After an introductory chapter Temperley presents preference rule systems forgenerating six basic kinds of musical structure meter phrase structurecontrapuntal s... » 

After an introductory chapter Temperley presents preference rule systems forgenerating six basic kinds of musical structure meter phrase structurecontrapuntal structure harmony and key as well as pitch spelling thelabelling of pitch events with spellings such as A flat or G sharp. Hesuggests that preference rule systems not only show how musical structures areinferred but also shed light on other aspects of music. He substantiates thisclaim with discussions of musical ambiguity retrospective revisionexpectation and music outside the Western canon rock and traditional Africanmusic. He proposes a framework for the description of musical styles based onpreference rule systems and explores the relevance of preference rule systemsto higherlevel aspects of music such as musical schemata narrative anddrama and musical tension. MIDI files of musical examples from the book andthe home page for the Melisma Music Analyser the computational music analysissystem can be found at httpwww link.cs.cmu.educbms. «