What the Morse-Thue Sequence Contour Means Stylistically:

For purposes of illustration, I'll use a Morse-Thue sequence
contour choice ordering of 16 places, like this (D=descending,
A=ascending [sub-divided into 4-place sections for ease of
seeing the pattern of repetion]):

DAAD-ADDA-ADDA-DAAD

The maximum possible continuous string of contour choices
would be like this:

DDDDDDDD-AAAAAAAA

...giving only 1 change of direction for the entire sequence.

The maximum possible discontinuous string of contour
choices would be like this:

DADADADADADADADA

...giving 15 changes of direction for the entire sequence.

The Morse-Thue sequence, which I claim to be stylistically
neutral or in the very center, would be like this:

DAADADDAADDADAAD

...giving 10 changes of direction for the entire sequence.

What I'm trying to get across/emphasize is that this proves
that what is stylistically neutral is much more discontinuous
than most western music (or at least western classical music),
there being no occurence of successive intervals going in the
same direction for more than 2 places in succession.

--
Bill Flavell

> For purposes of illustration, I'll use a Morse-Thue sequence
> contour choice ordering of 16 places, like this (D=descending,
> A=ascending [sub-divided into 4-place sections for ease of
> seeing the pattern of repetion]):
>
> DAAD-ADDA-ADDA-DAAD
>
> The maximum possible continuous string of contour choices
> would be like this:
>
> DDDDDDDD-AAAAAAAA
>
> ...giving only 1 change of direction for the entire sequence.
>
> The maximum possible discontinuous string of contour
> choices would be like this:
>
> DADADADADADADADA
>
> ...giving 15 changes of direction for the entire sequence.
>
> The Morse-Thue sequence, which I claim to be stylistically
> neutral or in the very center, would be like this:
>
> DAADADDAADDADAAD
>
> ...giving 10 changes of direction for the entire sequence.

Wouldn't the very center be 7 or 8 changes, and wouldn't
this be only one aspect of style?

How have you been assigning the magnitudes? That is,
+1 -2 +17 etc.

> What I'm trying to get across/emphasize is that this proves
> that what is stylistically neutral is much more discontinuous
> than most western music (or at least western classical music),
> there being no occurence of successive intervals going in the
> same direction for more than 2 places in succession.

I guess I'd say everything is a "style". It is true that
most music falls somewhere between random and repetitive, but
I'm not sure what this has to do with the price of tea in
China. Testing scales meant for new music by evaluating
how existing music sounds in them is a mistake, but I doubt
Morse-Thue sequences are in any way more universal. One has
to compose music appropriate for the scale, and probably
there is appropriate music for every scale.

That said, it might be interesting to have a method of
generating melodies in every scale as a point of comparison.
Random melodies may be good for this. 1/f noise also.
And chromatic runs too. And Morse-Thue sequences.

But any such method based on the chromatic step will give
results more or less dominated by the size of the chromatic
step -- larger ETs will sound micro, and smallor ones macro.
Chain-of-best-fifth scales like the diatonic scale will
sound more similar across tunings. And so the most powerful
overall approach IMO would be to identify scale archtypes
in advance (diatonic, octatonic, "mavila", etc.) and listen
to how they change as the size of their generator is changed.
And indeed, much discussion here involves this sort of thing.

-Carl