Tonal System Research Articles

Languages in China link climate, voice quality, and tone in a causal chain

Are the sound systems of languages ecologically adaptive like other aspects of human behavior? In previous substantive explorations of the climate–language nexus, the hypothesis that desiccation affects the tone systems of languages was not well supported. The lack of analysis of voice quality data from natural speech undermines the credibility of the following two key premises: the compromised voice quality caused by desiccated ambient air and constrained use of phonemic tone due to a desiccated larynx. Here, the full chain of causation, humidity → voice quality → number of tones, is for the first time strongly supported by direct experimental tests based on a large speech database (China’s Language Resources Protection Project). Voice quality data is sampled from a recording set that includes 997 language varieties in China. Each language is represented by about 1200 sound files, amounting to a total of 1,174,686 recordings. Tonally rich languages are distributed throughout China and vary in their number of tones and in the climatic conditions of their speakers. The results show that, first, the effect of humidity is large enough to influence the voice quality of common speakers in a naturalistic environment; secondly, poorer voice quality is more likely to be observed in speakers of non-tonal languages and languages with fewer tones. Objective measures of phonatory capabilities help to disentangle the humidity effect from the contribution of phylogenetic and areal relatedness to the tone system. The prediction of ecological adaptation of speech is first verified through voice quality analysis. Humidity is observed to be related to synchronic variation in tonality. Concurrently, the findings offer a potential trigger for diachronic changes in tone systems.

Mathematical foundations of complex tonality

Equal temperament, in which semitones are tuned in the irrational ratio of , is best seen as a serviceable compromise, sacrificing purity for flexibility. Just intonation, in which intervals are given by products of powers of 2, 3, and 5, is more natural, but of limited flexibility. We propose a new scheme in which ratios of Gaussian integers form the basis of an abstract tonal system. The tritone, so problematic in just temperament, given ambiguously by the ratios , , , , none satisfactory, is in our scheme represented by the complex ratio . The major and minor whole tones, given by intervals of and , can each be factorized into products of complex semitones, giving us a major complex semitone and a minor complex semitone . The perfect third, given by the interval , factorizes into the product of a complex whole tone and its complex conjugate. Augmented with these supplementary tones, the resulting scheme of complex intervals based on products of low powers of Gaussian primes leads to the construction of a complete system of major and minor scales in all keys.

Hexachordal Solmization and Syllable-Invariant Counterpoint in the Vocal Music of William Byrd

Abstract William Byrd was an unusually creative contrapuntist: he is known for his virtuosic double counterpoint, his expressive manipulation of soggetti (imitative subjects), his capacity for exhausting possible contrapuntal combinations in stretto passages, and his points of imitation that build toward an expressive climax (what Joseph Kerman [1981] has described as Byrd’s “cumulative” imitation). This article addresses a cumulative technique that has not previously been identified: syllable-invariant counterpoint. Byrd often develops points of imitation where the soggetto is solmized identically in two hexachords (what sixteenth-century theorists called fuga, in contrast to imitazione). But Byrd frequently builds points toward an extra statement of the soggetto in a new, bonus hexachord; this transposition introduces a new semitone foreign to the work’s local tonality. Byrd thematizes syllable invariance throughout his vocal repertory, particularly in his serious motets. This article shows how Byrd combines syllable-invariant counterpoint with a variety of distinct imitative strategies to achieve specific expressive and tonal goals. The article further considers the implications of syllable invariance for tonal structure in Byrd’s music. Syllable-invariant counterpoint makes visible the constraints and affordances of Byrd’s tonal system, the Guidonian diatonic gamut under hexachordal solmization. Byrd carefully controlled the tonal compass of his works by using syllable invariance, among other strategies, to manipulate his counterpoint’s “chromatic” ambit. Syllable-invariant counterpoint—which Renaissance musicians would have understood as a diatonic, not chromatic, strategy—encompasses Byrd’s contrapuntal, expressive, and tonal compositional techniques.

