From the 3 of 6 linked papers with an AI index.
6 papers
Evolutionary modelling reveals melodic and harmonic constraints on global scale structure
John M McBride, Steven Brown, Elizabeth Phillips +2
The paper uses evolutionary and statistical models on a cross‑cultural dataset of 1,314 musical scales to show that melodic constraints, rather than harmonic ones, primarily shape…
Contrasting statistical patterns in melodic and molecular evolution reveal distinctive constraints in a culturally evolving system
John M McBride, W Tecumseh Fitch
The paper introduces a rhythm-aware sequence alignment method to analyze thousands of Irish folk melodies, revealing evolutionary patterns that differ from those in protein sequenc…
What is a Musical Scale? Regularity and Convention in the Organization of Pitch
John M McBride
The paper defines a musical scale as a statistical regularity of pitch relative to a tonic, showing how conventions and naming influence scale identification and illustrating the a…
Geometric-Chemical Distance Between Protein Surfaces
Himanshu Swami, John M. McBride, Jean-Pierre Eckmann +1
Proteins recognize, bind, and catalyze through molecular surfaces, where geometry and chemical patterning determine interaction. Comparing these surfaces requires both a geometric-…
Musical consonance: a review of theory and evidence on perception and preference of auditory roughness in humans and other animals
John M. McBride
The origins of consonance in human music has long been contested, and today there are three primary hypotheses: aversion to roughness, preference for harmonicity, and learned prefe…
Information and motor constraints shape melodic diversity across cultures
John M McBride, Nahie Kim, Yuri Nishikawa +3
The number of possible melodies is unfathomably large, yet despite this virtually unlimited potential for melodic variation, melodies from different societies can be surprisingly s…