From Polychords to Pélya Adventures in Musical Combinatorics Michael Keith Vinculum Press + PrincetonLines from "Sultans of Swing": Lyrics and music by Mark Knopfler © 1978 Straitjacket Songs, Ltd. All rights administered by Rondor Music (London) Ltd. Administered in the U.S. and Canada by Almo Music Corp. (ASCAP) All rights reserved. Used by permission. © 1991 by Vinculum Press (P.O. Box 486, Princeton NJ 08542-0486). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews and scholarly analysis. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-75182 ISBN 0-9630097-0-2“For, as you of course perceive, the literary artist plays: and the sole end of his endeavor is to divert himself.” JAMES BRANCH CABELL, ‘Straws and Prayer-BooksPreface Thave often admired the mystical ‘Music has many resemblances to algebra. way of Pythagoras, and the secret — Novalis magic of numbers. (Baron Friedrich Von Hardenberg) - Sir Thomas Browne From the time of Pythagoras, who was the first to realize that the difficulty in constructing musical scales is due to the fact that there are no integer solutions to the equation er» until the present time, when computer algorithms are used to compose musical pieces, there has been a lively interaction between the musical arts and the mathematical sciences. In this book, we explore various connections between the basic musical building blocks — chords, scales, and rhythms — and the area of mathematics knowrras combinatorics, which is primarily concerned with counting and classifying configurations of objects. We consider questions such as the following: + How many essentially different chords are there? * How many different chords are there of certain types, such as containing exactly one pair of adjacent notes of the scale? + How many different scales are there? How many of a certain type, such as 7-note diatonic scales? + How many essentially different rhythms can be constructed? In addition to these counting problems, we also consider questions of a combined musical and mathematical nature, such as: * Which chords are the harmonically simplest or most complex? Or, loosely speaking, which are the simplest or the strangest chords? * Which are most ordinary or the most unusual musical scales? * Why are certain rhythms more popular than others?There are several motivations for the mathematical study of various musical objects: + There are many mathematical questions involved which are interesting in their own right. Their solutions involve the application of combinatorics, number theory, and other mathematical techniques to new and practically useful problems. + This leads to new musical insights into the structure of music. For example, the classification of musical chords by "number of adjacencies" (Chap. 3) leads to a better understanding of the subjective qualities of different chords. The concept of the idealness of a musical scale (Chap. 4) provides a measure for quantifying the musical characteristics of various scales. In Chapter 5 we suggest several mathematical reasons why certain meters and rhythms are more popular than others. + The classifications can be applied to algorithms for computer music composition. By mathematically quantifying (to some degree) the different musical qualities of chords, scales, and rhythms, we can improve the musicality of algorithms for music composition, by incorporating the results of our analyses into them. + They also find applications not only in computer music, but also in human composition and performance. For example, the 351 chords and 462 scales described in Chapters 3 and 4, and the enumeration of all possible n-beat rhythms given in Chapter 5, provide a rich source of musical ideas for jazz improvisation, or for music composition in general. By systematically studying the various ingredients, we extend the boundaries of musical possibility. Overview of topics. Chapter 1 begins by introducing the necessary musical terminology and developing precise mathematical definitions of the terms chord and scale. We also consider the question of isomorphisms; i.e., under what conditions two chords or scales are considered “essentially the same". Chapter 2 introduces three mathematical concepts — chains, necklaces, and partitions — which form the basis for deriving solutions to the various musical counting problems. It also describes Polya's theorem, a powerful tool for counting combinatorial configurations, which is used to solve the basic necklace-counting problem. In Chapter 3 we solve the basic chord-counting problems, including classifying chords by the number of notes they contain, their minimum interval, the number of semitone intervals present, and other properties. In addition, we consider the problem alluded to in the title of this book,which involves counting and classifying polychords. This leads to a (probably) new mathematical concept: the polynecklace coverage problem. Chapter 4 discusses various problems in counting musical scales. Several useful measures for classifying scales are discussed, including a surprising connection between musical scales and least-squares linear regression. We also introduce the spelling problem for scales, which asks for a classification of the 7-note scales in each musical key according to the number of accidentals required to spell the scale using the 7 musical letters (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) once each. In Chapter 5 we conclude by discussing the combinatorics of musical thythms. Among other things, we discover a surprising relationship between musical rhythms and the delayed Fibonacci sequence. Throughout, we attempt to keep the mathematics and musical applications equally in mind. Several musical pieces are offered as examples of the usefulness of the mathematical study of musical structures. What's new. Chapters 1 and 2 are primarily expository. We believe that most of the combinatorial/musical applications in Chapters 3-5 are new. The author would be pleased to hear of any errors in what follows, or of improvements to tables such as Table 3.21 which represent unsolved problems. Acknowledgements. For providing inspiration, either wittingly or unwittingly, thanks to: Keith Jarrett, Martin Gardner, Thomas De Quincey, Pat and Rebecca Mercuri, F. J. Budden, George Crumb, Sandra oe Karlheinz Stockhausen, Dave Brubeck, and, of course, George olya. Special thanks to Chris Kocher and Rich Poulo for reviewing the entire manuscript and making numerous valuable suggestions for improvement.iv (3) CE A(L,n,a) a) Ac(L,n,k,a) Ch(L,n) d $(n) Fn) Fen) (L,nm) x(n,C) K(,n,m) m(n,k) Mk) Preface List of Symbols binomial coefficient; value in Pascal's triangle multinomial coefficient number of n-note chords in an L-note scale containing exactly a semitone intervals number of n-note scales in an L-note musical scale that require a accidentals to spell in key k number of n-note chords in an L-note scale fraction denominator in rational representation of a musical frequency or interval Mean-square error between intervals in a scale and the ideal set of all-equal intervals Mean-square error between the notes of a scale and the ideal scale Euler $ function; number of integers m number of n-beat metrical patterns with with complexity c number of n-note chords in an L-note scale with minimum interval equal to m length of musical scale minimum number of subnecklaces of an (n,k) necklace maximum number of subnecklaces of an (n,k) necklaceN(.k) N(1,ky,..km) n(n) (n,k) P(L,np) PG; 21,22,..2n) n(n,k) r(n) q(n,k) S(L,n,s) Sc(L,n) SpL.np) Sy(p.n,s) T v alm nim Tm (] number of n-bead 2-color necklaces with k beads of one color number of n-bead m-color necklaces with k, beads of color i number of n's in a partition of an integer number of partitions of 1 into exactly k parts number of n-note chords in an L-note scale with period equal to p cycle-index polynomial of a group G number of elementary k-fold polychords in ‘an n-note equal-tempered scale. number of metrical patterns on n beats number of partitions of n into parts < k (or into < k parts) number of n-note chords in an L-note scale with span equal to s number of -note scales in an L-note musical scale number of n-note scales with period p number of p-position, n-event rhythms with syncopation value s taxicab distance between two scales or chords variety value of a chord: number of distinct intervals present nis an even divisor of m ("n divides m") nis not an even divisor of m (n does not divide m) smallest integer > n; e.g, [3.61 = 4. greatest integer < n; e.g., [3.6] = 3.Contents Chapter 2. Chains, 15 § Basic Definitions. 15 Counting Chains . 17 Counting Necklaces 23 Counting Partitions 34 The Musical Connection 36 Chapter 3. Counting Chord: 39 Basic Results... 39 Interval Analysis .. 41 Adjacency Analysis. 47 Monochromatic Chords . 55 Period Classificatio Span (and Maximum Interval) Analysi Interval Sets ... Graceful Chords Harmonic Simplicit; Polychords... Musical Applications . Distance Measures . Chord Containment. Spelling Analysis Musical Applications . Chapter 5. Combinatorics of Rhy' Metrical Patterns ... Rhythmic Patterns . Musical Applications .... Appendix A. The 351 Chord: Appendix B. The 462 Scales Appendix C. Some Musical Numbers.1 Notes, Chords, and Scales "don't", she added, "know Scientifically, I could never be made to anything about music, really. understand what a note in music is, or But I know what I like.” hhow one note differs from another. ~ Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson. — Charles Lamb, Essays. This chapter introduces and describes the three basic musical concepts — notes, chords, and scales — which will be studied from a mathematical perspective in the following chapters. Notes At the most basic level, a musical note is any sound with a well-defined pitch. The pitch of a musical note is determined by the frequency of the audio waveform of the sound, measured in units such as cycles per second (= Hertz, or Hz). Figure 1.1(a) shows the waveform for a simple musical note with a frequency of f Hz. Since there are f cycles per second, each cycle, or period, of the waveform is 1/f seconds long. In this example, the waveform is a simple sine wave. Figure 1.1(b) shows the waveform of a more complex-sounding musical note, also with frequency f. The distinction between (a) and (b) is a subtle one. Both are ff seconds time <——> @ ——_ ) ‘one cycle (period) ‘one cycle (period) Figure 1.1. Two notes with the same frequency (f) and therefore the same pitch. Note (a) is a simple sine wave, whereas note (b) is a more complex waveform.2 Chapter 1 waveforms for a note with frequency f, and thus have the same basic pitch. The difference between them lies in the complexity of the shape of each period of the waveform, which causes note (b) to, in effect, contain reduced-amplitude sounds of other (higher) frequencies. These other frequencies (which are all integral multiples of the basic frequency f) are referred to as harmonics or partials. The harmonic content of a particular musical sound is referred to as its timbre. Thus, notes (a) and (b) are said to have the same pitch but a different timbre. The different waveforms (a) and (b) might, for example, represent the same pitch played on two different musical instruments. In standard music notation, timbre is ignored, and all notes with a given pitch are notated the same. So, a note is completely defined by its pitch, which is in turn determined by the frequency, f, of its audio waveform. The octave. Two notes — one with, say, frequency f and one with frequency g — are related to each other by the ratio of their frequencies (fig), which is referred to as the interval between the two notes. If f= g, the notes are the same; this is the unison interval. The next simplest interval is f/g = 2; that is, one note is twice the frequency of the other. This interval is referred to as an octave. (The reason for the “oct-" prefix in this term, meaning 8, when in fact the interval equals 2, will be explained below!) Two notes that are an octave apart also sound rather alike. This is because, as illustrated in Figure 1.2, the periods of the two waveforms coincide exactly, with the only difference being that the higher-pitched note cycles an extra time in between each cycle of the lower note. This similarity of notes an octave apart is reflected in the fact that musicians call such notes by the same name. For example, the note "middle C" has a Figure 1.2. The waveforms of one note (solid line) and another note (dotted line) exactly one octave higher. In time 7, the higher note contains two cycles compared to the lower note's one cycle,Notes, Chords, and Scales 3 frequency of about 261.6 Hz. All the notes with frequencies 65.4, 130.8, 261.6, 523.2, 1046.4, ... Hz are also called C, since these are the notes with intervals equal to powers of 2 from middle C. Similarly, the notes with frequencies 110, 220, 440, 880, etc. are all called "A".1 In mathematics, the term for two things that are "essentially the same" is isomorphic. Thus, we can say that two notes an octave apart are “isomorphic”. The fundamental scale. In most traditional music (i.