The Trans-Disciplinary Approach to the Study of Musical Phenomena: The Information Theory and Its Impact on Various Fields of Musicology

Abstract

At the present time, the application of mathematical methods in musicology, as well as the examination of the entailing facts of indeterminacy in the system of musical thinking are some of the most actively developing directions in the sphere of humanitarian disciplines, becoming important tools of cognition and interpretation of the semantic structures of all temporal arts, including the art of music. This article presents a continuation of the multicomponent complex research carried out by its authors, aimed at identifying the issues related to the use of a transdisciplinary approach, comprising an effectual foundation for a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of musical phenomena with the use of the resources of present-day musical computer technology, including the factors of indeterminacy in music researched with the aid of these technologies. Special attention in the article is devoted to the mathematical theory of information and its impact on various spheres of musicology. Musical computer technology, the use of which stipulates the possibilities of creation of new technological and experimental-practical means of music studies, may also be used upon the construction of music theory systems applicable to the sphere of musical education. It becomes an active instrument of research devoted to the problem range of trans-disciplinarity as a principle of organization of academic knowledge, presuming the interaction of many directions of scholarly research upon the solution of complex problems of musicology. The present-day level of development of musical computer technology makes it possible to examine use as an effective basis fo the creation of multicomponent complexes of hardware-software programs, which may be applied in the process of construction of intellectual systems of analysis and cataloguing of the music of the peoples of Russia and the whole world. The authors of the article illuminate the project of development of a Russian Electronic Musical Instrument undertaken by the associates of the scholarly-methodological laboratory “Musical computer technology” of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, relying on materials created with the participation of specialists who possess various methods and tools of a transdisciplinary approach towards the study of musical phenomena and endowed with the experience of developing contemporary musically directed programmatic means in both the sphere of the technology of their application for carrying out scholarly research and in the process of the realization of new professional directions in musical education.