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From: cpenrose@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Christopher Penrose)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: 2nd rate European Conference
Summary: it is worthy of attack
Keywords: segmentation, absolute perceptual unity
Message-ID: <15268@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 18:59:56 GMT
References: <9101051511.AA10253@hplpm.hpl.hp.com> <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <16244@venera.isi.edu>
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In article <16244@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>In article <5056@idunno.Princeton.EDU> you write:
>>;Analysis  always  presupposes  a segmentation of  the  piece  in
>>;question, but the criteria for this operations are  problematic.
>>
>>Just whose concept of "analysis" is this anyway? I don't know
>>of any post-adornoesque metacritique of analysis that asserts
>>"presupposed segmentation." Of which music, for instance?
>
>I'm not sure just whom or what you are trying to attack here.  Do you wish to
>contest the premise of a tight coupling between analysis and perception?  THAT,
>after all, is the premise behind the sentence you have chosen to attack.  After
>all, there is no question that segmentation is a critical aspect of perception.
>Even if you reject the various schools of cognitive science and take Edelman's
>biological approach instead, you cannot give up the need to build upon a
>foundation of a capacity for PERCEPTUAL CATEGORIZATION.  Even you can never
>get beyond an ability to establish the EXISTENCE and EXTENT of OBJECTS among
>the stimuli you receive, you can never begin to talk about either perception
>or analysis.

I share Eliot's concern over "presupposed segmentation".  Although I do 
recognize that percepts can be categorically discriminated, I find it to 
be dangerous to attempt to unify analysis through a homogenous analysis 
scheme.  Different listeners/musics may have entirely different perceptual 
mechanisms/structures.  Although, it may be possible to categorize "states 
of listening" or "paradigms of perception", I do not see these efforts 
being made.  I am experimenting with the application of various segmentation 
models toward composition.  These segmentation models employ quantizations 
of contour, rms, and instantaneous spectral state as elemental information.  
I view these selections as constrained choices that are designed to 
construct a unique idiom--their utility toward arbitrary analysis would be 
extremely provincial.  The efforts of analysts should be as conscious as 
possible of the potentialities and dispositions of musical idioms and 
structures.

Christopher Penrose
jesus!penrose