Maintenance, porting and implementation of the theory of integer partitions applied to orchestral writing with the Sonic Object Analysis Library (SOAL)

• Grant number: 18/04229-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2018
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Jônatas Manzolli
• Grantee: Charles de Paiva Santana
• Host Institution: Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Comunicação Sonora (NICS). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

While the development of assisted-orchestration software has begun to provide the composer several practical tools, the literature has made very few proposals that provide a method to analyze the use of orchestra (or any other combination of multiple instrumental or sonic resources) as a way to design the musical form, and to what extent that composing decisions impact upon its perception. This project proposes an experimental theoretical approach where texture is considered a qualitative dimension of orchestration. Our methodology is based on a mathematical model of partition theory that would allow the inference of the relative complexity of a texture and its relative impact on perception. We propose to implement this model as a tool in the Sonic Object Analysis Library (SOAL), a computer-assisted analysis toolkit developed for the OpenMusic environment. This project involves maintenance (updates, bug resolution, documentation) and portability (for other computing environments such as Python and MATLAB) of SOAL, as well as the investigation of case studies for application and validation of the experimental approach. (AU)