A Cluster Analysis for Mode Identification in Early Music Genres

Abstract

This paper presents a corpus study that identifies the number of statistically distinct modes used in sacred and secular genres from 1400–1750. Corpora used for the study include Masses, motets, and secular songs from the Franco-Flemish School, works by Palestrina, secular Italian songs with alfabeto guitar tablature from the early seventeenth century, and works by J.S. Bach. A k-means cluster analyses of key profiles determine the number of distinguishable modes in each corpus. The results of this study show that the number of modes present in a corpus depend not only on date of publication but also on the genre of a composition.