Theoretical Corpora and Compositional Practice

By combining two distinct research tools, algorithmically generated musical corpora and computational models of music perception, Dean & Pearce (this volume) report a novel methodology and results that might be of interest to both composers and theorists of non-tonal music. This commentary briefly elaborates on one particular implication of their work, namely, the potential to predict the salience of theoretical principles prior to implementing them within compositional practice. Several limitations specific to this particular implication are discussed.