Characterisation of the Degree of Musical Non-Markovianity

Abstract

As an aid for musical analysis, in computational musicology mathematical andinformatics tools have been developed to characterise quantitatively some aspectsof musical compositions. A musical composition can be attributed by ear a certainamount of memory. These results are associated with repetitions and similarities ofthe patterns in musical scores. To higher variations, a lower amount of memory isperceived. However, the musical memory of a score has never been quantitativelydefined. Here we aim to give such a measure following an approach similar tothat used in physics to quantify the memory (non-Markovianity) of open quantumsystems. We apply this measure to some existing musical compositions, showingthat the results obtained via this quantifier agree with what one expects by ear.The musical non-Markovianity quantifier can thus be used as a new tool that canaid quantitative musical analysis. It can also lead to future quantum computingcontrollers to manipulate structures in the framework of generative music.

Keywords

memory, non-markovianity, open quantum systems, pattern repetitions, computational musicology

How to Cite

Mannone, M. & Compagno, G., (2022) “Characterisation of the Degree of Musical Non-Markovianity”, Journal of Creative Music Systems 6(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.5920/jcms.975

Download

Download PDF

880

Views

384

Downloads

Share

Authors

Maria Mannone (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Giuseppe Compagno (University of Palermo)

Download

Issue

Dates

Licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Identifiers

Peer Review

This article has been peer reviewed.

File Checksums (MD5)

  • PDF: d9a4b3a99bebd28b43d72879ed0c2ce2