¢., ignoring certain 20th-century music and computer music) all the notes in a musical piece are selected from some set of notes with particular frequencies. We tefer to this pool of notes from which compositions are created as the ntal musical scale. In this book we will only be concerned with one type of fundamental scale, known as the L-tone equal-tempered scale. The equal-tempered scale is defined as follows. Take a single pitch P as a starting point, then add all pitches which are any number of octaves above or below P (ie., whose frequency ratio to P is a power of 2). Finally, add L-1 notes, equally spaced in frequency, between each of the octave notes. “Equally-spaced" means that the interval of 2:1 between each octave is subdivided into L equal intervals. If we denote this smaller interval by e, then this is saying that e-e-enve=2 where there are L e's on the left-hand side. This means e! = 2, and therefore the value of e is e= 43. That is, the frequency interval between any two adjacent notes in the equal-tempered scale is the Lth root of 2. This interval, between two adjacent notes, is referred to in music as a semitone. More generally, the interval between two notes whose positions in the scale differ by i places is AD. "The exact frequency corresponding to a particular musical note (such as middle C) is somewhat arbitrary. The frequency numbers given in this paragraph are based on an international standard in which the A below middle C has a frequency of 440 Hz.4 Chapter 1 Lis referred to as the length of the scale, since there are L notes within each octave of the scale. The L-tone equal-tempered scale is illustrated schematically in Figure 1.3. The equal-tempered scale is the most commonly-used fundamental scale in music, and is also quite amenable to mathematical analysis due to its symmetry and simplicity. The case L = 12. Within the general framework of the equal-tempered fundamental scale, the case L = 12 is by far the most important, at least in Western music, since the twelve-tone scale is used almost exclusively. The entire system of music notation familiar to most musicians, and the construction of most musical instruments, are both based on the assumption that L = 12. Therefore, we will primarily consider the case L = 12, although many of the combinatorial equations in Chapters 3 and 4 will be expressed in terms of any L value. The 12 essentially different notes in the 12-tone equal-tempered scale are illustrated in Figure 1.4 using three different representations commonly encountered in music. At the bottom is a piano keyboard containing two octaves (24 notes) of the 12-tone scale. The twelve notes in each octave consist of 7 white keys interspersed with 5 black keys. The 7 white keys are named using the 7 letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G; these are known as the 7 natural notes of the scale. As shown in the middle of the figure, the other 5 notes (corresponding to the black keys) are named by taking an adjacent note and applying a suffix (known as an accidental) to its name, either # (sharp) or b (flat). The sharp (#) signifies an offset of one position forward in the equal-tempered scale, and a flat (5) denotes a shift down by one position. Thus, a C# (C sharp) is the Andee | 2 ————______.— Ants —_—_———————_+— Ist octave Ts : frequency Cee | Fe Gog scale) yt Oo. rn Figure 1.3. The L-tone equal-tempered scale. The notes of the scale are equally-spaced (logarithmically) in frequency, and there are L notes within each octave of the scale.Notes, Chords, and Scales 5 note one position higher than a C, which corresponds to the black key between the C and D keys. Observe that this note can also be indicated as DB, since it is one position lower than a D. Finally, notes can be represented using the musical staff as shown across the top of Figure 1.4. The lines, and spaces between the lines, on the musical staff correspond to the white keys on the piano (or, equivalently, to the letter-named notes A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). Notes which require a sharp or flat to be notated have a # or b symbol placed to the left of the note. (In the figure we have used only sharps, corresponding to the top row of letter names.) We can now see the origin of the term "octave". If we pick a given natural note and call it "one", the note which is one octave higher is the eighth natural note in sequence. In very early music, only the natural notes were used, hence the designation "octave". Note that there are at least three interesting numbers connected with an octave: Its frequency ratiois 2; Ttis 7 natural notes higher, Itis 12 notes of the scale higher. Since the 12 notes of the equal-tempered scale repeat in a cyclic octave octave Cs c Coes Be peo. ae cooue oe AUT Figure 1.4. Two full octaves of the 12-tone equal-tempered scale, in three different musical representations: Notes on the musical staff, letter names, and keys on the piano keyboard.6 Chapter 1 fashion, they can also be conveniently represented in a circular fashion as shown in Figure 1.5. In this figure, each position on the circle represents ‘one of the 12 notes, and each note makes an interval of precisely ‘a with each adjacent note. In other words, the equal-tempered scale is completely symmetric: every note has precisely the same relationship with the other notes of the scale. Therefore, when considering the equal- tempered scale mathematically, we can eschew musical designations (C, C#, D, etc.) entirely, and just denote the 12 notes by the 12 integers 0 through 11, as illustrated in the figure. We need not even define which note 0 corresponds to; since the scale is symmetric, any statements we make about the notes 0-11 will remain true regardless of exactly which musical tone (C, etc.) we identify with 0. (We will often identify 0 with C, as in Figure 1.5, since C is the simplest musical key, but this is merely conventional.) To summarize: In an L-tone equal-tempered, musical scale, there are only L essentially different notes (since notes differing by an octave are considered essentially the same), and they repeat in a cyclic fashion as you step through the notes of the scale. Chords A chord is simply a group of notes sounded together, to make a musical sound with more complexity than is possible with a single note. The Figure 1.5. The 12 musical notes repeat in a cyclic fashion, and therefore can be represented as 12 positions on a circle.Notes, Chords, and Scales 7 resulting sound may be either more or less "pleasing" to the ear than a single note, depending on the notes chosen for use in the chord. Some sample musical chords, with their musical names, are shown in Figure 1.6. In music, chords are generally designated by their "root" or “tonic” note, which defines the harmonic center, or "key" of the chord, followed by a name (major, minor, augmented, etc.) specifying the type of chord. If no name is given, the major chord, which is perhaps the most ubiquitous chord in music, is assumed as the "default". As illustrated in Figure 1.6, a major chord consists of a root note combined with two notes which are 4 and 7 tones (in the equal-tempered scale) higher. Other types of chords are composed of a root note in combination with other notes at various intervals above the root. Observe that the root or tonic note can be in any position within the chord. More generally, the notes of a given type of chord can be arranged in any order. The third chord in Figure 1.6 illustrates this; it contains exactly the same notes as the first C major chord (C E G) but in a different order (E G C), and thus is also referred to as a C major chord. In musical terminology, different orderings of the same chord type are called inversions. That a chord is denoted by its root or tonic plus a "chord type" designation is highly significant. This is the musical consequence of the statement that two chords of the same type (regardless of tonic) are considered essentially the same, or isomorphic. For example, the first two chords in Figure 1.6 are both major chords (with different root notes), and thus are, at a certain level, essentially the same, as reflected in the fact that they are both called "major" chords. Two chords of the same type are considered isomorphic because they have a very similar sound. The reason for this is that the notes in the chord have a certain fixed relationship to the root note, within the context of the equal-tempered scale from which notes are selected to form the chord. Specifically, two chords of the same type have the same intervals between the notes of the chord. Because of this, for example, the Ab major chord shown in Figure 1.6 sounds "just like" the C major chord, c Ab C BbM7#11 Ddim Gaug7 Figure 1.6. Some sample chords, with their musical names.8 Chapter 1 only with a higher overall pitch. Alteration of a chord type from one tonic to another in this way is referred to in music as transposition. So, we can say that two chords are isomorphic if one can be transposed into the other. One of the main problems discussed in this book is the enumeration of distinct chord types; therefore, it is important to define precisely under what conditions two chords are considered isomorphic (i.e., of the same type). Based on the above discussion, we arrive at the following rule: (1) Mark all the positions in the circular scale of Figure 1.5 which correspond to notes contained in the chord. Repeated notes of the same name but in different octaves are counted as one, since, as discussed in the previous section, such notes are isomorphic. (2) Two chords are isomorphic if the set of marked notes for one chord can be rotated together around the diagram of Figure 1.5 so they exactly coincide with the notes of the other. This corresponds to transposing the chord to another root, which as we have discussed should be regarded as isomorphic. This rule can also be expressed numerically. Part (1) corresponds to writing down the notes of the chord as a list of numbers from 0-11, using the numbers-to-notes correspondence shown in Figure 1.5. The order of the numbers is not important, since all the notes are sounded together when playing a chord; therefore, we can without loss of generality always write the numbers in ascending order. Part (2) of the rule says that two chords are isomorphic if the set of note numbers for one chord equals the set of numbers for the other plus or minus a constant modulo 12. In comparing the two sets, the order of the numbers is not important. (Arithmetic modulo 12 means to add or subtract two numbers and then, if necessary, successively add or subtract 12 from the result until a number between 0 and 11 is obtained. Diagramatically, adding (subtracting) k modulo 12 simply means to step k steps clockwise (counterclockwise) along the diagram of Figure 1.5.) Figure 1.7 shows an example of the application of this rule for chord isomorphism. All the chords in this figure are isomorphic, as demonstrated by the calculations shown. The first line shows the notes of the chord listed in the order shown on the musical staff (from bottom to top). The second line shows the notes of the chord translated to numbers, using the numbering in Figure 1.5. In the third line, duplicate numbers arising from octave notes are eliminated, and the numbers are written in ascending order. In the fourth line, we have added or subtracted some value modulo 12. Finally, the last line shows the list of numbers rearranged into ascending order. In all cases, we arrive at the same set, ila i it cia iii iNotcs, Chords, and Scales 9 {0,1,4,7,10}. Thus, all the chords are isomorphic, i.e., they are all of the same basic type; but just in different keys, in different orders, or having duplicate octave notes. In musical terminology, they are all 7th chords with a flatted 9th. If we subtract each number in the set {0,1,4,7,10} from the next one (in modulo 12 fashion), we arrive at the numbers (13332) which is a list of the intervals in the chord. These numbers say that a chord of this type is formed by starting on a given root note, taking the note 1 step higher, then taking the note 3 steps higher than thar note, then 3 steps again, and finally 3 more steps. The last interval, 2, represents the interval from the last note of the chord back to the first note in the cyclic diagram of Figure 1.5. This number is actually redundant, since we know that the sum of the interval numbers must be 1+3+3+3+2 = 12, but it is convenient for the list of interval numbers to have the same number of fouaaage as the list of note numbers; thus we will usually include the last interval. The point of the previous paragraph is this: The fact that the list of intervals for all the chords in Figure 1.7 is the same — (1 3 3 3 2) — is precisely a reflection of the musical fact that it is really the intervals that determine the "sound" of a particular chord. To summarize: Two chords are isomorphic if the set of notes in one chord (on a circular diagram such as Figure 1.5) can be rotated (musically speaking, transposed) so that they exactly coincide with the set of notes in the other chord. Equivalently, two chords are isomorphic if their set of intervals is (cyclically) the same. Given the vast array of chords that are typically encountered in music, ey obj CEGBbDb EbGBbDbFKE) CEbGbACF C#GABbCHE {047101} {371014} {036905} (1791014) (014710) (134710) (03569) {1479 10} {014710} -3= (100147) -5= (710014) 43= (471001) reorder: (014710) (014710) {014710} {014710} Figure 1.7. Four isomorphic chords. Rotating (transposing) and reordering the notes of each chord produces the same set of numbers: (0, 1, 4, 7, 10}.10 Chapter 1 especially modern music such as 20th-century classical or jazz, it is somewhat surprising that, if we use the 12-tone equal-tempered scale as the fundamental basis for making chords, the number of essentially different (non-isomorphic, according to the above definition) chords is quite small. One of the main results of this book is that there are only 351 distinct chords — even fewer in certain natural special cases. These combinatorial facts are explored in detail in Chapters 2 and 3. Scales All music which is based on a length-L equal-tempered scale is, by definition, limited to the L essentially different notes available in the