# When a Researcher Discovers Something



## Roger Knox

A few decades ago a music psychologist, David Huron, found that in the 48 fugues of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, the maximum number of independent lines sounding at any one time was three, regardless of the number of voices in the fugue (up to five). This wasn't really surprising, except that he had carried the idea further and claimed that the maximum number of musical lines we can perceive generally is three. I haven't followed subsequent developments but the notion has always stuck with me.

Some other research-based knowledge: James Hepokoski's re-formulation of sonata form; Robert Gjerdigen's uncovering of the role of _partimento _in eighteenth-century composition. These are not theories, but new findings. Can anyone think of other examples, including anything that has stuck with you?


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## Monsalvat

BWV 686 has _six_ independent voices, all of which are engaged independently and simultaneously at points throughout the piece. I'd be curious to read Huron's article, but I haven't been able to find it in my library. Hepokoski and Darcy wrote a fascinating book about sonata form; I've not read it cover-to-cover but I have read excerpts.


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## Roger Knox

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Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles on JSTOR


David Huron, Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Fall 2001), pp. 1-64




www.jstor.org





I haven't yet been able to access the above article yet, but it may have something about Huron's earlier work. My information about David Huron's work on the WTC fugues came from a conversation with a music education professor and researcher in music cognition, back in the 1990's. At the time I thought it was a significant finding. Since then Huron went on to greater things, and I have not been involved in music theory research for a long time. (Music theory was my master's degree major, and a minor for my doctorate in music composition.) 

The main point of my post is that real work is done in music theory and knowledge progresses. It is not just opinionated speculation, or a joke, as some seem to think.


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## SoloYH

Independent meaning motion not similar to each other right? Then he's correct Bach always has 2 or more voices moving in unison in fugue with many voixes.


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## Roger Knox

Roger Knox said:


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> Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles on JSTOR
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> David Huron, Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Fall 2001), pp. 1-64
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> www.jstor.org
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> I haven't yet been able to access the above article yet, but it may have something about Huron's earlier work.


Monsalvat, I have a jstor account and have used it previously but yesterday I couldn't get into it -- will get back to you about the attached article.


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## Monsalvat

I was able to access it through an institution I'm affiliated with. It's quite long so I haven't read it and can't comment (yet, at least). Thanks for the link.


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## Nate Miller

I once attended a lecture by Witold Lutoslawski where he talked about meaning in music when you are not relying on the convention of harmony. He talked about how conventions like the English language allow us to associate meaning, but what do you do to give meaning to a work that exists outside of conventions that would allow an association of meaning 

his idea of the "one time only" convention was astounding


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## Roger Knox

Nate Miller said:


> I once attended a lecture by Witold Lutoslawski where he talked about meaning in music when you are not relying on the convention of harmony. He talked about how conventions like the English language allow us to associate meaning, but what do you do to give meaning to a work that exists outside of conventions that would allow an association of meaning
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> his idea of the "one time only" convention was astounding


I would love to have heard that lecture by Lutoslawski. Both his music and his ideas show insights that are both deep and practical. I heard him speak before what may have been his last concert, conducting his _Chantefleurs et Chantefaibles_ at New Music Concerts in Toronto October 24, 1993. This work for soprano and orchestra incorporating settings of surrealist poetry by Robert Desnos is very effective in concert. He mentioned that his Polish professors taught differently than the German ones of his era, stressing musical processes and character more than fixed structures and motivic analysis. So in a sonata-form work there is expository, transitional, developmental, and cadential composing, with inter-relations and much more. His orchestration teacher was a student of Rimsky whose approach again differed marked from the German. The "one time only" convention just might be the best way of conceiving avant-garde works, of the sort where you are certain that there is "something there" but can't put it into words.


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## SONNET CLV

Roger Knox said:


> ... The "one time only" convention just might be the best way of conceiving avant-garde works, of the sort where you are certain that there is "something there" but can't put it into words.


Isn't "music" itself the language for "that which cannot be put into words"?


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