Fuzzy ideas: using fuzzy logic to make sense of Western art music

Abstract

Presented for Music Research Seminar, Kingsland Room, Level 6 ANU School of Music. Current musicological practice provides us with a range of procedures for investigating aspects of the construction of particular genres of Western art music, or for understanding typical listener perceptual response patterns. Each method attempts to deal with the problems of subjectivity of the analyst and/or the nature of music as a time-based intangible artform. As a result, conventional methods overlook or simplify aspects of making sense of a complete piece of music as a lived experience. In the late 20th century, computer scientists developed Fuzzy Logic as a way to explicitly incorporate the subjectivity of human problem-solving in environments of imprecision and uncertainty. Avant-garde music is difficult to understand. My thesis is that Fuzzy Logic is an informative way to represent the personal and subjective experience of a piece of avant-garde music as part of analysing how that intangible time-based music makes sense. As a result, Fuzzy Logic can be a constructive tool for making sense of any type of Western art music, composed using any materials, techniques and forms.