fundamental scale, for the purpose of creating chords and melodies. In addition to the fundamental scale constraints, however, the melodic element of a piece of music in the 12-tone scale is usually limited further, to some subset of the 12 tones available. This subset of the fundamental scale is referred to as the scale or mode in which the piece (or section of a piece) is written. Figure 1.8 shows a few common scales (or modes). The first two — major and minor ~ are the most commonly heard scales, and use only 7 of the 12 notes available. Scale (c) is a slightly more unusual scale (the Dorian), also containing 7 notes. The fourth example, the pentatonic, only uses 5 notes. Observe that the notes of a scale are always listed in ascending order. As described so far, a scale is no different than a chord - it is simply a subset of the L different notes in the length-L equal-tempered scale. There is one difference, however: in testing for isomorphism between scales, the order of the notes is important. That is, when we add or subtract some value modulo L in order to make two sets of note numbers coincide, we are not allowed to reorder the sets (as in the last line of Figure 1.7). The (@) C Major (b) F Minor t (©)G Dorian (OE Pentatonic Figure 1.8. Some sample scales, with their musical names. | | || i | i Notes, Chords, and Scales LT Notes: 0245 7 8 11 oof eee +4mod12=4 57 811 0 2 Figure 1.9. Scales (a) and (b) are isomorphic, since (b) transposed down by 5 steps is identical to (a). Scale (c) transposed up by 4 steps yields the same notes as (a) and (b) but in a different order, so it is not isomorphic (but would be if these were chords). reason for this is that the first note of a scale is special: it must always be the tonic or "key" note. For example, the first note in the C major scale in Figure 1.8 is a C. Figure 1.9 illustrates some scale isomorphisms. The first two scales are both isomorphic, since their note sets are identical after addition modulo 12 (which is equivalent to transposition, or rotation around the diagram of Figure 1.5). The third scale is not isomorphic to these, since it cannot be made identical by addition or subtraction modulo 12. Notice, however, that it would be isomorphic if it were a chord! By adding 4 modulo 12 we arrive at the same set of numbers as the first two scales but in a different order. This satisfies the rule for chord isomorphism, since note order is irrelevant for a chord, but not for scale isomorphism, where note order is important. Scale isomorphism is reflected in musical terminology in the same way as chord isomorphism: isomorphic scales are called by the same name (Major, Dorian, Phrygian, etc.). In Chapter 4 we will explore the question of how many non-isomorphic scales there are of various kinds; for example, there are exactly 462 non-isomorphic scales with 7 notes, which is the number of notes typically used in an L = 12 scale. Keys A piece of music that primarily uses the notes in a major scale starting on note X is said to be written "in the key of X". Since there are 12 different possible starting notes, one might expect that there are exactly 12 different musical keys; however, it turns out that there are 13 commonly-used musical keys!12 Chapter 1 The reason for this surprising fact has to do with the ambiguity of notating the 12 notes of the equal-tempered scale using only 7 letters. As shown in Figure 1.5, many notes can be notated in two ways, such as C#, which also equals Db. ‘In fact, even those notes which only have one name in Figure 1.5 really have two names — for example, the note E can also be written as Fb. Even less obvious is the fact that D can also be written as Ebb; this uses the standard musical notation for a double-flat, indicating a note two steps lower than the note E. (Also available is the double-sharp, which in musical notation is usually written as x (not ##). So, for instance, G = Fx.) Since musical notation is based on the 7 letter names, each of the two notational possibilities for each tonic produces different descriptions for the notes in the major scale - both when written using the 7 letter names, and when written on the musical staff, which is also based on the 7 natural notes. Therefore, there are, strictly speaking, 24 notationally- distinct musical keys. These 24 keys are: BE C# D D# E Et FH G Gt A At B C Db Ebb Eb Fb F Gb Abb.Ab Bob Bb Cb In the above listing, the two keys in each column are musically the same, since they are based on the same one of the 12 notes of the equal-tempered scale, but are notationally distinct. Even though there are 24 possible musical keys, only 13 are commonly used. The reason has to do with economy of notation, according to the following rule: For a given one of the 12 equal-tempered notes, write down all 7 notes of the major scale for each of the two notational possibilities. Count up the total amount of accidentals used to “spell” the 7 notes, and choose among the two the one which minimizes this number. Table 1.1 shows the result of doing this for all 24 major scales. (A major scale is formed by taking the notes {0,2,4,5,7,9,11}, where these numbers are relative to the first (tonic) note of the scale.) Note that each scale uses either all sharps (#, which counts as 1, or x, which counts as 2) or all flats (b = 1, or bb = 2). In addition, the two possibilities for each tonic consist of one all-flats scale and one all-sharps scale. Each of these pairs satisfies the following equation: No. of sharps + No. of flats = 12. The number-of-sharps and number-of-flats values in Table 1.1 are all unique — for example, the A major scale is the only one with 3 sharps. Because of this fact, musicians often refer to scales by the number ofANotes, Unoras, ana scuies 12 sharps or flats. For instance, "This piece is in the key of 4 flats" is synonymous with "It is in the key of Ab". If we now apply the economy-of-notation rule, we see that for each of the twelve notes there is a unique scale with the fewest accidentals required, with the exception of F#IGb! This tonic is completely ambiguous: it can be notated as either the key of F#, which has 6 sharps, or as the key of Gb, which has 6 flats. Since there is no reason to prefer one of these over the other, both are in common use. Therefore, there are 13 common musical keys: the most economical one for each note, with the exception of F#/Gb, where both are used. Put another way, the 13 keys are: The key requiring 0 accidentals: Cc plus the keys requiring 1-6 sharps: G, D, A, E, B, F# plus the keys requiring 1-6 flats: F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb. Key __ Notes of the major scale ‘flats _#sharps BE Be Cx Dx E# Fx Gx Ax 12 c Cop fb GAs 0 cH CH D# E¥ FH G¥ A¥ BF 7 Db Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C 5 D DE FFG A B C# 2 Ebb Ebb Fb Gb Abb Bbb Cb Db 10 D# Di E¥ Fx G¥ A# BY Cx 9 Eb Eb F G Ab Bb CD 3 E E Fe G? AB C# D# 4 Fb Fb Gb_Ab_Bbb Ch Db Eb 8 EF Ee Fx Gx A# BH Cx Dx it F F_G_ A Bb C DE 1 FH FH Gt A? B C# D# EF 6 Gb Gb_Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F 6 G Cv ea 1 Atb Abb Bbb Ch Dbb Ebb Fb Gb uu GH GH A# BH C# D# E# Fx 8 Ab Ab Bb C Db Eb F_G 4 A AB C# D E F# G# 3 Bob Bb Ch_Db Ebb Fb" Gb Ab 9 At At BY Cx D# E# Fx Gx 10 Bb BoC D EF G A 2 B BCH D# E F¥ GH A# 5 Ch Cb_Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb 1 Table 1.1. The two ways of spelling each of the 12 major scales, which produce the 24 notationally-different keys.Chapter 1 These ideas will become important in Chapter 4, where we discuss some combinatorial problems related to spelling an arbitrary (not necessarily major) scale in each of the 13 keys.2 Chains, Necklaces and Partitions There is music wherever there is Among scientists are: collectors, harmony, order, or proportion. classifiers, and compulsive tidiers-up. - Sir Thomas Browne ~ Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble In this chapter we describe three kinds of mathematical objects which form the basis for solving most of the musical questions considered in the following chapters. These three key concepts are chains, necklaces, and Partitions. In the process of counting chains, necklaces, and partitions, we will encounter Polya's Theorem, a beautiful and powerful mathematical result that deserves to be more widely known. Basic Definitions A chain is a linear string of beads of various colors, as shown in Figure 2.1a. The total number of beads in the chain is n and there are m different colors; the example in Figure 2.1a has n = 7 and m = 3. Two n-bead chains are considered the same (isomorphic) if and only if each bead in corresponding positions of the two chains is the same color. So, reversing the two ends of the string, for example, yields a chain considered different from the original (unless the original chain was a palindrome — reading the same backwards as forwards). A necklace is simply a chain with the two ends of the string connected to form a circular chain. Two n-bead necklaces are considered the same if one can be rotated so that the colors of its beads correspond, one to one, with the colors of the other. Turning the necklace over is not permitted. Figure 2.1b shows a necklace with n = 9, m = 2. A partition of an integer n is an expression of n as a sum of positive we @ ) Figure 2.1, (a) A chain with n =7, m= 3. (b) A necklace with n = 9, m = 2.10 Chapter 2 integers < n. For example, 12 = 44+3+2+1+1+1. The number of summands is denoted k; in this example, n = 12 and k = 6. The basic counting problems, which are fundamentally important for analyzing musical combinatorics, are to count: (1) The number of n-bead chains with m different colors anda given number of beads of each color. (2) The number of n-bead necklaces with m different colors and a given number of beads of each color. (3) The number of partitions of n into exactly k parts, The musical applications of these three mathematical problems arises from the following connections, which will be explored in detail in Chapters 3 and 4: | Counting chains is equivalent to counting scales necklaces chords Partitions interval sets tachcoaaae el We now consider these three basic problems in detail. Before doing this, some basic facts about permutations are required. A permutation is an ordered arrangement of the elements of a set of n objects. For example, (15324) is a permutation of the elements in the set {1,2,3,4,5}. A permutation can also be thought of as a "scrambling operation” in which a given ordering of a set is replaced by another ordering. Permutations are also written in the form Gee. 15324 to emphasize this fact. This notation indicates that the permutation operation replaces each element in the first row with the corresponding element in the second row. How many different permutations of a set of n objects are there? We can write down a permutation one element at a time, bearing in mind that each element in the set can only be used once. We have n choices for the first element, n-1 choices for the next, and so on. The total number of choices, and hence the total number of ‘permutations, is therefore n+ (n-l) + (n-2) +. 1. This expression is denoted in mathematics by the symbol n! (n factorial). nl is the product of all integers between 1 and n. By convention, 0! = 1.Chains, Necklaces and Partitions 17 Counting Chains To keep things simple, for the moment, consider first the case m= 2. In other words, there are only two different colors of beads — say black and white. (Of course, the case m = 1 is completely trivial, as there is exactly one chain for any value of n). How many n-bead chains are there with exactly k black beads? The solution to this problem is quite elementary. Since there are k black beads, there must be n-k white beads. Suppose we label the k black beads with the labels bj, b, ..., bk and the n-k white beads w1, wa, ... Wa-k. Since there are n labels in all, there are n! possible arrangements of these labels. For the purpose of counting chains, we do not distinguish between the different b and w labels. In other words, all arrangements of labels with the b's in given positions and the w’s in given positions are considered the same chain, regardless of the ordering of the labels within the b's and w's. So, how many have the b's and w’s in given positions? It is simply the number of possible permutations of the b's times the number of permutations of the w’s; that is, k!(n-k)!. The total number of chains is simply n! (the total number of arrangements of labels) divided by k!