The Royal Road Progression in Japanese Popular Music

Abstract The so-called royal road progression (RRP), whose archetypal lead-sheet representation is F–G–Em–Am, is a distinctive feature of modern Japanese popular music. The RRP arose from the manipulation of basic elements of diatonic harmony and coexists with several closely related progressions in J-pop style. Composers often use the RRP to lend Aeolian flavor to major-key songs; however, the RRP is a tonally flexible pattern. After presenting a typology of phrases that use the RRP, I argue that the progression can articulate partial tonic function and can induce a binary tonal system, which occupies the conceptual space between tonal pairing and double-tonic complex. I also provide a diachronic account of the RRP as an element of J-pop history and pop-music history in general. By relating the concepts of partial tonic function and binary tonal system to the RRP, this paper gives insight into the understudied harmonic language of J-pop and invites application of the concepts to other musics.

Tonal Behavior as of Areal and Typological Concerns: Centering on the Sinitic and Kam-Tai Languages in Lingnan

From the perspective of areal linguistics, this paper examines the similarities in tonal behavior between Sinitic and Kam-Tai, the two most populous language groups in Lingnan. By relying on some frameworks for investigating tone systems, i.e., tone-box theories, which largely involve the evolution of tones, the following duplicating patterns and paths of diffusion of areal features are identified. (1) The secondary tonal split conditioned by vowel length on checked syllables, as well as the secondary tonal split of the upper-register tones conditioned by the laryngeal features of initial consonants, both originated in Kam-Tai languages and have diffused into some neighboring Sinitic languages. (2) The pattern of the secondary tonal split of the lower-register tones conditioned by laryngeal features of the initial consonants originated in northern authoritative Sinitic languages and spread widely among different subgroups of Sinitic languages; its diffusion into the Kam-Tai languages is limited to the lexical category of loanwords. (3) The upper-register tones associated with sonorant initials found in Lingnan Sinitic languages are suggested to be of a Kam-Tai origin trait. Further, their underlying areal typological rules are also summarized, concentrating on different upper limits for the possible secondary tonal split in the Sinitic and Kam-Tai languages, which were determined by the historically distinct laryngeal features of the initial consonants of the two language groups.

Comprehensive evaluation of machine learning algorithms for predicting sleep-wake conditions and differentiating between the wake conditions before and after sleep during pregnancy based on heart rate variability.

Perinatal women tend to have difficulties with sleep along with autonomic characteristics. This study aimed to identify a machine learning algorithm capable of achieving high accuracy in predicting sleep-wake conditions and differentiating between the wake conditions before and after sleep during pregnancy based on heart rate variability (HRV). Nine HRV indicators (features) and sleep-wake conditions of 154 pregnant women were measured for 1 week, from the 23rd to the 32nd weeks of pregnancy. Ten machine learning and three deep learning methods were applied to predict three types of sleep-wake conditions (wake, shallow sleep, and deep sleep). In addition, the prediction of four conditions, in which the wake conditions before and after sleep were differentiated-shallow sleep, deep sleep, and the two types of wake conditions-was also tested. In the test for predicting three types of sleep-wake conditions, most of the algorithms, except for Naïve Bayes, showed higher areas under the curve (AUCs; 0.82-0.88) and accuracy (0.78-0.81). The test using four types of sleep-wake conditions with differentiation between the wake conditions before and after sleep also resulted in successful prediction by the gated recurrent unit with the highest AUC (0.86) and accuracy (0.79). Among the nine features, seven made major contributions to predicting sleep-wake conditions. Among the seven features, "the number of interval differences of successive RR intervals greater than 50 ms (NN50)" and "the proportion dividing NN50 by the total number of RR intervals (pNN50)" were useful to predict sleep-wake conditions unique to pregnancy. These findings suggest alterations in the vagal tone system specific to pregnancy.

Liangmai phonology: An overview

Liangmai, a Tibeto-Burman member spoken in North East India (NEI), has twenty consonant phonemes and six vowel phonemes with four contrastive tones. Three stops and three nasals permitted at the end of a syllable and all consonants occurs at the beginning of a syllable. A voiceless libio-dental fricative which is rare in other NEI languages is a major consonant. Vowel system has several diphthongs. The close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ can appear as an allophone of close front unrounded vowel /i/ and close back rounded vowel /u/ as in dūip í n ~ dūip ɨ́ n ‘spring’ and t ū n ~ t ɨ̄ n ‘push’. With or without coda, the position nucleus of a syllable is occupied by an obligatory vowel and also by a syllabic consonant. Syllable has  CV and CVC patterns.  After resllabification, the structure of the syllable will appear like CCVC. Consonnat cluster is not permitted in a syllable except for a few idiolects. Nasal syllabic is abundantly present in the language. Total assimiliation occurs in phonological proces in the manner of progressive and regressive assimiliation. Both consonant and vowel undergoes syncope. Epenthesis does not occur at word level except for loan words. In fast speech, voiceless consonants are voiced inter-vocally across morphemes. The morpheme /jēi/ can be realized in six allomorphs depending on the envriornment they occur, which due to morphophonological process. The tonal system has four contrastive level of tone. Register tones are plenty and contour tones are rare.

