Voicing Transformations of Triads

Abstract

Motivated by analytical methods in mathematical music theory, we determine the structure of the subgroup $\mathcal{J}$ of $GL(3,\mathbb{Z}_{12})$ generated by the three voicing reflections. We determine the centralizer of $\mathcal{J}$ in both $GL(3,\mathbb{Z}_{12})$ and the monoid ${Aff}(3,\mathbb{Z}_{12})$ of affine transformations, and recover a Lewinian duality for trichords containing a generator of $\mathbb{Z}_{12}$. We present a variety of musical examples, including Wagner's hexatonic Grail motive and the diatonic falling fifths as cyclic orbits, an elaboration of our earlier work with Satyendra on Schoenberg, String Quartet in $D$ minor, op. 7, and an affine musical map of Joseph Schillinger. Finally, we observe, perhaps unexpectedly, that the retrograde inversion enchaining operation RICH (for arbitrary 3-tuples) belongs to the setwise stabilizer $\mathcal{H}$ in $\Sigma_3 \ltimes \mathcal{J}$ of root position triads. This allows a more economical description of a passage in Webern, Concerto for...