(n-k)! (the number of times each arrangement with the b's and w's in a given position is counted), and so is nt K@-ir This number, which is of great importance in mathematics, is usually written ‘n ()- This expression, called a combination number, is read as "n choose k", since another interpretation of this number is as the number of different ways of choosing & distinct objects from a set of n distinguishable objects. In this case, we are choosing the positions of the k black beads -20-8-0-0- _ -0-#8-0-0-8- -e0-0-@0- -0-0-66-0- -6-0-0-0-8- -0-0-8-0-8- -0-8-@-0-0—- -0-0-0-8 8 Figure 2.2. The 10 chains with n = 5,k =2.10 Chapter 2 from the set of all 1 positions in the chain. Combination numbers turn up in the solutions to many combinatorial counting problems. As an example of chain counting, consider n = 5 and k = 2. Since ! G) = Tea = rd = 10, this means that there are 10 distinct 5-bead chains with 2 black beads. These chains are shown in Figure 2.2. It is convenient to be able to write down chains without drawing pictures as in Figure 2.2. To do this we can label the n positions in the chain with the n different numbers and then simply list the positions occupied by the black beads. For various reasons, we will find it convenient to label the positions 0 through 7-1 (rather than 1 through x), a the 10 chains shown in Figure 2.2 can be concisely described as follows: (0,1), (0.2), {0,3}, (0,4), (1.2), (1,3), (1.4), (23), (2.4), (3,4). Another notation we will use for two-color chains or necklaces is @e---) in which « represents a black bead and - represents a white bead, listed in position order. This chain corresponds to the first chain in Figure 2.2. Now consider the more general case of m different colors (rather than just 2). How many m-color, n-bead chains are there with exactly kj beads of color i (for 1 0. Figure 2.3 shows the 12 chains corresponding to (ta) =zin= Table 2.1 shows the values of (7) for n,k < 12. Notice the triangular arrangement of numbers in this table; the positions shown as “." are all zero, and are due to the obvious fact that @ =O if k >n, since it is impossible to have more than n black beads when there are only n beads in all (or, equivalently, it is impossible to select more than n distinct things from a set of n things). This table is called Pascal's triangle, after its original constructor, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Observe that each row sums to a power of 2. In this book we will use the symbol "*" in an expression, in place of a parameter, to mean "the sum of the expression over all relevant values of the parameter." So, for example, the observation that each row of Pascal's triangle sums to a k Ot 2s 56 7 8 8 10) 11 22) total, a ed : 7 2 2 1241. : 4 oa ed [oe 8 4 Lie 5 1 51020 5 1. . 7. we ee 82 6 1 615 215 6 1. . 1. . ee 64 yea so) 520 ize Beet 6. 26) 661066. 20) 8 t 256: 9 1 9 36 84126126 84 36 9 1 . . . 512 10 1 10 45 120210 252 210120 45 10 1 . .« 1024 11 «111-58 165 330 462 462 330165 55 11 1 . 2048 12 1 12 66 220 495 792 924 792 495 220 66 12 1 4096 Table 2.1. Values of (2). or Pascal's triangle.aw Chapter 2 power of 2 can also be written as: (2) =2. The explanation for this equation is simple. The total number of chains, without regard to the value of k, is simply the total number of chains composed of white and black beads. Since either bead can be white or black independently, there are 2 choices for each bead, and there are n beads; thus, the total number of combinations is 2", This is also the number of binary strings of length n. Similarly, the total number of m- color chains is m”, which corresponds to the number of m-ary strings of length n. A more interesting observation is that each number is the sum of two numbers in the previous row, in the following way: np n G) That is, n n-1 n-1 @) . C1) (y ). The truth of this assertion can be seen by using the interpretation of these numbers as "n choose k". All possible selections of k objects from n can be divided into two sets: a set P containing all selections which include a particular object p , and a set 0 containing all selections not using p. The number of selections in P is (23). since we have already chosen the object p, and then choose k-1 objects from the Temaining 1-1 objects. The number of selections in Q is ("). because we select k objects from the set of n-1 objects (p not being allowed to be chosen). Summing the choices in P and the choices in @ yields the above formula. Notice the symmetry in each row of Table 2.1. That is, @ = (re)Chains, Necklaces and Partitions 21 An explanation for this is that the number of ways of selecting k objects from a set of 7 is equivalent to the number of ways of selecting which n-k objects are not selected. Another useful relation can be derived by selecting objects from the set of n objects, numbered 0 through n-1, in numerical order. If the first object we select is numbered r, then the remaining k-1 objects we select must be from the set {r+1,...,.2-1}, which contains n-r-1 objects. The total number of possible selections is the sum of these numbers over all possible r, which is 0 to n-k. Therefore, @® - 2%). Osrsnk For example, ‘5 4r 4 3 2° = ¥(9)- 6)+O)+G)-e3H=10 O (7) din O n, q(n,k) simply equals q(n,n), since the maximum possible integer in a partition of n is n itself. In addition, we have the following values for small cases: 9(0,k) = 91k) = q(n,) = 1. Armed with this recurrence formula, we can easily compute values of q(n,k). These values, for n,k < 12, are shown in Table 2.3. There is another interpretation for the function q(n,k) which leads immediately to a formula for p(n,k). Suppose we write a partition with summands < & as an array of dots, with the rows sorted by decreasing size. So, for example, the partition 13 = 5 + 3 + 3 +2 can be described by the following diagram:Chains, Necklaces and Partitions 35 In this array, the horizontal dimension represents the sizes of the summands, and the vertical dimension represents the number of summands. Now, simply switch the interpretations of the two dimensions (that is, read the array by columns rather than by rows); this yields the partition 13 = 4 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 1, which, instead of a partition into summands $ 5, is a partition into < 5 summands. In general, we see that the number of partitions into parts < k is equal to the number of partitions into < k parts. Therefore, q(n,k) is also equal to the number of partitions of n into < k parts. But the number of partitions of n into exactly k parts (which is p(n,k)) is simply the number of partitions into < k parts minus the number of partitions into < k parts (or, into n. Values of p(n,k), computed in this way, are given in Table 2.4. The Musical Connection Having introduced the mathematics of chains, necklaces, and partitions, the stage is now set for the exploration of the mathematical properties of musical chords and scales. As we saw in Chapter 1, the 12-tone equal-tempered scale is a circular arrangement of notes. A musical chord is a subset of these 12 notes, and two chords are considered isomorphic if one can be rotated into the other, which is the same condition for isomorphism between two necklaces. Therefore, there is an intimate connection between the number of distinct necklaces of various kinds and the number of distinct chords. A musical scale is likewise a subset of the 12 notes, but without rotational isomorphism. Thus, scales correspond to chains, and can be counted using the binomial coefficients. In music, the number of steps separating the notes of a chord or scale are referred to as its intervals. This means that the intervals of an n-note pe ea eee a Pa... cee 1 221. , ce 2 ei ee 3 412 1 2 ee 5 ee 7 Ce a 7°23 4 3 2 aa. 1s eo ee 22 ety LOS eo dol 6 § 10 11 10 7 5 3 2 11 . 56 wo1 6 12 15 13 11 7 5 3 2 1 1 «77 Table 2.4, Values of p(n,k): the number of partitions of n into exactly k parts.Chains, Necklaces and Partitions 37 chord or scale are simply a partition of 12 into n parts. Partitions are also involved in the combinatorics of musical rhythms, since a rhythm constructed from N beats per measure can be viewed as a partition of N into certain values, as will be discussed in Chapter 5. Figure 2.8 summarizes the various ways of representing chords and scales, both musically and mathematically, which will be used interchangeably throughout the remainder of this book: (1) Standard musical notation. (2) A necklace (for a chord) or chain (for a scale). Black beads indicate which notes are a part of the chord or scale; white beads are unused notes. (3) A set of numbers (written {0,3,7,9}, for example) showing which notes are in the chord or scale, where the notes are numbered 0 to L-1, where L is the length of the equal-tempered scale (or, the number of tones per octave). (4) A symbolic representation of the set in #3, where the L symbols represent the numbers 0 to L-1, and « and - represent notes used and unused, respectively, by the chord or scale. This is essentially the same representation as the 2-color necklace or chain, but is more convenient as it can be easily inserted in text (like so: *--*---+-¢--). (5) A partition of L, written (3 4 23), for example, showing the successive differences between the numbers in the set of #3. Since the scale is circular, these should be thought of as distances between the successive notes in a circular necklace. For example, (3 4 2 3) corresponds to the set {0,3,7,9}, with the final 3 representing the distance between the last note in the set, 9, and the first note, 0, when written in a circular arrangement of the 12-tone scale. Mathematically, we are taking differences modulo L.Jo coon (03,79) (0223.5,7.9,10) Symbolic subset (2122212) Figure 2.8. Five ways of representing chords and scales. Chapter 23 Counting Chords “Jobling, there are chords Check out Guitar George; in the human mind.” He knows all the chords. ~ Charles Dickens, Bleak House. — Mark Knopfler, "Sultans of Swing". In this chapter we describe the enumeration and classification of chords based on various properties. Following the fundamental result that there are precisely 351 distinct chords with a given tonic, we then classify each chord based on its number of notes, the intervals of the chord, the number of semitone intervals, its period, span, variety, and simplicity. We also discuss the connections between these mathematical classifications and their musical implications. Basic Results The fundamental theorem. As discussed in Chapter 1, the common 12-tone equal-tempered musical scale consists of a cyclically-repeating sequence of the 12 musical notes C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B, which we also identify with the integers 0 through 11, as shown in Figure 3.1, More generally, an equal-tempered musical scale of length L consists of L notes numbered 0 through L-1. FH/Gb Figure 3.1. The 12 musical notes repeat in a cyclic fashion, and thus are equivalent to a necklace of 12 beads.Two chords are considered the same (isomorphic) if one can be transposed into the other, which corresponds to rotation of the diagram in Figure 3.1. In other words, we are asking for the number of distinct chord types for a given tonic (first note), in an L-note scale. Such chords are equivalent to 2-color necklaces of L beads, with the 2 colors corresponding to (a) a note being selected for use in the chord (represented by a black bead), and (b) a note not being selected (represented by a white bead). From this correspondence between chords and necklaces, it follows that the number of distinct n-note chords, which we denote by CA(L,n), is precisely the number of L-bead necklaces with n black beads. That is, Ch(L,n) = N(L,n). where the values of N(L,n) can be calculated as described in Chapter 2. The values of Ch(12,n) are shown in Table 3.1. Notice the symmetry of the values of Ch(12,n) with Tespect to the number of notes n in the chord: the number of chords with n notes is the same as the number of chords with 12-n (more generally, L-n) notes. The Teason for this is clear: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the chords with n notes and the chords with L-n notes obtained by simply interchanging all the notes and non-notes. This is equivalent to swapping the colors black and white in the corresponding necklaces. The total number of chords for a given value of L is: CHUL,*) = N(L,*) - 1. The "minus 1" comes from the fact that among all Jength-L necklaces is the one with all white beads, which corresponds to the "chord" consisting of no notes (i.e., n=0). Aside from its possible use as an object of Zen meditation, this chord is not particularly interesting, and therefore is not to be counted. For L=12, this notable number is Ch(12,*) = 352-1 = 1+2(1 +6419 + 43 + 66) +80 = 351. That is, There are precisely 351 essentially different chords.Number of notes (n) | Number of chords 12 1 lor ll 1 2or 10 6 30r9 19 40r8 a Sor7 66 6 30 Table 3.1. Values of Ch(12,n): the number of distinct n-note chords in the 12-tone equal-tempered scale. Also of interest are the cumulative sums in Table 3.1; that is, the number of chords having < n notes (rather than precisely n notes). These values are shown in table 3.2: These numbers tell us, for example, that there are precisely 135 different chords that can be played easily with one hand on a piano (i.e., using at most one finger per note). The remainder of this chapter is concerned with further classifying the Ch(L,n) n-note chords according to other properties, such as their minimum interval or their period. That is, we seek the value of F(L,n,p) where F is some function and F(L,n,p) is the number of chords in an L- note scale having exactly n notes and some additional parameter equal to p. As in the foregoing discussion, we will usually fix L = 12, thus yielding a two-dimensional table of counts based on the two variables nand p. Extensions to arbitrary L will be discussed where appropriate. Interval Analysis Introduction. The first property of interest is the minimum interval between notes in the chord. The number of chords with n notes and minimum interval > m is denoted I(L,n,m). Note that, because of the circularity of the scale as shown in Figure 3.1, we must also count the interval from the last note of a chord (when listed linearly) back to the first note. For example, the chord C E G B has m = 1, since there is an interval of a single note from the final B back to the first note, C. There are several reasons why interval analysis is important. The first n seceae: 6 4 . 