Abstract
Features of scores of music for which composers have provided both tempo directions and metronome marks are recorded in a relational database. Comparisons based on a selection of factors, chosen by the user, can then be performed to obtain an estimate of a metronome mark for a work for which none is given. Another type of application is to investigate the interpretation a composer places upon his tempo directions when aspects of the score which affect the perception of speed are taken into account. The design and operation of the database, which is written in the dBase IV programming language, are described. As an example of an application, a metronome mark for the first of Liszt's “Transcendental Studies” (1851) is estimated.
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Wilfrid Smith is a Reader in Computing and a Fellow of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. For more than a decade he has investigated the authorship and chronology of early English plays and poetry using computers and statistical methods. Publishing prolifically in a variety of journals, he has been a frequent contributer to Computers and the Humanities.
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Smith, M.W.A. A relational database for the study and quantification of tempo directions in music. Comput Hum 28, 107–116 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01830690
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01830690