David Temperley: Music and Probability, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press (2007)
Can one use a pure statistical technique to create a model for music? Can one say that inherent probabilities shape music perception? David Temperley certainly thinks so and makes a good case to convince me. He acknowledges other researchers of having made such attempts, but his use of the Bayesian technique does not only make a lot of sense, he shows by means of examples, many of them, that his approach has great merit. "The book is intended to be accessible to a broad audience in music and cognitive science. I assume only a basic level of mathematical background; no prior knowledge of probability is required. With regard to music, also, a basic knowledge of music fundamentals is needed." according to the preface. In both instances this may be true, and in the case of statistical knowledge this certainly is true, although I have my doubts about whether the common reader would take the trouble to grind through some of the initial probabilistic examples, especially where the idea of entropy is explained. Fortunately it does not play any part in the remainder of the text except to understand the general notion of entropy. The principles behind the Bayesian approach are well explained, as well as the extensions which follow later in the book. With reference to musical knowledge my question is: What is meant by a basic knowledge? As statistician by trade, with little music theoretical background, some of the musical terms/notations which were used nonchalantly ensured that I read this book with my music dictionary as well as Wikipedia on the ready. The general content is well set out and reads fairly smoothly. This is, however not a late night bedtime book where one can pick and choose a subject or section from any chapter in an arbitrary way. I often had to retrace to previous sections in order to keep track of exactly what is being said and where it fits into the bigger picture. The information is dense in the sense that each sentence and statement counts. Thus, the use of pencil and paper (as well as a pocket calculator) is highly recommended to work with the author through the multitude of examples, one of the most important aspects of the book. If anything is unclear, take your time and make sure you work the related example in detail and everything falls into place. Much of the text is accompanied by figures and graphics which clear up any possible ambiguities. Another useful idea is to make notes with references as one goes along. This eventually saved me a lot of time. A last general remark is not out of place. As I was going through the book I could not rid myself of a feeling that I was missing some basic philosophy/drift in the text. Eventually I realized that although this text is described as a stand alone book, and it certainly is, several times references appear regarding Temperley's The Cognition of