6 7 8 9 202 2: ‘Number of chords 1 7 26 69 135 215 281 324 343 349 350 351 Table 3.2. The number of distinct chords with < n notes.42 Chapter 3 reason is that the sound of a chord is largely determined by the intervals it contains. The intervals between notes determine their relative frequencies, and hence the harmonic structure of the compound waveform. In addition to this general fact, there is a specific physical phenomenon related to the minimum interval between two notes of a chord. This phenomenon is known as a beat frequency. Consider, for simplicity, a chord with only two notes (n = 2), and further suppose that the waveform of each note is a simple cosine wave. If the first note has frequency f and the second note has frequency f+d, then the waveform resulting from sounding both notes together will be (1) = cos 2aft + cos 2n(f+d)t, where t represents time and y is the waveform amplitude. Since b-a bea cos a + cos b = 2 cos: 7 COS a this can be written as (0) = [2 cos ndt | cos 2atf+d/2)r, y(t) =A cos 2n(f+d/2)t where A = 2 cos zd is the amplitude of the composite waveform; that is, the amplitude of the composite waveform varies with frequency equal to d, the difference between the frequencies of the two notes. This amplitude variation is referred to as a beat, and d is referred to as the beat Frequency. This is illustrated in Figure 3.2. Two notes that differ in frequency by d produce a secondary amplitude variation (beat) with frequency d. More generally, each pair of notes in a chord produces a separate beat frequency which is proportional to the interval between the two notes. The smaller the minimum interval in the chord is, the lower the beat frequency will be. For example, a chord consisting of notes around A=440Hz with a minimum interval of 1 (m = 1) will have a beat frequency of around 26Hz, which is far below the range of fundamental frequencies in the chord, and is very audible. A value of m = 2 will yield a beat frequency of 54Hz. For this reason, chords with m = 1 (i.e., chords containing two adjacent notes) are quite different in character from chords with m > 1. Even the difference between m = 2 and m > 2 can be discerned by many listeners.Counting Chords 4B The second reason why the minimum interval in a chord is important is more psychological then physical: smaller values of m lead to chords that seem to have emotional qualities such as "tension", "suspense", or “terror”, This is undoubtedly related to the physical phenomenon of beat frequencies, but is also probably reinforced by association with various musical cliches, such as music from mystery or horror films. For example, the well-known and highly effective music from the "shower scene" in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is rife with chords having m = 1 (the minimum value possible). Another classic example using m = 1 chords, which evokes the mysterious rather than the terrifying, is the theme from The Twilight Zone. Other less mundane examples abound in late 19th and 20th century music, such as the works of Stravinsky. A formula for I(L,n,m). The values of /(L,n,m) can be determined easily by realizing that a chord with minimum interval m can be viewed as a necklace consisting of two kinds of "meta-beads": one meta-bead (b) comprised of a single black bead followed by m-1 white beads (representing a note included in the chord followed by m-1 unused notes), and one meta-bead (w) consisting of a single white bead (representing an unused note), as illustrated in Figure 3.3. The empty spaces in the first kind of meta-bead ensure that a chord created from these meta-beads Note 1: Frequency f Note 2: Frequency fd Composite Waveform Figure 3.2, The beat frequency phenomenon. ‘The sum of two waveforms whose frequencies differ by a small amount (d) is a waveform with frequency +d? whose amplitude varies with frequency d.44 Chapter 3 included note unused notes —e—o-0-+ + -o- —oO- VS m-1 Type (b) meta-bead Type (w) meta-bead Figure 3.3. All chords with minimum interval m can be constructed as meta-necklaces with two kinds of meta-beads, where the b-type meta- bead contains m-1 unused spaces, to guarantee the minimum interval required in the chord (which is made of beads, not meta-beads). (when considered as a string of beads) will have at least a minimum interval of m between adjacent notes. The meta-necklace will have exactly n b-type meta-beads, since each contains one note. Each of these meta-beads, consists of m beads, for a total of nm beads. Since the complete necklace must contain L beads, there must be L - nm w-type meta-beads, for a total of L-mn+n=L-n(m-1) meta-beads. The key point is this: since no string of b-type meta-beads is isomorphic under bead rotation to any string of w-type meta-beads, the number of distinct meta-necklaces is exactly equal to the number of distinct necklaces (which equals the number of distinct chords). Therefore, I(L,n,m) = N(L - nm - 1), 0 I(L,n,m)=0 if nm>L, since nm is the number of positions required to fit n notes with a minimum separation of m, and if this number is larger than the length of the scale L, no such chords are possible. Of course, The values of J(12,n,m), computed using the above formulas, are shown in Table 3.3.Counting Chords 45 m= n = Number of notes Min interval dg G6) 8910 11 19 total, 1 1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 1 1 351 2 2 5 1010 3 1. . ee we 80 i (a 5 tae 3 ce 2 Glee 1 Table 3.3. Values of /(12,n,m): number of n-note chords with minimum interval between notes > m. As can be seen from Table 3.3, /(12,*,2) = 30; that is, there are only 30 distinct chords with a minimum interval of at least 2 between notes (or, equivalently, that contain no "1", or semitone, intervals). These 30 chords are the most commonly-used chords in music but are, in fact, only a very small percentage (30 out of 351, or about 9%) of all possible chords! This provides another nice example of a "90-10" rule: approximately 90% of all music probably uses only 10% of the available Partition Chord inC Comments Partition Chord in C Comments 71 3 12 c singlenote_|222222 CDEF#AbBb whole tones 72 75 48 CE maj3 interval | 22332 CDEGBb C9 57 CF eee eee: CDEGA C6+9 102 CBb 22224 CDEF# Ab 39 CEb 66 C FH = A 435 CEG 2235 CDEG C9 (partial) 462 CEBb —C7(partial) [4332 CEGBb 7 345 CEbG Cm 4323 CEGA C6 ire] CFG Csus oad CEb FHA Cdim 336 CEb F# Cdim (part) | 2523 CDGA C6+9 (part.) 723 CGA C6 (partial) [3225 CEbFG ‘Cm(sus) 732 CGBb C7 (partial) 3423 CEbGA Cm6 444 CEG# c+ 2262 CDEBb C9 (partial) 228 CDE 2244 CDEAb 426 CEF# 2424 CD Fi Ab Table 3.4. The 30 chords containing no semitone (=1) intervals.+ Chapter 3 chords. Table 3.4 gives an explicit list of the 30 chords with no semitone intervals, with the notes of the chord listed for the key of C. If we eliminate the trivial chords from this list, and those that are subsets of another, we arrive at an even smaller set: the set of “musically distinct" chords with minimum interval 2. Although this classification is more subjective that the strict mathematical formulation of I(L,n,m), it is even more instructive, as it reduces the list of Table 3.4 to a list of only twelve chords. This list is shown in Table 3.5. Further study of Table 3.5 shows that this list can be reduced even further. The first six chords are essentially variations on the major chord, and the next three are variations on the minor chord. The last three — Diminished, Augmented, and a rare chord not ofien found in music, consisting entirely of 2-semitone intervals — are all quite different and cannot be combined further. Thus, the majority of all music can be reduced to five chords (or four, since one of these is very rarely used). These five chords are marked with a"*" in the table. These five chords all share a common: Property, that of being composed of equal or nearly-equal intervals. The diminished, augmented, and whole-tone chord are perfect, in that all intervals are the same, and the major and minor chord are nearly so, being composed of the two possible permutations of the intervals (3,4,5). (Why are only two permutations possible? Because inversions are isomorphic, and so the other four permutations are generated by the cyclic permutations of the two chords Partition Chord in C Symbol _| Description 435 CEG Cor CM | Major* 4332 CEGBD c7 Seventh 4323 CEGA co Sixth 22332 |CDEGBb co Ninth 22323 |CDEGA C649 Sixth with added 9th 525 CFG Csus Sustained chord 345 CEbG Cm Minor * 3423 CEDGA Cm6 Minor sixth 3225 CEbFG Cmi1 | Minor eleventh 3333 CEDFHA co Diminished * 444 CEG# C+ Augmented * 222222 CDEF#AbBb — Whole-tone chord * Table 3.5. The 12 "musically distinct" chords with no semitone intervals. All of these have standard musical names except for the final one, which is ~- composed entirely of 2-semitone intervals.Counting Chords 47 Present in the list.) There are two senses, then, in which these chords are simple in structure: they contain only large intervals, and all their intervals are nearly equal. Notice that the whole-tone chord, which is rarely seen, is the only one with minimum interval 2 (the others all have m > 3), agreeing with the theory that smaller-m chords are more unusual (and, therefore, more interesting!). Another function of interest, closely related to I(L,n,m), is K(L,n,m) - the number of chords having minimum interval exactly equal to m (rather than < m). From the definition, it is easy to see that K(L,n,m) = I(L,n,m) - I(L,n,m+1) A table of these values is given in Table 3.6. This table shows that the number of distinct chords with minimum interval equal to 1 (i.e., those containing a semitone interval) is K(12,*,1) = 321. As discussed earlier in this section, these 321 chords are particularly noteworthy because of the musical and psychological effects of the semitone interval(s) they contain. In the next section we study these 321 chords in more detail. Adjacency Analysis Introduction. The minimum-interval analysis described in the previous section provides a first level of classification of the 351 chords into two major classes: the 30 with no semitone intervals, and the 321 with at least ‘one semitone interval. (We also refer to a semitone interval as a clash, because of the harsh sound produced, or an adjacency, because it involves two adjacent notes on a piano keyboard). In order to further refine this as n= Number of notes Min Interval ee 4s 6 P88 to it i tora 1 He 19) 3a) 6a. 19 66) 49019) 6 tai) 2 1 6 9 3 2. ee ee. 20 3 ee 5 4 aoa 2 5 2 1 Go 1 i 1 Total 1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 1 1 351 Table 3.6. Values of K(12,n,m): number of n-note chords with minimum interval equal to m.48 Chapter 3 8 a. G. Crumb 2 Debussy 1 Beethoven Gershwin 0 Handel Figure 3.4. Graphs of a(t) for excerpts from several compositions: Handel, Hallelujah Chorus, from Messiah (1741) Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op. 79 (1808) Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue Theme (1924) Debussy, L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune (1892) George Crumb, Makrocosmos Vol. I, Section #12 (1972) notion, we define a new function, the adjacency count, as follows: A(,n,a) is the number of n-note chords in a scale of L notes having exactly a adjacencies. The purpose of A(L,n,a) is to classify the 351 chords by the exact number of adjacencies they contain (rather than just into two categories: no adjacencies and at least 1 adjacency, which is what K(L,n,m) does). Chords containing adjacencies sound “harsh”, "peculiar", "mysterious", “modem”, "strange", and so on; the result of enumerating the number of adjacencies is a classification of all chords by their degree of strangeness. The case a = 1 is of particular interest, since the chords with exactly one adjacency are just slightly more strange than the 30 a = 0 chords. This idea has many applications in the analysis and composition of music. For instance, the parameter a (number of adjacencies in chords) could be used, in a computer music composition algorithm, as one of the variables that controls the overall "sound" of a piece (by affecting the chords and harmonies used at various points in time). Low values of a (especially a = 0) would produce more traditional harmonies, while larger values of a would produce a more 20th-century sound. The average value of a could be made to vary over the course of the composition, yielding a piece whose harmonic structure evolves over time. Is the number of adjacencies as a function of time really correlated to the "sound" of a piece of music? To see that there is at least some merit to this suggestion, Figure 3.4 shows a graph of the value of a versus time for some classical pieces of music dating from 1750 to the present (including one late-20th-century composition). As expected, the averageCounting Chords 49 value of a(z) is roughly correlated with the time period of the composition, ranging from the section of Handel's Messiah which has a constant value of a = 0 to Makrocosmos by the 20th-century composer George Crumb, for which a(t) averages about 5! This graph, and the idea of classifying chords by the number of adjacencies, suggests that all music can be loosely divided into several categories: + Pieces with a= 0. A very large body of music (most music from the Classical period and earlier, for example) satisfies this trivial condition. Indeed, one of the achievements of the late Classical, Romantic, and later periods can be viewed as simply "breaking the a=0 barrier". + Pieces with an occasional a > 0 chord, but with an average value of a well under 1. The late works of Beethoven, for example, have this property, as do early works of the Romantic period. ‘+ Pieces where a averages close to 1, such as the piece by Debussy shown in Figure 3.4. Traditional jazz also falls into this category. + Pieces where the average value of a is greater than 1 (perhaps much greater). Examples of this extreme are harder to find, but are still easily found among 20th-century (or “new") music and more experimental jazz. Because of our definition of a chord in which octaves are isomorphic, note that the maximum value