Musical Descriptions Based on Formal Concept Analysis and Mathematical Morphology

Abstract

In the context of mathematical and computational representations of musical structures, we propose algebraic models for formalizing and understanding the harmonic forms underlying musical compositions. These models make use of ideas and notions belonging to two algebraic approaches: Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) and Mathematical Morphology (MM). Concept lattices are built from interval structures whereas mathematical morphology operators are subsequently defined upon them. Special equivalence relations preserving the ordering structure of the lattice are introduced in order to define musically relevant quotient lattices modulo congruences. We show that the derived descriptors are well adapted for music analysis by taking as a case study Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 2.