The tonal morphology of the potential in Coatec Zapotec (Di′zhke′)

Abstract While the phenomenon of tonogenesis is well represented in the literature, diachronic tone change in already-tonal languages has received less attention. This paper considers two types of tonal morphology used to mark the “potential” inflectional category on verbs in Coatec Zapotec (aka Di′zhke′). Some verbs are marked with upstep. Coatec upstepped tones are emergent tonal contrasts that are developing out of high register allotones which assimilated to a historical high tone on a now-deleted preceding syllable. Other verbs display patterns of tone ablaut such that a verb with underlying low or falling tone surfaces with high or rising in the potential. Both upstep and tone ablaut in Coatec can be traced to an earlier floating high tone that could dock onto different syllables according to a set of ranked constraints. Using a combination of internal and comparative reconstruction, details of the earlier tonal system are revealed. This is the first published treatment of Proto-Zapotec tone since Swadesh (1947) and the first paper to address tone in Proto-Zapotecan and Proto Core Zapotec. *ʔ is revealed to have been a consonant through the Core Zapotec period, suggesting that the complex systems of phonation contrasts found in some Central Zapotec languages are a recent development. Cases of tonal contrasts developing out of phonation contrasts are known from Southeast Asia, but Zapotec phonation contrasts arose out of interaction between the glottal consonant and pre-existing tonal contrasts. An exploration of the morphological environments conducive to upstep leads to new discoveries about Zapotecan derivational voice prefixes and reveals the origins of perfective allomorphy.

Discovering the Prosodic Domain of Aceh Hakka Tone Sandhi

The research investigated the tonal system of the Hakka dialect spoken in the Aceh province of Indonesia. The aim of the research was twofold. First, it retranscribed the dialect’s tonal inventory and provided a comparison with Meixian Hakka and the inventory found in Chen’s (2007) research. Second, it analyzed the Shang Tone Sandhi Rule (STSR) of the dialect and its prosodic domain. The data were collected with a careful design based on the number of syllables, different prosodic structures, and a variety of tonal combinations. The data were collected from two informants, who were female Hakka native speakers that originated from Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The research used mainly an impressionistic approach with some support from Praat Version 6.2.14 to evaluate the pitch of the tones. As for the research’s transcription, the researchers opt for the simpler yet phonologically distinct three-level height system (H, M, L) rather than the five-pitch category of Chao. The research identifies that there are six tonal values in this dialect. The tonal alternation rule, i.e., STSR, operates in a multisyllabic domain, and only the tone at the end of a domain is intact from tonal alternation. The STSR is not sensitive to the syntactic domain c-command relation of the Direct Reference Hypothesis. It also behaves differently compared to the Guangxing dialect Yangping Tone Sandhi Rule. As for prosody, the hierarchical domain of the rule in Aceh Hakka is bounded within the Utterance (U), which is different from the Yinping tone sandhi domain in Meinong Hakka, in which tone sandhi is blocked by the I domain (intonational phrase domain). Therefore, the researchers postulate that the domain for Aceh Hakka Shang tone sandhi lies in the Utterance (U).

RESEARCH ARTICLE: Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback in the Treatment of Depression

Several interventions used in treatment of depressive symptoms can enhance cardiovascular risk due to negative impacts on autonomic balance. Decreased vagal tone and/or excessive sympathetic nervous system activity have been noted in patients with depression. Heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV BFB) training may be able to reduce the cardiovascular risk for depressed patients by increasing the parasympathetic input to the heart. The results of published studies support that HRV BFB may be useful as an adjunctive treatment for patients with depression.

