ABSTRACT
When listening to music, one frequently notices recurrent material or “regularities” of various natures. Although this cannot be said for all existing music, it nevertheless remains true for a large variety of genres including Western tonal music (classical, baroque) or jazz – at least from New Orleans to BeBop. One prime perspective on regularities in music is repetition, of which musicologist H. Schenker says that it is “the basis of music as art. It creates musical form, just as the association of ideas from a pattern in nature creates the other forms of art.” (Schenker, 1954, pp. 4–5. Cited by Stech (1981)). It is worth noting that the use of recurrent material in art is a major device in domains other than music. Examples cited by Pressing (1988) and Kernfeld (1989) include Homeric/Epic poetry and troubadours.
