A Memetic Analysis of a Phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian Perspectives on Similarity and Lexicon-Abstraction

Jan, Steven (2015) A Memetic Analysis of a Phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian Perspectives on Similarity and Lexicon-Abstraction. Psychology of Music. ISSN 1741-3087

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Abstract

This article discusses some general issues arising from the study of similarity in music, both human-conducted and computer-aided, and then progresses to a consideration of similarity relationships between patterns in a phrase by Beethoven, from the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110 (1821), and various potential memetic precursors. This analysis is followed by a consideration of how the kinds of similarity identified in the Beethoven phrase might be understood in psychological/conceptual and then neurobiological terms, the latter by means of William Calvin’s Hexagonal Cloning Theory. This theory offers a mechanism for the operation of David Cope’s concept of the lexicon, conceived here as a museme allele-class. I conclude by attempting to correlate and map the various spaces within which memetic replication occurs.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Schools:	School of Music, Humanities and Media
Related URLs:	Author
Depositing User:	Cherry Edmunds
Date Deposited:	09 Mar 2015 15:53
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2016 14:08
URI:	http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/23720

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