Research Portfolio | Music

Can computers learn music theory?

Computers have transformed how we listen to, obtain, compose, and notate music, but they have not fundamentally changed how we research and analyze music. No available software can even identify underlying styles, let alone address more complex questions, such as what makes French music sound French.

music21 website
a toolkit for computer-aided musicology

Pioneering Tools from music21
“Tools do not exist anywhere for analyzing musical genres. If I want to list all the chord forms ever used by Bach, I can’t do this,” says Assistant Professor Michael Cuthbert. Combining knowledge from musicology and computer programming, Cuthbert’s music21 project equips computers with a basic understanding of music theory—making it possible to analyze more music than ever before.

Analyzing Musical Genres
“We’re so far behind that it frustrates researchers,” says Cuthbert, who launched the project in part to address his own need for a tool that could help him analyze medieval Italian music. Pilot applications have already helped him to find matches for extremely damaged late-medieval songs and to apply an early 15th-century musician’s rules for singing different pitches than those on the page to find moments where the rules improved harmony.

From Gregorian Chant to Copland
A three-year project, music21 is designed to help researchers answer such questions as: How did variations in Gregorian chant spread geographically and over the centuries? Did certain harmonies call out to Mozart for unusual accompaniment patterns? And, how closely does the spacing of notes in the music of Aaron Copland approximate the spacing of overtones in the harmonic series?

Perception and Psychology
Experts in music perception and psychology will also be able to run experiments using the music21 framework, employing and transforming musical materials more easily than they can now. Within the field, music21 should ultimately make it possible to compare individual pieces to an entire corpus in a particular genre or style.


For more information

music21 website
a toolkit for computer-aided musicology

Ambiguity, Content, and Information Content in Minimalist Music

Video: Cuthbert on artifacts in the Lewis Music Library


harp player