Music 824: Computer Applications in Music Research
Ohio State University
School of Music


Humdrum Exercise #7 - Answers


All of the following commands assume that you are located in the appropriate score directory.

  1. What are the principal differences between the deg and solfa commands?
    There are three principal differences: (1) deg represents scale degrees by numbers: 1 for tonic, 2 for super-tonic, ... 5 for dominant, etc. solfa represents scale degrees by syllables: `do' for tonic, `re' for super-tonic, ... `so' for dominant, etc. (2) deg indicates how a pitch is approached: the caret (^) indicates a pitch was approached by a rising interval whereas the lower-case `v' indicates a pitch was approached by a descending interval. The solfa command/representation does not indicate how a pitch was approached. (3) deg is mode-sensitive and so will characterize pitches differently in major and minor keys. For example, in the key of C major, the pitch E-flat is represented as a lowered 3rd scale degree, whereas in the key of C minor, E-flat is represented as an unmodified 3rd scale degree. In the solfa representation, E-flat would be represented by `me' and E-natural would be represented by `mi' -- whether or not the key was major or minor.


  2. In the Romanian folksongs, are tonic pitches more commonly approached from above or below?
    COMMAND:     deg *.krn | grep -c '^\^1'
                                deg *.krn | grep -c '^v1'
    ANSWER:         63 approached from below
                                95 approached from above


  3. Do the Hungarian folksongs differ from the Romanian folksongs in how the tonic is approached?
    COMMAND:     deg *.krn | grep -c '^\^1'
                                deg *.krn | grep -c '^v1'
    ANSWER:         116 approached from below
                                85 approached from above


  4. How many tonic pitches are there in the Italian folksong collection? How many dominant pitches are there?
    COMMAND:     solfa -x itali*.krn | grep -c '^do'
                                solfa -x itali *.krn | grep -c '^so'
    ANSWER:         60 tonics
                                66 dominants


  5. Create an alphabetical listing of the titles for the Danish folksong collection.
    COMMAND:     grep -h '!!!OTL:' *.krn | sort -d


  6. Ignoring mode (major/minor), in the Swedish folksong collection, which scale degrees are most frequently repeated? Which scale degrees are least frequently repeated?
    COMMAND:     deg sverig*.krn | grep -c '^1'
                                deg sverig*.krn | grep -c '^2'
                                deg sverig*.krn | grep -c '^3'
                                deg sverig*.krn | grep -c '^4'       etc.
    ANSWER:         The tonic (31) and dominant (29) are most commonly repeated.
                                The submediant (0) and leading-tone (88) are most commonly repeated.

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