possible for a is 12, which is achieved by a chord consisting of all 12 notes of the scale. Therefore, the average value of a= 5 for the Crumb piece shown in Figure 3.4 is quite amazing. In the middle of this piece a series of chords with a = 8 actually occurs! An example is shown in Figure 3.5. We now return to the enumeration question: how many distinct chords Figure 3.5. A chord with a = 8, from Makrocosmos by G. Crumb50 Chapter 3 —e-eo- -e0o 1-o Type I Type Il Type Hit (contains 1 adjacency) (adjacency-free) Figure 3.6. Meta-beads used in the derivation of the formula for A(L,n,m). containing exactly a adjacencies are there? Computation of A(L,n,a). The computation of A(L,n,a) is somewhat more involved than the computation of /(L,n,m) given in the last section, since, as we shall see, it involves necklaces of 3 or more colors. For simplicity, consider first the case a = 1 (which is the case we are most interested in, as it the next most interesting class of chords after the 30 with a= 0). Since these chords have exactly 1 adjacency, they can be constructed from a meta-necklace having three kinds of meta-beads, as shown in Figure 3.6: one meta-bead containing the adjacency, one containing a note followed by a space, and one consisting of an unused note. The unused notes in the first two meta-beads guarantee that no additional adjacencies (other than the one present in the first type of meta- bead) will occur in the chord. The meta-necklace will contain one type-I meta-bead and n-2 type-II meta-beads (to satisfy the requirement of having n notes present). Therefore, there will be L- 3(1) - 2(n-2)=L+1-2n type-II meta-beads (the total length of the necklace minus the number of beads used up by type-I and type-II meta-beads). This means that the total size of the meta-necklace is 1+ (1-2) + (L+1-2n) =L-n. Since there are three different types of meta-beads, this is a meta-necklace of three colors; therefore, we have the following formula for A(L,n,1): A(L,n,1) = N(L-n, 1, n-2, L+1-2n). Now, recall the formula for computing 3-color necklaces, from Chapter 2. We have (k,k2,k3) = (1, n-2, L+1-2n), which means that only d= 1 is possible, since d must divide all the kj. Thus, there will only be one term in the summation, and we have‘Counting Chords at 1 (L-n)! (L-n-1)! AnD = Te Ta LeLaayl = GDNLF-Iayl But this final expression is simply a binomial coefficient, so we can state this more elegantly as: Q) The reason this reduces to a binomial coefficient is clear: since there is exactly one adjacency, we can without loss of generality fix its position at the beginning of the chord. Then we are free to place the remaining notes anywhere (subject to the restriction that each note be followed by an ‘unused note). Whatis the value of A(L,*,1) (the total number of chords with exactly 1 adjacency)? The answer to this question reveals a surprising connection between musical chords and the famous sequence of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci numbers F(7) are defined by the Telations F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2) F(0)=1 The first few terms of the sequence are: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89. Now, from equation (2) it follows that [as] : amen = (G5!) = (eM). n=2 R20 From this last expression, we see that A(L,*,1) is equal to the sum of a diagonal of Pascal's triangle, since the first term of the sum is (&) and each successive term is a binomial coefficient @ with n decremented by 1 and k incremented by 1; i.e., the values along a diagonal of Pascal's triangle. Denote by D(n) the sum of the diagonal of Pascal's triangle starting at (5): Then, we claim that: D(n) = F(n).32 Chapter 3 The proof of this fact rests upon the identity n n-1 nl @=()+ ED) which, as illustrated symbolically in Figure 3.7, implies that D(n) = D(n-1) + D(n-2) which is precisely the relation defining the Fibonacci sequence. Since D(0) = 1 and D(1) = 1, we find that D(n) = F(n) for all n. Combining these results, we conclude that ALA That is, the number of chords in a scale of L notes having exactly 1 adjacency is equal to the (L-3)th Fibonacci number. For the case L = 12, there are therefore F(9) = 55 such chords. These chords are listed in Table 3.7. GD, Ge) o™N Pascal's Triangle Den-2), oo \ ooo Dor-l) Do) eooo0o°o Figure 3.7. Pictorial demonstration that (") = (2!) + (1 implies D(n) = D(n-1) + D(n-2), and therefore that the sums of the diagonals of Pascals’ triangle equal the Fibonacci sequence.Counting Chords 53 Only a few of these 55 chords are commonly used in music; perhaps the most frequently heard is the major seventh chord (4,3,4,1) which is ubiquitous in jazz music as a more "colorful" substitute for the major chord (4,3,5). Note that, as illustrated by this example, many of the a = 1 chords can be viewed as an a = 0 chord with one of the intervals split into two intervals (one of which is an interval of 1). The case a = 2 and beyond. The case a = 2 is even more tricky, Partition Chord inC Comments | Partition _ Chord inC Comments n=2 iil Cc CH single clash n=3 219 CDEb 318 CEbE 417 CEF n= 516 CF FH 223122 CDEGAbBb Oth+b6 615 CRG 223212 CDEGABb 9th+6 714 CGG# 223221 CDEGAB M7+6+9 813 CGHA 221232 CDEFGBb Tth+9+11 912 CABb 322221 CEbFGAB n= nS 4341 CEGB M7 21432 CDEbGBb m7+9 3441 CEbGB- m+M7 43212 CEGABb Tth+6 4431 CEG#B = aug+M7 43122 CEGG#Bb ‘Tth+augs 2145 CDEbG m9 41232 CEFGBb ‘Tth(sus) 4215 CEGbG M+b5 21423 CDEbGA m6+9 5241 CFGB M7sus 42132 CEGbGBb ‘Tth+bS 4125 CEFG M+i1 12423 CDbEbGA m6+b9 2451 CDFHB 22341 CDEGB M7+9 4251 CEFHB 32241 CEbFGB m4+M7 o.oo CEbEG M/m 22314 CDEGG# 9th+augS ooo CEbF#G = m+b5 22134 CDEFG# aug+4+9 3351 CEbF#B dim+M7 42123 CERFGA 6th+b5, 6321 CFEAB 13332 CDbEGBb Tth+b9 2631 CDG#B 13323 CDbEGA 6th+b9 3621 CEbAB 31323 CEbEGA M/m+6 6231 CF#G#B 33312 CEbF#ABb dim+7 2361 CDFB 22215 CDEGbG 9th+bS 3261 CEbFB 22125 CDEFG Oth+4 2127 CDEbF 21225 CDEbDFG m9+4 2217 CDEF 12225 CDbEbFG m11+b9 2271 CDEB Table 3.7. The 55 chords containing exactly one adjacency.eee Chapter 3 —@0e0- -e0o- -o 7 n-3 1L+2-2n —eeo- -eo- -o ae n4 L+2-2n Figure 3.8, The two different ways to make a chord with a= 2. The values below cach type of meta-bead indicate how many meta-beads of that type are required. since there are two different kinds of 3-color meta-necklaces that can generate chords with 2 adjacencies, as shown in Figure 3.8. These two types arise from the fact that the two adjacencies can themselves be adjacent (in other words, the two adjacencies arise from using three consecutive notes in the chord) or they can be separated. From Figure 3.8, we derive the following formula: A@,n,2) =N(L-n, 1, n-3, L42-2n) + N(L-n, 2, n-4, L42-2n) = (435!) +nG-n, 2, 0-4, 142-20) a= n= Number of notes Number of Adjacencies 2020304 5 6 7 8 9 20 11 12 Totar oe 1 0 ag 1 eS eg 2 2113026 3 2... fo 3 112034 20. . . . . 67 Seer e a s0 sO een eaaieg Se ee ee a ae ate ag 6 a Oh oo 7 fe 9 8 : 165 6 9 ea 1 10 a 1 gee ° es 1 Total 1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 5 1 1 351 Table 3.8. Values of A(12,n,a): number of n-note chords with exactly a adjacencies,Counting Chords ve Proceeding in this fashion we can derive formulas for a = 3, a = 4, and so on (although they become increasingly complex). The results of these computations for L = 12 are shown in Table 3.8. We have also included the bree A(12,*,0) in this table, which are simply equal to the values of 1(12,*,2). This table provides the complete classification of all 351 chords by the number of adjacencies. Of course, there are no chords with a = 11, since the only way to have 11 adjacencies is to use all 12 notes, and in that case there is also a 12th adjacency (due to the circularity of the scale). Notice that the largest numbers of chords are found under a = 2 and a=3. Indeed, if a chord is chosen at random from the 351, the expected number of adjacencies is approximately 3. This is quite high - recall from our earlier discussion that a = 1 is quite sufficient to provide a subjectively "strange" sound, and chords with a > 1 are relatively rare, except in very modern music. The fact that the "average" chord has a = 3 is one reason why it sounds "bad" when, for instance, a non-musician "plays" a piano by randomly striking keys. (Of course, we are walking a fine line here, between "bad" music with a = 3 and "good" music with a = 3. There are, naturally, other things beside the value of a that determine the quality of music; the point is that random a = 3 music has a high probability of sounding "bad".) This motivates the following realization: it is possible for someone who knows nothing about music to play "music" that contains only chords with a = 0 (and, therefore, sounds somewhat "reasonable") on a piano. The rule for doing this is simple: use only the black keys. The black keys are located at positions (- * - * - - + - *- *-) in the 12-note scale; that is, no two black keys are adjacent, and therefore chords with a > 0 will never occur. In the next section we consider the generalization of this idea, by asking which of the 351 chords can be played on keys of the same color on a piano. Monochromatic Chords Define a monochromatic chord as one which can be played on a piano using either all white keys or all black keys. How many of the 351 chords are monochromatic, and which are of which type (all white, called type W, or all black, called type B)?20 Chapter 3 Recall (from Fig. 1.4) that the white and black keys on a piano form the following pattern (starting on the note C): where - is a white key and + is a black key. We immediately have the following theorem: if a chord is of type B, then it is also of type W. The proof of this is easy: if we shift one note down from the 5 black keys, we arrive at 5 white keys. Therefore, any chord which can be played on all black keys can also be played on all white keys - namely, using either set of 5 white keys immediately adjacent. Remember that in asking about monochromatic chords, we consider transpositions to be isomorphic. So, this theorem merely states that if a chord is playable using only black keys, a chord of the same type (but not in the same key) is playable using only white keys. In other words, we are asking which chord types are monochromatic, irrespective of key. Even monochromatic chords will require both white and black keys in some keys. Given this theorem, we can divide the 3§1 chords into 3 disjoint classes: (1) Monochromatic of type B (and, therefore, also of type W), (2) Monochromatic of type W, but not type B, (3) Polychromatic; i.e., requires both white and black keys to play Gin every key). As discussed in the last section, all the chords in class (1) will have a=0. All the chords in class (2) will have 0 < a < 2, and it is therefore of interest to divide this class into three sub-classes, for a = 0,1,2. In addition, we also seek to enumerate the chords in all of these classes based on n, the number of notes in the chord. The number of n-note chords in each of these categories is shown in Table 3.9. There are four manifestations of Pascal's trian gle (i.e., binomial coefficients) in this table. First, observe that the first, second, and fourth rows of Table 3.9 are rows of Pascal's triangle: (1) nnote B(and W) chords 9 =14641 = CG) 3 2) mnote W-only, a-Ochords =. 1331 =(,°) (3). note W-only, a=2 chords =...1 3 3.1 = (24)Counting Chords a n Po eG 8 io) ir 1a teen B (and W) [or W only, a=0 BC W only, a=1 fie ae 10s 32 W only, a=2 ee Polychromatic . . 4 23 Si 74 65 43 19 6 1 1 287 Total dG is] as ce 00 ce (e106 1 1 sat Table 3.9. The number of monochromatic and polychromatic chords with n notes. Secondly, if we sum the first four rows of Table 3.9, to produce the total number of monochromatic chords (type B or type W), we get: (4) _n-note monochromatic chords =1 6 15 21 15 6 1=(6)). Equation (3) is the simplest to explain. The only way of achieving a=2 in a W-only chord is to choose the four notes BC (which are adjacent) and EF (which are adjacent); the other n-4 notes can then be chosen from the 3 remaining white keys. Since the pairs BC and EF are separated by 5 notes, which is relatively prime to 12, no rotation of one of these chords can be equal to one of the others; therefore all (4) such chords are distinct, and hence equation (3). Is there a simple combinatorial explanation for equations (1), (2), and (4)? This question is left as an exercise for the reader. As discussed in the previous section, a type-B chord (which is also type-W) always has a=. Therefore, the expected value of a for a randomly-chosen type-W (= monochromatic) chord is: a = (16-0 + 8-0 + 32-1 + 8-2)/64 = 0.75 This says that our hypothetical non-musician discussed in the last section could make more interesting, but still not oo weird, music (with a=0.75, on average) by following another simple rule: use only the white keys. Partition Chord in C Comments 444 CEG# ‘C+; only one with a=0 381 CEbB 63 + M7; a=1 831 CG#B #5 + M7; a=1 1110 CC#D Only one with a=2 ‘Table 3.10. The 4 polychromatic chords containing only 3 notes.vo Chapter 3 There are polychromatic chords with as few as 3 notes. The four such chords are shown in Table 3.10. Period Classification Definition. Another property of interest, especially when playing chords on a stringed instrument such as a guitar, is the period of a chord. By this we mean the period of a chord under transposition, or, equivalently, under rotation of the corresponding necklace, where the period P is defined as the smallest integer P > 1 for which a given chord, when transposed by P notes (equivalently, when rotated P positions as a necklace) comes into exact coincidence with itself. For example, consider the three necklaces shown in Figure 3.9. The first of these has period 1, since a