A Brief Survey of Music Representation Issues, Techniques, and Systems

Music offers a challenging array of representation problems. As an art form, music is distinguished by the presence of many relationships that can be treated mathematically, including rhythm and harmony. There are also many non-mathematical elements such as tension, expectancy, and emotion. Music can contain symbolic or structural relationships existing within and between the dimensions of pitch, time, timbre, harmony, tempo, rhythm, phrasing, and articulation. A further source of complexity is that ‘‘music’’ can mean printed notation, performance (instrument control) information, or resulting sounds. Finally, music evolves with every new composition. There can be no ‘‘true’’ representation just as there can be no closed definition of music. These elements combine to make music representation a rich field of study.