Divine Rationality: Computational Transcription Of Chants And Parametric Structuring For Compositions For Voices And Instruments

Abstract

Our ongoing research into computational ethnomusicol- ogy, undertaken first in the project Computational Ethno- musicology and continuing in the projects Tunes and Tales and Sounding Philosophy, has allowed for a better under- standing of the roles of scales, melodic contour and tuning in Jewish, Islamic and Christian chant traditions. While this research has also given way to new modes of notating chant cultures via computational means, it has also had a profound effect on the creation of what Dániel Péter Biró has termed historicized composition, a way of creating compositions that respond to, in this case, the historical de- velopment of chant traditions. To this end, the methodolo- gies used for computational transcription of these chant traditions have been incorporated in compositional sketches and in innovative notational frameworks for new vocal music compositions. The following paper explores the methodology of this research, its technical properties and resulting compositional output, presenting examples from vocal and instrumental compositions completed be- tween 2014 and 2022. Finally, we propose future work in these interdisciplinary research areas.