rotation by only 1 position produces the same necklace. (Clearly, there are only two two-color necklaces with period 1 - the ones consisting of either all white or all black beads.) The second example has period 3, since a rotation of 3 positions brings it into coincidence with itself, and no lesser rotation will do. The final example has period 6; notice that P = n, the number of beads in the necklace. In other words, no rotation of less than n positions produces the same necklace, The connection with stringed instruments is the following. On a stringed instrument, a chord is played by placing fingers on the strings at various positions (usually demarcated by frets which occur at each semitone position), thus effectively transposing the notes sounded by each string, perhaps by a different amount for each string. Given a particular arrangement of the fingers on the strings, the resulting chord can be transposed by simply moving the entire hand up or down the neck of the instrument. Therefore, the period of a chord is also precisely the number of positions after which the chord repeats exactly (i., in the same key). For this reason, chords with small period are especially interesting, O20 Figure 3.9. Several 6-bead necklaces with different periods. saiCounting Chords 59 since they repeat within a short distance on a stringed instrument. Furthermore, when such a chord repeats, it is in a different inversion. Thus, this property can be used to play several different inversions of the same chord in very rapid succession, since the finger position does not change, and the distance between successive chords is small. The classic example of such a chord is the diminished chord as played on the guitar. Figure 3.10 shows the finger positions for a diminished chord; the numbers across the top of the figure indicate the note number (0-11) corresponding to each string of the guitar. (The x's indicate strings which are not used in this chord.) The four strings being sounded, from the right, are 0, 7, 3, 10; the finger positions increase the first and third notes by 2 and the second and fourth notes by 1, to yield {2,8,5,11}, or {2,5,8,11}, or, transposing down by 2, (0,3,6,9}. This is precisely the diminished chord, with intervals (3,3,3,3). Since all the intervals are 3, this chord has period 3, and therefore repeats exactly every 3 frets on the guitar. The general question, then, is to find the number of n-note chords in a scale of L notes having period exactly equal to p. In necklace terminology, this is the number of necklaces with L beads and n black beads having period p. We denote this value by P(L,n,p), and seek a general formula for P(L,n,p). A formula for P(L,n,p). A simple recursive formula for P(L,n,p) can be derived by the following strategy. First, we count the number of necklaces with period d

la - Ba Pend) eed ae (din with P(L,n,Lin) = 1 PUL,n,p) = Oif p {L or (Lip) tn.Counting Chords 61 Note that if n is relatively prime to ZL then no period less than L is possible. (Why? Because L/p cannot divide n for any p, except for p=L.). In this case, the summation term is always 0, and so: rainsy-}(2) P(L,n,p)=0 (forp#L). For example, in a 12-note scale (L = 12), there are two integers less than 12 and relatively prime to 12: 5 and 7. This means, for example, that all 7-note chords have period 12, and the number of such chords is 12 (7) =4 = TP = 66 Table 3.11 shows the values of P(12,n,p), calculated using the above formula. Notice that this table is symmetric about the m = 6 column (the n = 12 entry appears to violate this symmetry, but in fact does not, since it is symmetric with the trivial n = 0 chord which we do not show in these tables). This leads to the conjecture that P(L,L-n,p) = P(L,n,p) in general. The proof that this is indeed the case is by induction on p. The Seine of P(L,L-n,p) is, by the above formula, P(LL-np) = : [ (é): Y dPWL-n | pe a = Number of notes Period 102 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 41 12 Total 1 : 1 1 2 1 : 1 3 ee 2 4 et 3 Ce 9 120 «1 5 18 40 66 75 66 40 18 5 1 . 335 Total 1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 1 1 351 Table 3.11. Values of P(12,n,p): number of n-note chords with period p.62 Chapter 3 Partition Chord in C Period | Comments 222222 CDE F# Ab Bb 2 Whole-tone scale aan CEbFHA 3 Diminished 444 CEG# 4 Pe CC#HEFG#A 4 C+ and C#+ combined! 66 C FH 6 dimS interval 2424 CD FtG# 6 ae rote CCHFEG 6 a2 231231 CDFF#G#B 6 ae 321321 CEbDFFHAB 6 a2 114114 C C# D F# G G# 6 aA Table 3.12. The 10 chords with p<12 and ns6. =} [ (- : iz): y arto] which is, in fact, equal to the expression for P(L,n,p); the binomial coefficient is equal, by the identity n n : @) - (nx). and the summation is equal, by the induction hypothesis (since values of d in the summation are strictly less than p). Another, somewhat more direct, explanation of this symmetry is that the period of a necklace is unaffected by exchanging the colors of the beads. A necklace with n black beads has L-n white beads, and therefore there is a direct isomorphism (including period) between the necklaces with n black beads and those with L-n black beads; therefore, P(L,L-n,p) =P(L,n,p). As Table 3.11 shows, the vast majority of the 351 chords have period ee p=2 a=5 Fig. 3.12. Two interesting guitar fingerings: the unique chord with p=2, and the unique chord with a=5. The symbol "o" means that a string is played but not fingered.Counting Chords 63 12 (335 out of 351, or about 95%), and there are only 16 chords with periods other than 12. Of these, only 10 are reasonably playable (having 6 or fewer notes). These 10 chords are shown in Table 3.12. Devising finger positions for each of these chords on the guitar makes an interesting exercise. Figure 3.12 shows how to play the unique p = 2 chord (which is a bit difficult, as it requires two "bar" fingerings). Incidentally, the subject of guitar fingerings contains many other intriguing questions. For example, since it is possible to sound at most 6 notes, at most 5 adjacencies are possible in a guitar chord. Is this value of a=5 actually achievable? The other chord depicted in Figure 3.12 shows that it is: by transposing the base notes {0,5,10,3,7,0) by {4,0,4,0,0,6}, we produce {4,5,2,3,7,6} (mod 12), or (2,3,4,5,6,7}, which consists of 6 adjacent notes. This must certainly be one of the more bizarre chords that can be played on a guitar. Span (and Maximum Interval) Analysis Just as the period of a chord, discussed in the previous section, is important when playing chords on a stringed instrument, there is another property of chords which relates to chord-playing on a keyboard instrument. This property is the span of a chord, defined as follows: Definition. The span of a chord consisting of notes {mm , mg, ..., ma} (where m L which can be simplified to nee or n>s+l L-s which are, as illustrated by Table 3.13, a hyperbola and a diagonal line, respectively, in (n,s)-space. Another somewhat startling feature of Table 3.13 is that many of the entries (such as the first 7 rows, and parts of other rows) look like parts of Pascal's triangle; i.e., binomial coefficients. Is this just coincidence, or is there a deeper reason for this? To see the explanation for this, consider the value of S(L,n,s) where s is "small" (say, somewhat less than L/2). Recalling Figure 3.13, we see that such a chord has all its notes bunched up near the beginning of the necklace. Two notes (the base notes) of the chord are determined by the value of s (the first position in the necklace, and another one s beads away), and the remaining -2 notes are all located between these two. Thus, the total number of such chords is (5), except for the possibility that two such chords may be isomorphic under rotation. But, this is impossible, because this requires another long string of consecutive unused notes (besides the one present at the right end of the unrotated necklace), and the span is too small to permit such a string to occur between the two base notes. Therefore, the number of chords is simply equi (53). More generally, it is impossible to have a second string of L-s-1 unused notes if s-1 (the number of necklace positions between the two base notes) minus 7-2 (the number of notes of the chord between the base notes) is less then L-s-1, because that would mean that there are less than L-s-1 unused notes between the base notes, which obviously means that68 Chapter 3 s= n = Number of notes feos aes esto 10r 1a 124: Total Oecaisaae 1 2. ae 1 2 ae 4s 2 3 ee eg 4 4 weak Be ae. 8 5 ieeas Geese eg 6 De SelM IOS Oe eae 7 S142 208158 ose ise 8 ieee aa, pis ge iss 96 9 1 6 25 35 25 8* 1* , . 102 10 ees 0) 10) Shee 30) a ee a 1 Total1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 12 1 352 Table 3.14. Values of S(12,n,3). Asterisked values are those due to the binomial span theorem, there cannot be a string of L-s-1 consecutive unused notes. So we see that S(L,n,s) is equal to a binomial coefficient if (8-1) - (n-2) 2641) -L. In particular, if s < L/2 - 1, the right hand side of the inequality is < 0, which means that the theorem holds for all n. This explains the first five tows of Table 3.13; for succeeding rows, the binomial span theorem only applies for sufficiently large n. Table 3.14 shows the distribution of these special values of S(L,n,s); in fact, the majority of the values are binomial coefficients. There is also an interesting connection between span and minimum interval, which can be seen by comparing the s=10 row of Table 3.14 with the m=2 row of Table 3.3: 5(12,6-11,10) 1(12,1-6,2) 13101051 15101031Counting Chords oy Is this just a coincidence, or is there some reason why S(12,n,10) = 1(12,12-n,2), that is, the number of n-note chords with span = 10 is the same as the number of n-note chords with minimum interval 2 2? It turns out that again this is not just coincidence. For a chord to have a span of exactly 10, it cannot have two consecutive unused notes, since if it did it could be rotated to place those at the end, and then would have a span of less than 10. The dual of this set of chords (obtained by changing all notes to unused notes, and vice versa) is the set of chords with 12-n notes with no two consecutive notes, which is precisely 1(12,12-n,2). In general, we have S(L,n,L-2) = I(L,L-n,2) = A(L,L-n,0). The second equality results from the definition of the A() function: the number of chords with 0 adjacencies is the same as the number with minimum interval 2 2. Interval Sets In previous sections of this chapter, we considered the classification of n-note chords by several properties related to intervals: the minimum interval, the number of 1 intervals (adjacencies), and the maximum interval. These questions are all special cases of the more general problem of classifying all chords by their interval set, which is defined as the set of all intervals in the chord (including, of course, the interval from the last note back to the first; i.e., considering the chord as a necklace). More precisely, the interval set for a chord consisting of the notes {m1, m2, ..., My} (where m1 < mz <... < mp) is the (unordered) set {mz - mj, m3 - m2, ..., My - Mp-1, L - my}. From this definition, it is clear that the sum of the intervals is L; therefore, the number of possible interval sets for a given L is simply the number of partitions of L into n parts, or p(L,n), using the notation from Chapter 2. From Table 2.4, we see that for L = 12, the number of interval sets for each value of n forms the sequence p(12,*) = 1, 6, 12, 15, 13, 11, 7, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1. which sums to 77. In other words, in the 12-note equal-tempered scale: There are 77 i terval sets | Using the methods described in Chapter 2, we can generate a list of the partitions of 12, or the interval sets in the 12-note scale; this list is70 Chapter 3 given in Table 3.15. This table also shows how many distinct chords are generated by each partition, which can be calculated using the m-color necklace formula, using the same technique as in the previous section (e., by considering the different interval values as different colors). K-atonic interval sets. An interesting type of interval set is one in which all intervals between 1 and k (inclusive) are represented, for some k. Such a set is referred to as k-atonic, after the musical term diatonic which is used for the case k = 2. We refer to k = 3, 4, ... as triatonic, quadratonic, etc. At least two interesting questions arise: (1) For a given value of L, which k-atonic interval sets are possible? (2) For each possible k value, how many k-atonic interval sets exist? To answer the first question, let o(k) denote the sum of the integers from 1 through k. Then clearly we must have o(k) < L, which, since means that k(k + 1)/2 j. The property we are interested i in is the variety of a chord, which i is defined as the number of distinct intervals in the full interval set. We denote the number of n-note chords in an L-note scale having exactly different intervals in the full interval set by V(L,n,v), and seek the values of V(L,n,v) for all mand v. The first thing to notice is that the value of v is not the same for all inversions of a chord; for example, the full interval set for the chord (eee --0--0--) is {2,3,8,3,6,8} (or, eliminating the extra 3, {2,3,5,6,8}), whence a value of v = 5, whereas an inversion of this chord is (e---0-0--0--)Counting Chords 73 which yields the set {4,6,9,2,5,3} or {2,3,4,5,6,9} and thus a value of v=6. In computing the variety measure of a chord, therefore, we shall ask for the maximum v value of any inversion of the chord. The variety value is, loosely speaking, a measure of the "richness" of achord. The larger the v value, the more