Technology has arrived that lets us see why, exactly, we like or dislike a piece of music. A Princeton University composer, Dmitri Tymoczko, says traditional Western music is attractive partly because it obeys basic music-theory rules of “voice leading”–the way notes move from one chord to the next. (The rules say the steps should be fairly small.) He created a computer program that vividly shows how far a piece of music diverges from these rules.
In the image, generated by Tymoczko’s program, each ball represents a three-note chord. The farther apart the balls are, the farther the voices have to jump between chords. As a song plays, another ball moves around the cone. If it moves in a circle, a chord pattern is repeating. If it moves from the cone’s tip to its base, a piece is progressing toward dissonance.
Tymoczko says the technology could be a valuable teaching tool for musicians–showing them, for example, how a pop song is structurally similar to a Chopin prelude. And since the moving balls also allow users to watch any song “play,” the program could be fun at parties, too.
Don’t settle for half the story.
Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now.
