Computer-Assisted Comparative Analysis with
the MelAnaly
Software Package
by J. Marshall Bevil
MelAnaly is, as its name indicates, a system of melodic analysis.
Specifically, it is designed for the comparative analysis of melodies existing
either wholly or partially within oral-aural traditions, including folk tunes,
popular songs that are recognized and learned mainly via recordings and
broadcast, and melodies such as hymn tunes that are originally
fashioned as written works but become known mainly through being performed and
heard. I developed both the procedure and the supportive computer software in
connection with my dissertation
research (1980-1983). I have modified some details of the system since that
time, but the basic principles remain unchanged.
Three central premises underlie
MelAnaly. The first is that the oral-aural processes governing the
emergence, transmission, perception, assimilation, recognition, and recall of
melodies are different from the forces that are at work when music is
created, passed along, perceived, and performed entirely through the standard
literate process.
The
second premise is that not all sounding events in a melody are of equal
significance and that a hierarchy of importance, based on objective criteria,
needs to be established and observed consistently. Moreover, the hierarchy that
prevails within the oral-aural continuum is more marked and also in other ways
different from that which governs written and visual processes.
The third premise is that, when
one is considering melodies within the oral-aural sphere, both melodic contour,
at a multiplicity of levels of structural-perceptual complexity, and short
formulaic patterns (called cells in the
MelAnaly system) that open and close melodic sections and act as mnemonic
anchors are important. Further, they complement each other, and they work
together to define a melody. Therefore any analytical procedure connected with
the oral-aural process that ignores either overall melodic morphology or the
most important stock figures will not produce consistently reliable or
defensible results.
As the
premises above imply, there existed a need for an analytical procedure that was
independent of the standard academic models that were developed for the study of
music from within the Western written tradition. In addition, there was a clear
need to reconcile a long-standing conflict between the oral-aural traditions
specialists of the holistic school, who argued for consideration of overall
melodic contour and relegated stock melodic patterns to a position of little or
no importance, and the specialists of the connectionist school, who maintained
that formulas and combinations of formulas were the essence of identity and
argued that holistic views were too broad and vague. MelAnaly, both as I
initially developed it and as I am continuing to refine it, was and is my answer
to those needs.
MelAnaly, with its companion set of task-specific computer programs, was
originally designed to assist in the comparative analysis of British and
British-American folktunes, specifically the archetypal dual-strain melodies
that are governed by a melodic morphological
norm and the tonal constraints of the anhemitonic gamut.
While the software package in its entirety remains best suited to melodies of
that genre, the main parts of it (i.e., the primary cell and contour
comparison and the comparative melodic graphing) have broader applications to
other dual-strain melodies falling outside the folk species and have been used
successfully outside the area of folksong scholarship since the late 1990s, most
notably in forensic
musicological investigations and in a study of music played during the Titanic
disaster.
Following melodic
transcription, preliminary manual analysis, and preparation and inputting of raw
data, the full course of computer-assisted comparisons involves two steps, the
first of which is a scan of arrays that contain numeric codes for the pitch,
duration, and stress factors of specified control and test variants at multiple
structural-perceptual levels. The second step is the application of seventeen
sets of programmed parameters defining the various natures and extents of
melodic kinships. Results of the array scan are printed in a table that is
illustrated by a set of computer-generated melodic contour graphs. Additional
programs can be used to process the results of array scans in determining norms
of melodic behavior within specified batches of variants, within delimited
geographic areas and/or chronological periods, and between and among individual
singers.
The final step in
the analysis is the manual review and evaluation of the computer-generated scan
results. Concordance tabulations and percentages, melodic contour graphs, and
pre-programmed conclusions are compared to both a visual analysis of the melodic
transcriptions and an auditory comparison of the sounding musical examples. The
computer is used to manage the large amount of data that is involved in each
scan, to reduce substantially the likelihood of clerical errors, to expedite the
comparative process greatly, and to assure the consistent application of
criteria. The ultimate analysis is a human activity, not a mechanical
one.
Since the completion of my
dissertation, I have published and presented several studies for which
MelAnaly was used as an investigative tool, and I have published and
presented information about the both analytical system and its software. In
addition, copies of my dissertation are housed in the libraries of several major
universities and other research institutions. Information concerning my
publications and presentations, as well as the locations of some of the copies
of my dissertation, can be found via the online bibliography of
my works.
In its
present form (reflected in Version 6.1 of the software), MelAnaly is of
limited applicability to genres not possessing, at a minimum, a basic bipartite
song structure and a primarily melodic center of interest. However, the
analytical principle of emphasis on both main motifs and overall contour at a
multiplicity of strata is potentially adaptable to a broader range of formal
structures through alteration of array sizes and other modifications.
Repertories within which harmonic support criteria are of critical significance
eventually will be addressed through the addition of one or more array
dimensions. Other modifications will include the ability to take into account
upward and downward dislocations of contour through manual highlighting and
shifting of relevant portions of the contour graphs. In the current version,
this adjustment has to be made by by preparing separate data files from
transcriptions. These and other expansions of the capabilities of the software,
including possibly the online availability of the analytical software and
data base via subscription, are projected for Version 7.0 and
beyond.
The forthcoming
version of the computer software (7.0), whose completion is projected for 2008,
will incorporate the most recent updates of the original analytical system and
software of the early 1980s. At the time of its initial design and at the
various times of its subsequent revisions, both the analytical system and the
software paralleled similar efforts in the United States and elsewhere to meld
computer technology with reduction, or layer, analysis. In addition, the
underlying analytical principles paralleled other efforts to merge the
disciplines of comparative musical analysis and linguistics.
Dr. J.
Marshall Bevil is a native of Houston, where he
also currently lives. He is both a string music
educator and a musicologist
(M.Mus., University of North Texas, 1973;
Ph.D., UNT, 1984) with specialization in the history of bowed string
instruments, oral-aural musical transmission, and British music of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His doctoral
dissertation has been published by University Microfilms, International (
U M I No. 8423854, "Dissertation
Services"
), and he has published post-doctoral
studies in professional journals and
presented papers in his areas of specialization at regional, national, and
international academic convocations in both the United States and Great
Britain. He also is the author of encyclopedia articles on John Avery Lomax,
Alan Lomax, and Percy Aldridge Grainger; and he has published on the Internet.
In addition to his pedagogic and academic pursuits, he is a performer on the Welsh crwth, a
composer and arranger, and a forensic musicological consultant and
expert witness ( links: 1
2 ) in copyright and intellectual property
misappropriation disputes.
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