Interval Content vs. DFT

Abstract

Several ways to appreciate the diatonicity of a pc-set can be proposed: Anatol Vierù enumerates connected fifths (or semitones, as an indicator of chromaticity), Aline Honing similarly measures ‘interval categories’ against prototype pc-sets [8]; numerous generalizations of the diatonic scales have been advanced, for instance John Clough and Jack Douthett ‘hyperdiatonic’ [5] which supersedes Ethan Agmon’s model [1] and the tetrachordal structure of the usual diatonic, and many others. The present paper purports to show that magnitudes of Fourier coefficients, or ‘saliency’ as introduced by Ian Quinn in [9], provide better measurements of diatonicity, chromaticity, octatonicity..The latter case may help solve the controversies about the octatonic character of slavic music in the beginning of the XXth century, and generally disambiguate appreciation of hitherto mostly subjective musical characteristics.