ENACTING MUSICAL MAQUETTES: A COGNITION-INSPIRED COMPOSITIONAL APPROACH

Kenrick  Ho

Kenrick Ho PhD Student, Teaching Assistant, University of Leeds, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, School of Music

Keywords: Cognitive Constraints, Experimental Composition, Music Cognition, Phenomenology, Enactivism, Algorithmic Music

Abstract

This paper is a practice-led case study on Fred Lerdahl’s “Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems”. The model attempts to define an artificial compositional grammar in terms of a “universal listening syntax” based on Lerdahl’s co-authored A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Through demonstrating the practical application of the constraints, the author reflects on the model’s usefulness in light of the contemporary compositional context. Notably, the theory presents abstracted pitch and rhythmic material as an aesthetically neutral syntax, therefore it can only provide stylistically ambiguous infrastructures akin to a musical maquette that needs to be further enacted at the composer’s discretion.

Author Biography

Kenrick Ho, PhD Student, Teaching Assistant, University of Leeds, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, School of Music

Kenrick Ho is a third year PhD researcher in composition at the University of Leeds, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, School of Music. His practice-research, supervised by Prof. Martin Iddon and Dr. Freya Bailes, investigates the interdisciplinary intersections between music composition and music cognition. As a composer, Kenrick has collaborated with many acclaimed musicians domestically and internationally, including Siwan Rhys, Stephanie Lamprea, Brian Archinal, Seth Josel, Heather Roche, Carla Rees, Ensemble LINEA, Konzeptmusik, The Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and the Hermes Experiment. He is expected finish his doctoral thesis by the fall of 2023.