Re: Harmonic reduction

[Lukas-Fabian Moser]

Hi Urs,

> > Also, Schönberg gave (in his Harmonielehre) funny examples of
> > "impossible" sonorities taken from Bach's Motetten by just stopping
> > the
> > music at the right (or wrong?) time, together with equally funny
> > jibes
> > against the "aestheticians", or from Mozart's symphonies (also
> > attached).
> >
> >
> > Maybe all I'm saying here is that any such automated tool for
> > "musical
> > analysis" would have to be highly configurable.
> Very valid points, indeed. However, it seems I'm persistently not
> making myself clear.
> I'm not looking for musical interpretation/analysis, just for a
> visualization of what is sounding at the same time, to get a visual
> idea about the harmonies resulting from polyphonic settings.

Well yes, that's what your example conveyed. I think I tried to dispute 
the meaningfulness of such a visualization, since depending on the 
compositional techniques used, such a representation is very likely 
cluttered with all sorts of dissonant notes that the "knowledgeable ear" 
integrates into higher-order structures.

But of course you know all of this, and I should just assume that you 
have good reasons for wanting to have what you described and gave an 
example for. Maybe I'm behaving like the music shop assistant who some 
years ago, when I asked for an electric tuning device with a special 
feature (ability to display the deviation from equal-temperament _in 
cents_), just looked at me knowingly and said: "Oh, but you don't need 
this." :-)

Best
Lukas