lot of listeners would say examples A and C are “most similar” to one another because they have similar tempo and texture, but in terms of higher-level music-theoretic similarities, A and B are arguably more similar to one another than A and C.

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A

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.5 in C minor, Op.10 No.1 ("Little Pathétique")

B

Haydn's Symphony No.88 in G major, Hob.I:88 (piano transcription)

C

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.5 in C minor, Op.10 No.1 ("Little Pathétique")

Related 2019 ISMIR paper

First two examples from Collins et al. (2016).