Phonological Processes of the Kikuyu Dialectical Words: A Distinctive Features Approach

Kikuyu language is a highly agglutinative language with an S-V-O sentence structure. This study aims to find out the phonological processes of the Kikuyu dialectical words and determine the phonological rules. A limited number of studies have been done in the Kikuyu language concerning the phonological processes. Therefore, this study is justifiable because it will not only give more lexical units which are subject to phonological processes in the Kikuyu language, which may be inadequate in the previous studies but also create awareness among the scholars of the various Kikuyu lexicons which undergo the phonological processes. The data for analysis is presented using phonetic transcription, and it was collected from the native, resourceful speakers of the Kikuyu language and from selected Kikuyu texts like Phonetics and Tonal Systems of Kikuyu (Lilias Armstrong, 2017) and Modern Gikuyu Dictionary: Gikuyu-English, English-Gikuyu (Kasahorow, 2014). The Distinctive Features theory is used in the phonological analysis of the data. The results of the study showed that different Kikuyu words undergo phonological processes evident in this study, like assimilation, consonant strengthening, glide formation, nasal coalescence, consonant coalescence, insertion, and vowel deletion.

Two peaks: synchrony, diachrony and synchronic description of Gyeongsang Tonal system

경상 방언의 고조는 언제나 고조로만 실현되는 것과 저조로 교체되는 고조(LSUBn-1/SUBH형 어간의 H)가 있다. 기존의 논의에서는 음성적 인상을 중시하여 두 고조를 같은 것으로 보았으나, 음운론적으로 이들 둘은 구별되는 것임을 논의하였다. 이와 같은 경상 방언 고조의 분화의 원인은 통시적으로 일어난 고조 추이에 있었다. 저조로 교체되는 고조는 과거에는 저조였던 음절이었는데, 곡용과 활용이 끝난 어절을 단위로 하여 일어난 고조 추이로 인해 고조와 교체하게 된 것이다. 이 고조를 포함한 어절의 성조는 공시적 어절 성조 배열 제약으로 도출해 내기가 어렵다. 과거의 성조 규칙이 화석화되어 곡용 · 활용형에 얹혀 있기 때문이다. 이 고조의 교체는 대부분의 차용어 LSUBn-1/SUBH형 어간에서는 보이지 않는다는 점에서 불규칙적이지만, 형태론적으로 조건된 자동적 교체이기도 하다. 본고에서는 경상 방언 성조 규칙과 차용어의 성조 패턴을 고려하였을 때, 저조로 교체되는 고조의 기저 성조를 /L/이라고 보아야 이 교체를 성공적으로 기술할 수 있음을 논의하였다.

KINGA NOUN CLASSES AND THEIR SEMANTICS

Kinga is one of the endangered languages in Tanzania. This study is on Kinga noun classes. It is important as it adds knowledge to the studies on Bantu languages. The qualitative approach was used in the study and data were collected by an unstructured interview. From the observation by the researcher, Kinga has 19 noun classes. Most of the classes have no immanent nouns completely belonging to a particular class, different nouns like animals, objects and geographical features can fit to different classes. Class one and two are the only classes that have defined nouns belonging to them; they are nouns referring to human beings. In some classes the nouns lack the prefix, the augment is used instead. There are wonderful semantic features in Kinga noun prefixes. Prefixes can communicate lot of information. The prefixes can communicate behavioral aspects of an individual. Kinga is endangered by Kiswahili. Kiswahili lexicon has penetrated Kinga language. Many Kiswahili words are used in Kinga. The contacts between the two languages endanger Kinga. An account of Kinga language is very minimal. With exception of the book by Schaderberg (1973) about Kinga being a restricted tone system, Kinga language can only be read in the religious books including the New Testament in Kinga written by SIL international. The researcher recommends documenting Kinga and other vernacular languages in Tanzania. It is vital for the future linguistic history. Syntactical, morphological, phonological, semantic and other aspects of language should be documented. Swahili may have a treasure from which lexicon may be added to Swahili instead of taking words from Arabic. Swahili is a Bantu language.

