Complexity and the Structure of Music: Universal Features and Evolutionary Perspectives Across Cultures - Agenda

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Complexity and the Structure of Music:
Universal Features and Evolutionary Perspectives Across Cultures - Agenda
December 7 - 9, 2020 — Zoom

Theme of this first meeting: Towards a taxonomy of music complexity

Agenda

Tentative schedule. All times are Mountain Time (MT)

TIME	SPEAKER	TITLE	Abstract
	Monday, December 7
9:00-9:20 AM	Marco Buongiorno Nardelli	Welcome and Introductions
9:20 - 9:50 AM	Marco Buongiorno Nardelli	Topology of Networks in Generalized Musical Spaces	The abstraction of musical structures (notes, melodies, chords, harmonic or rhythmic progressions, etc.) as mathematical objects in a geometrical space is one of the great accomplishments of contemporary music theory. Building on this foundation, I generalize the concept of musical spaces as networks and derive functional principles of compositional design by the direct analysis of the network topology. This approach provides a novel framework for the analysis and quantification of similarity of musical objects and structures, and suggests a way to relate such measures to the human perception of different musical entities. Finally, the analysis of a single work or a corpus of compositions as complex networks provides alternative ways of interpreting the compositional process of a composer by quantifying emergent behaviors with well-established statistical mechanics techniques. In particular, I will demonstrate how tonal harmony, or any other compositional framework, emerges naturally as a property of the network topology.
9:50 - 10:00 AM	Break
Chair	Roger Malina	Topic: Music as a Complex System
10:00 - 10:30 AM	Miguel Fuentes	Talk, title TBD
10:30 - 11:00 AM	Gustavo Martínez-Mekler	Talk, title TBD
11:00 - 11:10 AM	Break
11:10 AM - 12:00 PM	Panel 1: The tools of complexity science in the technical, historical and cultural analysis of music	Panelists: Stefani Crabtree, Marc Santolini, Chris Kempes, Damian Zanette (5’ each of opening statements)
	Tuesday, December 8
Chair	Miguel Fuentes	Topic: Complexity in music theory, composition and performance
9:00-9:30 AM	Dmitri Tymoczko	The Quadruple Hierarchy
9:30 - 10:00 AM	David Stout	Talk title TBD
10:00 - 10:10 AM	Break
10:10 - 11:00 AM	Panel 2: Complexity and creativity in music	Panelists: Caroline Shaw, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Gilberto Bernardes, Tyler Marghetis (5’ each of opening statements)
	Wednesday, December 9
Chair	Chris Kempes	Topic: Complexity in music cognition and perception
9:00-9:30 AM	Robert Zatorre	Talk title TBD
9:30 - 10:00 AM	Elizabeth Margulis	Talk title TBD
10:00 - 10:10 AM	Break
10:10 - 11:00 AM	Panel 3: Music, brain, networks: a search for universality?	Panelists: Helena Miton, Tyler Marghetis, Roger Malina, Sølvi Ystad (5’ each of opening statements)