Square Dance Moves and Twelve-Tone Operators: Isomorphisms and New Transformational Models
Nancy M. Rogers and Michael H. Buchler
KEYWORDS: square dance, dance, twelve-tone, transformation, operation, isomorphism, model, Berg, Lulu
ABSTRACT: Both twelve-tone composers and square dance callers use systematic permutations in order to balance variety with familiarity. This paper demonstrates connections between musical and square dance transformations, illustrating some ways in which the two disciplines might inform each other. With nearly seventy moves in the primary or "mainstream" program and a hundred in the more advanced "plus" program, square dance calls could not only augment music theorists' repertoire of transformational devices, but could help expand our fundamental notions of musical transformation. Indeed, non-canonical operations that are considered complex in atonal music theory (such as O'Donnell's split transformations, Mead's Oz, and even Klumpenhouwer's networks) can be modeled by moves that are customary even at the easiest levels of square dance.
Copyright © 2003 Society for Music Theory
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Nancy M. Rogers
Florida State University
School of Music
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1180
Nancy.Rogers@music.fsu.edu
Michael H. Buchler
Florida State University
School of Music
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1180
Michael.Buchler@music.fsu.edu
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