Re: On the Grammar of Music

["O.T.Furnes" <oddtf@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Isn't this just a quarrel about the meaning of the term "rule"? 
Surely there are rules governing the types of chords and types of chord progressions to be found within a certain style. The term "style" does in fact refer to a set of "rules". The thing is that the term rule does not here imply the "unbreakable". It rather points at a certain way of doing things. Oxford dictionary defines "As a rule" like this: "Usually; more often than not." 
Then it is obvious that we may call the various cognitive schemes related to different styles as sets of pattern rules - the chordal progressions we find in the music of  J.S. Bach are of a different kind than those used by the grunge-band Nirvana. Run a number of songs this through a statistics programme and you will find that there is a highly significant difference between the two. It is very "handy" to refer to these different chord-progression schemes as different chord-progression "rules". Rules, grammars, expectancies - the bottom line is that it all relates to the same. Let us not make things more difficult than they really are.


Odd Torleiv
_____________________
Odd Torleiv Furnes
Department of Musicology
University of Oslo
Norway
oddtf@imt.uio.no