The geometry of musical rhythm : what makes a "good" rhythm good? / Godfried T. Toussaint.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Toussaint, Godfried T., 1944-2019, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Musical meter and rhythm.

Music theory.

Rhythm.

Geometry, Descriptive.

Physical Description:

xvii, 351 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, [2020]

Biography/History:

Godfried T. Toussaint is a Canadian computer scientist born in Belgium. Presently, he is a Research Professor of Computer Science at the University of New York, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Researcher in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) in the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, and an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at McGill. After receiving a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, he taught and did research at the School of Computer Science at McGill University, in the areas of information theory, pattern recognition, pattern analysis and design, computational geometry, instance-based learning, music information retrieval, and computational music theory. In 1978, he received the Pattern Recognition Society's Best Paper of the Year Award and in 1985 he was awarded a Senior Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council. In May 2001, he was awarded the David Thomson Award for excellence in graduate supervision and teaching at McGill University. He is a founder and cofounder of several international conferences and workshops on computational geometry. He is an editor of several journals, has appeared on television programs to explain his research on the mathematical analysis of flamenco rhythms, and has published more than 360 papers. In 2009, he was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, for the 2009-2010 academic year, to carry out a research project on the phylogenetic analysis of the musical rhythms of the world. After spending an additional year at Harvard University, in the music department, he moved in August 2011 to New York University in Abu Dhabi.

Summary:

The original edition of The Geometry of Musical Rhythm was the first book to provide a systematic and accessible computational geometric analysis of the musical rhythms of the world. It explained how the study of the mathematical properties of musical rhythm generates common mathematical problems that arise in a variety of seemingly disparate fields. The book also introduced the distance approach to phylogenetic analysis and illustrated its application to the study of musical rhythm. The new edition retains all of this, while also adding 100 pages, 93 figures, 225 new references, and six new chapters covering topics such as meter and metric complexity, rhythmic grouping, expressive timbre and timing in rhythmic performance, and evolution phylogenetic analysis of ancient Greek paeonic rhythms. In addition, further context is provided to give the reader a fuller and richer insight into the historical connections between music and mathematics.

Contents:

Preface to First Edition

Preface to Second Edition

1. What is Rhythm

2. Isochrony, Tempo, and Performance

3. Timelines, Ostinatos and Meter

4. The Wooden Claves

5. The Iron Bells

6. The Clave Son: A Ubiquitous Rhythm

7. Six Distinguished Rhythm Timelines

8. The Distance Geometry of Rhythm

9. Classification of Rhythms

10. Binary and Ternary Rhythms

11. The Isomorphism Between Rhythms and Scales

12. Binarization, Ternarization, and Quantization of Rhythms

13. Syncopated Rhythms

14. Necklaces and Bracelets

15. Rhythmic Oddity

16. Offbeat Rhythms

17. Rhythm Complexity

18. Meter and Metric Complexity

19. Rhythmic Grouping

20. Dispersion Problems: Perfectly Even, Maximally Even, and Balanced Rhythms

21. Euclidean Rhythms, Euclidean Strings, and Well-Formed Rhythms

22. Lunisolar Rhythms: Leap Year Patterns

23. Almost Maximally Even Rhythms

24. Homometric Rhythms and Crystallography

25. Complementary Rhythms

26. Flat Rhythms and Radio Astronomy

27. Deep Rhythms

28. Shelling Rhythms

29. Phase Rhythms: The "Good," the "Bad," and the "Ugly"

30. Phantom Rhythms

31. Reflection Rhythms, Elastic Rhythms, and Rhythmic Canons

32. Toggle Rhythms

33. Symmetric Rhythms

34. Rhythms with an Odd Number of Pulses

35. Visualization and Representation of Rhythms

36. Rhythm Similarity and Dissimilarity

37. Grouping and Meter as Features of Rhythm Similarity

38. Regular and Irregular Rhythms

39. Evolution and Phylogenetic Analysis of Musical Rhythms

40. Rhythm Combinatorics

41. What Makes the Clave Son Such a "Good" Rhythm?

42. On the Origin, Evolution, and Migration of the Clave Son

43. Epilogue

References

Index.

Notes:

Previous edition: 2013.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9780815370970

9780815350385

0815350384

0815370970

OCLC:

1112377436

Publisher Number:

99983470582