Noise-induced change of tone dispersion in Cantonese speech

Noise effect on speaking non-tonal languages is reported on acoustic correlates including increased intensity, enlarged vowel space and raised fundamental frequency. Adverse influence may also be present in realization of tones, which however remains under-explored. Tone-space size and the according tone dispersion offer key indicators to the nature of a tonal system. The present study investigates whether and how Cantonese tones are modified in speaking under noise. Adult native speakers of Cantonese read tri-syllabic words embedded in carrier sentences in quiet and under multi-talker babbles. The speech materials cover six tones (T55, T25, T33, T21, T23, T22) and are balanced between high-low and low-high tone combinations to avoid biased articulatory effects. Results confirm Lombard speech effect in Cantonese speaking. Moreover, under the noise condition, tone spaces of all six tones are enlarged and tones are more dispersed, especially in realization of T55 and T21 that mark the upper and lower ranges of the tonal space. Changes in tone production by female speakers are more significant than those in male speech. This study provides new evidence of phonetic accommodation under noise and in particular noise effects on sizes of tone space, which is not found in the production of monosyllabic words in Cantonese. Our speakers may have used labored speech production to compensate for signal degradation under babble noise, leading to higher dispersion of tones than clear speech in quiet.

MUSIK BAS DI KECAMATAN BARAKA KABUPATEN ENREKANG (SUATU TINJAUAN ORGANOLOGI)

This study aims to find out: 1). Background of Bass Music in Baraka District Enrekang District, 2). Procurement of materials and process of making bass instruments, 3). Function and tone system in a bass instrument in Baraka Sub-district of Erekang District. This research uses observation method, interview, documentation, and study of organology sciences, by collecting data from various relevant sources, then the researcher describes the problem solving validly and descriptively and then draws a conclusion by yielding data: 1). The birth of bass music in District Baraka Regency Enrekang around the 1940s under the colonists of Menado and Ambon. 2). The process of making instruments using traditional tools. 3). Function and tone system on the bass instrument.

Tonal properties in a non-tonal language: The case of Indonesian

This study investigates the tonal properties of Indonesian, specifically examining intonation contours in Indonesian at the sentence level and focusing on how the tonal system is used to indicate different pragmatic meanings in Indonesian. Four distinct intonation contours with four distinct meanings were contrasted: strong agreement to the truth of the relevant word (emphasizing) (H), interrogative meaning (LH), doubting the fact of the word in question (L), and a neutral conceptual meaning of the relevant word (HL). The stimuli for the study were four Indonesian words (two verbs makan ‘eat’ and tahu ‘know’ and two adjectives cantik ‘beautiful’ and marah ‘angry’). Stimuli were recorded to capture the four-way contrast in pitch contour. A comprehension task to identify the distinct meanings was conducted. Forty-nine participants were asked to listen to the four words with the four different pitch contours and select their respective meanings. The data show that the participants were able to apply the Mandarin four-way contrast pitch contour to Indonesian to accurately indicate four different (pragmatic) meanings. The most difficult contour for the listeners/participants was in distinguishing the interrogative intonation contour (LH) from the low-dipping intonation contour (L) signaling doubting the conceptual truth of the lexical items used. The overall study suggests that a tonal system based on Mandarin tonal contrasts can be applied to Indonesian intonational expressions.

The ecological discourse analysis of news discourse based on deep learning from the perspective of ecological philosophy.

Recently, ecological damage and environmental pollution have become increasingly serious. Experts in various fields have started to study related issues from diverse points of view. To prevent the accelerated deterioration of the ecological environment, ecolinguistics emerged. Eco-critical discourse analysis is one of the important parts of ecolinguistics research, that is, it is a critical discourse analysis of the use of language from the perspective of the language's ecological environment. Firstly, an ecological tone and modality system are constructed from an ecological perspective. Under the guidance of the ecological philosophy of "equality, harmony, and symbiosis", this study conducts an ecological discourse analysis on the Sino-US trade friction reports, aiming to present the similarities and differences between the two newspapers' trade friction discourses and to reveal the ecological significance of international ecological factors in the discourse. Secondly, this method establishes a vector expression of abstract words based on emotion dictionary resources and introduces emotion polarity and part-of-speech features of words. Then the word vector is formed into the text feature matrix, which is used as the input of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model, and the Back Propagation algorithm is adopted to train the model. Finally, in the light of the trained CNN model, the unlabeled news is predicted, and the experimental results are analyzed. The results reveal that during the training process of Chinese and English datasets, the accuracy of the training set can reach nearly 100%, and the loss rate can be reduced to 0. On the test set, the classification accuracy of Chinese text can reach 83%, while that of English text can reach 90%, and the experimental results are ideal. This study provides an explanatory approach for ecological discourse analysis on the news reports of Sino-US trade frictions and has certain guiding significance for the comparative research on political news reports under different ideologies between China and the United States.

