Refinement
of a theory of musical rhythm
My dissertation
investigated musical periodicities
as the first step in the refinement of a theory of musical rhythm designed
to reflect current research in the realms of perception and cognition. (See
abstract, soon to be posted below.) The reason for choosing periodicities
as a starting point was that the presence or absence of regularity is one
of the most fundamental features of musical rhythm, and that in addition much
irregularity may be perceived as a modified regularity. The dissertation
tests the idea that the specific rate at which a musical event recurs is inextricably
linked with its musical function; melodic movement tends to occur within a
certain band, ornamentation within another, etc. A summary of
the findings about the significance of rate can be found in the paper Superpulse:
Clarifications, Refinements, Implications.
Copies of the dissertation complete with musical examples in
notation form exist at the National Library of Canada and the University of Victoria
library. Copies are also
available for purchase from UMI (ref. NN90193), however, due to copyright issues, the musical
examples are omitted, though full references are given, and all examples are
taken from three readily-available scores.
Parts of the thesis (with examples) are reproduced in the rather
roughly-edited ex tempore article "Time and Texture".