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 both the 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 2010, 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.
~ OTHER LINKS
"PARADIGM" ABSTRACT (American Musicological Society, New Orleans, 1987)
TEXT OF RESPONSE (Society for Ethnomusicology, Milwaukee, 1994)
Titanic Orchestra (music performed by, near climax of disaster): ABSTRACT FULL ESSAY
"SCALE" ABSTRACT (College Music Symposium, 1986)
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