Hidden Structure : Music Analysis Using Computers

Today's computers provide music theorists with unprecedented opportunities to analyze music more quickly and accurately than ever before. Where analysis once required several weeks or even months to complete¿often replete with human errors, computers now provide the means to accomplish these same analyses in a fraction of the time and with far more accuracy. However, while such computer music analyses represent significant improvements in the field, computational analyses using traditional approaches by themselves do not constitute the true innovations in music theory that computers offer. In Hidden Structure: Music Analysis Using Computers David Cope introduces a series of analytical processes that¿by virtue of their concept and design¿can be better, and in some cases, only accomplished by computer programs, thereby presenting unique opportunities for music theorists to understand more thoroughly the various kinds of music they study.
Following the introductory chapter that covers several important premises, Hidden Structure focuses on several unique approaches to music analysis offered by computer programs. While these unique approaches do not represent an all-encompassing and integrated global theory of music analysis, they do represent significantly more than a compilation of loosely related computer program descriptions. For example, Chapter 5 on function in post-tonal music, firmly depends on the scalar foundations presented in chapter 4. Likewise, chapter 7 presents a multi-tiered approach to musical analysis that builds on the material found in all of the preceding chapters. In short, Hidden Structure uniquely offers an integrated view of computer music analysis for today¿s musicians.