Tools for Music Information Retrieval and Playing - Intelligent Music Information Systems: Tools and Methodologies - page 125

tion of the musical intuitions of a listener who is
experienced in a musical idiom .
Their work wasn't directly related to MIR,
their purpose was the development of a formal
grammar which could be used to analyze any
tonal composition.
However, in case of thematic fragments
(themes), it would be possible to reduce the themes
into “primitive types”, showing formal similarities
according to the defined grammar.
The aim is to describe, in a simplified manner,
the analytic system of the listener , that is rules
which allow the listener to segment and organize
a hierarchy of musical events.
On this basis, score reductions are applied,
gradually deleting the less significant events.
In this way we can obtain a simplification of
the score and in the meantime we can preserve
sufficient information which allows for maintain-
ing recognizability.
The study of these mechanisms allows the
construction of a grammar able to describe the
fundamental rules followed by human mind in
the recognition of the underlying structures of a
musical piece.
In Figure 5 there is an example of score reduc-
tions provided by Lerdahl and Jackendoff ( 1996).

In order to mitigate the obvious mismatches
typical of this approach various reductionistic ap-
proaches has been developed. This method aim to
reduce musical information into some “primitive
types” and then to compare the reduced fragments
with functional metrics.
A very interesting reductionistic approach
refers to Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's
studies.
Lerdahl and Jakendoff (1996) published their
researches oriented towards a formal descrip-

Figure 5. J. S. Bach, B.A. 4,186: Score reductions

Figure 6. W.A. Mozart, KV 550: Correct analysis

Figure 7. W.A. Mozart, KV 550: Improbable cor-
rect analysis