A memetic analysis of a phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian perspectives on similarity and lexicon abstraction
This article discusses some general issues arising from the study of similarity in music, both human conducted and computer aided, and then progresses to a consideration of similarity relationships between patterns in a phrase by Beethoven, from the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110 (1821) and various potential memetic precursors. This analysis is followed by a consideration of how the kinds of similarity identified in the Beethoven phrase might be understood in psychological/conceptual and then neurobiological terms, the latter by means of William Calvin's Hexagonal Cloning Theory. This theory offers a mechanism for the operation of David Cope's concept of the lexicon, conceived here as a museme allele class. I conclude by attempting to correlate and map the various spaces within which memetic replication occurs.