different intervals that are present, and hence the more complex the physical waveform, due to the interaction of periodic waveforms with frequencies in different ratios. The graceful connection. The variety value of a chord is related to a famous concept in mathematical graph theory - graceful graph numbering. In this context, a graph is a collection of points (nodes) connected in some way by a set of lines (edges). The graceful graph numbering problem asks for a numbering of the nodes of a graph with different integers 20 so that (a) All the edge numbers (where an edge number is defined as the difference between the edge's two node numbers) are distinct, and (b) The largest node number is as small as possible. Figure 3.14 shows a graceful numbering of the Ks, the complete graph on 5 points. (The complete graph on n points, Kp, consists of n points with an edge connecting every pair of points.) The question of interest in graceful numbering is: what is the minimum possible value for the largest node number (which we will denote by M)? Clearly, M must be at least equal to e, the number of. edges in the graph. Why? If M is smaller than e, then we have less than e numbers to assign to the ¢ edges of the graph, which the pigeonhole Figure 3.14. A graceful numbering of Ks, the complete graph on 5 points.74 Chapter 3 principle tells us is impossible. The "most graceful" numbering of a h_ occurs when M =e, which means that the edge numbers are not only distinct, but they are exactly the set {1,2,...,e}. Note, of course, that the minimum node number in a graceful graph is always 0 (if it were k>0, we could reduce all node numbers by k and produce a graph with Brae M, which is a contradiction since the graph is graceful to start with.) So, the largest vertex number M in a graceful graph is always at least equal to e, the number of edges in the graph. However, it turns out that M = ¢ is not usually achievable; in particular, the graceful numbering of K5 shown in Figure 3.14 does not have M = e, since e = 10 whereas M =11. In fact, M = 11 is known to be the minimum value achievable for this graph. The connection with the variety value of a chord is now clear. A chord is equivalent to a graph with node numbers equal to note numbers and edge numbers equal to intervals (since intervals are differences between notes). Asking for an n-note chord with as great a v value as possible (i.e., as many different intervals as possible) is simply asking for @ graceful numbering of the complete graph Kp. For small n, the largest v value possible is (5), for the case where all the intervals in the full interval set are distinct. However, in a scale of length L, the largest note number possible is L-1; this maximum v value will be possible only if the corresponding graceful graph numbering has M& 5, the maximum v value is simply L-1 = 11. Table 3.16 shows the v values for all 351 chords. Graceful graph numbering is a notoriously difficult mathematical problem; there are no simple formulas known for calculating the numbers in Table 3.16; instead, a simple computer program was used. The asterisked numbers where v = (@) identify the graceful chords - those with all distinct intervals. In all, there are 6 + 18 + 33 + 4 = 61 graceful chords.Counting Chords 75 v= n= Number of notes deed to 67 8g) io iz toad, Ct 1 Lo. . 6 2 le 1 3 weer. 19 4 2 2 5 74 9 6 334 1 34 7 A 8 8 191 : 20 9 349 43 ° 1 u ee 1 26 59 42 19 6 1 1 154 Total 1 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 1 1 381 Table 3.16. Values of V(12,n,v): number of n-note chords with v different intervals in the full interval set. Asterisks‘indicate the graceful chords. Perhaps the most interesting of these are the 4 large graceful chords (a= 5), corresponding to the 4 graceful numberings of Ks. One of these graceful chords is given by the notes which yields the interval set {1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11}. This chord corresponds to the numbering of Ks given in Figure 3.14. A second chord is given by reversing the underlined notes, which changes the 10 interval toa 6. The final two are obtained by simply taking the first two and reversing the entire string (which, of course, does not change the interval set). The four resulting chords are shown in Table 3.17. Why do these four graceful chords divide into two pairs, where the chords in one pair are simply the reversals of the chords in the other? Because a graceful graph numbering can be turned into another graceful numbering by simply replacing each node number k by M-k. But notice that there is an odd number of n = 4 graceful chords; in other words, they Partition Chord in C 1352 CCHEAB 3152 CEbEAB 2531 CDGBbB 2513 CDGG#B Table 3.17. The 4 graceful chords containing 5 notes.76 Chapter 3 cannot be divided into two isomorphic sets in this way. The reason for this is that some chords (such as « - - - - © * - - - - *) are palindromes (i.e. equal to their own reversal). Harmonic Simplicity Even with all the chord properties at our disposal from the discussion so far in this chapter, there is still one annoying problem: none of the properties discussed so far explain why the major chord (4 3 5, or CEG in the key of C) is so ubiquitous in music. Why do entire genres of music (such as rock and pop) use this chord almost to the exclusion of all 350 others? One reason is the fact that the major chord is one of the 30 chords with no adjacencies, as shown in Table 3.4. But this does not explain why it is to be favored over the other chords with a = 0. Interval simplicity. The reason has to do with the physical meanings of the various intervals (1 through 11 semitones) that can appear in a chord. Recall, as discussed in Chapter 1, that in the twelve-tone equal- tempered scale these intervals correspond to frequency ratios of the form 2iN2 = CMD where jis the number of semitones in the interval, Since "2 ~ 1.0595 is a number just slight larger than 1, a single semitone interval produces an acoustical waveform consisting of the superimposition of two waveforms of slightly different frequencies. As we discussed in relation to Figure 3.2, this produces a complicated waveform containing a "beat frequency", which sounds somewhat harsh to the listener. As the interval is increased, one might expect the resulting waveform to become simpler and simpler, until the octave interval (12 semitones) is reached, at which point the two waveforms are in the very simple ratio of 2:1. However, a little thought shows that this is not the case. For example, a 7-semitone interval (which corresponds to a musical fifth) has frequency ratio equal to (1.0595)7 = 1.4983, which is very close to 1.5; thus, the 7-semitone interval also has (very nearly) a simple frequency ratio; namely, 3:2. In general, we can define the simplicity of an interval as the smallest integer d such that a fraction of the form n/d exists which is closer to the interval in question than any other interval. In other words, the valueCounting Chords 7 2i/12 can be approximated by a fraction with denominator d. This means that two notes separated by that interval have a frequency ratio of approximately n/d to 1. Or, multiplying by d, this means they are in a ratio of n to d (which we write as n:d). The simplicity of an interval is crucial in determining the sound that occurs when two notes with that interval are played together. This is illustrated in Figure 3.15, which shows the result of playing a musical fifth (a 7-semitone interval) which has frequency ratio 3:2. Because the denominator is so small (2), the period of the composite waveform is small and the waveform itself is simple in structure. Thus the resulting waveform is very simple and sounds pleasing to the ear. The smallest-denominator fractions for each interval (from 1 to 12; i.e., including the octave interval) are shown in Table 3.18. These numbers allow us to order the various intervals by their simplicity, as determined by the size of the denominator in each rational approximation to the interval. Where two intervals use the same denominator, ties are broken by using the error value shown in the last column, which is the difference between the rational approximation and the exact value. Table 3.19 lists the intervals in order of simplicity. The simplest interval is the octave (with ratio 2:1), followed by the musical fifth (with ratio 3:2), followed by the musical fourth (with ratio 4:3), and so on. Not surprisingly, the "worst" interval is the single semitone, which further justifies the relevance of the adjacency analysis presented earlier in this chapter. Frequency 2f Frequency 3f Figure 3.15. Harmonic simplicity. The sum of two waveforms whose frequencies are in a simple ratio (such as 3:2) is a simple periodic waveform.B Chapter 3 Interval | Exact Value | Fraction | Value 1 1.0595 12/11 | 1.0909 2 1.1225 8/7 | 1.1429 3 1.1892 6/5 | 1.2000 4 1.2599 5/4 | 1.2500 3 1.3348 4/3 | 1.3333 6 1.4142 1S | 1.4000 7 1.4983 3/2 ‘| 1.5000 8 1.5874 8/5 | 1.6000 9 1.6818 5/3 | 1.6667 10 1.7818 7/4 | 1.7500 1 1.8877 13/7 | 1.8571 12 2.0000 2/1__| 2.0000, Table 3.18. Simplest-fraction approximations to the 12 different semitone intervals Chord simplicity. We can now return to our original question: what is special about the major chord? To answer this, we can generalize the notion of interval simplicity to chord simplicity, which is defined as the smallest integer d such that the frequency ratio between the first note of the chord and each of the other notes can be expressed by a fraction with denominator d. As in the previous section, chord simplicity is inversion- dependent, so we define the simplicity of a chord as the simplicity of the simplest inversion. We now claim the following: The major chord is the harmonically simplest 3-note chord. To see that this is true, note that the smallest denominator possible for a Interval | Denominator | __ Ratio Name 12 1 21 Octave 7 2 3:2, Sth 5 3 4:3 4th 9 3 5:3 6th 4 4 5:4 3rd 10 4 ThA min7 3 5 6:5 min3 8 5 8:5 dims 6 5 7S augs 2 7 8:7 2nd u 1 13:7 | Maj7 1 i 12:11 ‘semitone, Table 3.19. The musical intervals in order of harmonic simplicity.Counting Chords 79 d= n = Number of notes Denominator tf 6 a 8 0 10) 1012] Total: ot : fae 1 2 1 : se 1 3 i 7 ae 2 4 2 2 21 _ oo G4 5 5 cd ee 9 6 peo Gt ad 7 ee ae @ . . 3101715 6 1 woe 82 9 2. . . 9 a a 2 8 1 ei Oe an ae il ot 30 12 + 3 6 4 12, 14 13 fe se 0 14 1 1 Totall 6 19 43 66 80 66 43 19 6 1 2 351 Table 3.20. The harmonic simplicity of the 351 chords. three-note chord is 3, since there are not two intervals in Table 3.19 with denominators less than 3, But there are two intervals with denominators equal to 3 — the 4th (ratio 4:3) and the 6th (ratio 5:3). Now, a note combined with a 4th and a 6th (5 and 9 semitones, respectively) is simply the chord {0 5 9} or G C E, which is an inversion of the major chord. The notes in this chord are in a ratio of 3:4:5. In fact, we see from Table 3.19 that all three inversion of the major chord have very simple ratios: (5,4,3) = (059) is 3: (4,3,5) = {047} is 4: 3,5,4) = {03 8} is 5:6:8 which further confirms the uniquely simple character of the major chord. A full analysis. There are several subtleties involved in the computation of simplicity values (that is, the denominator values d). By definition, d is the smallest denominator which can represent the given interval or note, which means that no smaller d value will do. However, this does not imply that all larger d values will also work. As a simple example, the musical Sth, which can be represented with d = 2 by the fraction 3/2, cannot be represented with d= 3, since the two nearest fractions of the form n/3 are 4/3 and 5/3, which are both closer to other80 Chapter’ 3 intervals. Second, there is no simple relationship between the d value of a chord and the d values of the individual intervals. We can, however, use a simple computer program to calculate the d values for all 351 chords. The result is shown in Table 3.20. Of particular interest is the fact that there is a unique simplest chord for every value of n. Here are these uniquely simple chords for the first few values of n, notated beginning with the note C: Chord, Name. cG Sth interval CFA (F) major chord CEGBb (©) 7th chord Eb F# Ab Bb (Ab) 9th chord. Not surprisingly, 7th and 9th chords are also quite common in music. Polychords Finally, we consider another class of musical chords which forms the basis for the title problem of this book. A polychord is a separation of the notes of a chord into one or more (simpler) subchords; i.e., a subdivision of the set of notes in the chord into a collection of disjoint subsets. A classic example of a polychord, in the traditional musical sense, is the chord (221232), which is listed in Table 3.7 as one of the 55 chords with one adjacency. A slight rotation of this chord produces (222123), which in the key of C is the chord {C, D, E, F#, G, A}. This chord is the union of the two chords {C, E, G} and {D, Fi#, A}; i.e., two major chords (4 3 5) in two different keys (C and D). Conceptually, this complex 6-note chord is "really" just two ordinary major chords combined, although the auditory effect is far from simple, requiring a trained ear to detect the fact that two major chords are being played at once. More generally, a k-fold polychord is one in which an entire n-note chord is subdivided into k non-empty subchords, with 1 < k 2.) The case k = 2 is also musically significant because it directly relates to keyboard (e.g., piano) playing. There are usually two hands involved in-playing the piano, and 2-fold polychords can be created trivially by simply playing two (possibly different) chords _ {possibly in different keys), one with each hand. iam acaatstial Sa aca a ic