High-fidelity transmission of auditory symbolic material is associated with reduced right-left neuroanatomical asymmetry between primary auditory regions.

The intergenerational stability of auditory symbolic systems, such as music, is thought to rely on brain processes that allow the faithful transmission of complex sounds. Little is known about the functional and structural aspects of the human brain which support this ability, with a few studies pointing to the bilateral organization of auditory networks as a putative neural substrate. Here, we further tested this hypothesis by examining the role of left-right neuroanatomical asymmetries between auditory cortices. We collected neuroanatomical images from a large sample of participants (nonmusicians) and analyzed them with Freesurfer's surface-based morphometry method. Weeks after scanning, the same individuals participated in a laboratory experiment that simulated music transmission: the signaling games. We found that high accuracy in the intergenerational transmission of an artificial tone system was associated with reduced rightward asymmetry of cortical thickness in Heschl's sulcus. Our study suggests that the high-fidelity copying of melodic material may rely on the extent to which computational neuronal resources are distributed across hemispheres. Our data further support the role of interhemispheric brain organization in the cultural transmission and evolution of auditory symbolic systems.

ГАРМОНИЧЕСКИЙ ЯЗЫК В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ БАШКИРСКИХ КОМПОЗИТОРОВ (на примере оперного творчества)

This aspect of the musical problem invariably arises in connection with the development of a professional musical language — the fundamental task of all monodic national cultures that have embarked on the path of professional development. The specificity of this task is determined by the pentatonic structure of Bashkir folk music, being an integral part of the Ural-Volga “pentatonic zone”, which required composers to find adequate, nationally acceptable ways to build a harmonic vertical. First, the author examines the prerequisites developed in folklore performance, then the work of composers who were looking for ways to combine modal harmony with the European tonal system. The features of chords, methods of melodic modulation, which differ from classical techniques of European music and affirm the selfsufficiency of their own monodic culture, are noted. As a result, the harmonic language of Bashkir operas appears as an original and integral musical phenomenon.

О научном творчестве Н.С. Гуляницкой

The article is devoted to the anniversary date — 95th anniversary of the outstanding scientist, professor of the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, Doctor of Art History Natalia Sergeevna Gulyanitskaya. Gulyanitskaya is a prominent figure in modern musical science, whose works are well-known in Russia and abroad, for thirty years she headed Department of Music Theory of Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, for twenty years she headed the Dissertation Council of the Academy. As a scientific adviser N. S. Gulyanitskaya trained dozens of young scientists (candidates of art criticism). The article deals with Gulyanitskaya’ major monographic works and textbooks in such thematic areas as modern harmony, Russian sacred music, modern composition, and the methodology of modern musicology. In each of these branches of musicology, this scientist made a huge scientific contribution, laying the fundamental foundations for further research. The article gives a broad idea about the books of this famous scientist, published in the famous publishing houses in the period from the late 1970s to today. «Introduction to Music Harmony» (1984), «Modern Harmony: A Series of Lectures on the Course of Harmony for Students of Music Universities» (1977), Harmony and Rationalization Methods in the Music of 50s (Interpretation and Criticism) (1982) –– books by N. S. Gulyanitskaya devoted to the harmony in the music of the XXth century. «Russian “Harmonic Singing”» (XIXth Century) is the first study in Post-Soviet science that studies the Russian tradition of liturgical singing of the XIX century. «Poetics of Musical Composition: Theoretical Aspects of Russian Sacred Music of the 20th Century» (2002) – work by N. S. Gulyanitskaya, which presents the sacred music of the beginning and end of the twentieth century. «Russian Music: the Formation of the Tonal System, XI-XX centuries» (2005) examines tonal organization in works if various styles and genres, including spiritual ones. «Music Science Methods» (2009) is a pioneering study on the methodology of modern music science. «Musical Composition: modernism, postmodernism (history, theory, practice)» (2014) and «About Modern Composition» (2019) are devoted to the study of contemporary art of musical composition.