David Kraehenbuehl's A Formal Triad: analysis and composition with information theory

Abstract:
In the late 1950s there was an explosion of new, information theory-based scientific ideas, which were gradually filtering into the cultural consciousness of the Western World. First described by Claude Shannon in 1949, information theory is concerned with the information content of a message and the speed and accuracy of its transmission. The use of information theory in disciplines other than electronic communication developed and grew during the 1950s and 1960s.

It was in this intellectual environment that David Kraehenbuehl (1923-1997 – an American composer, theorist and founding editor of the Journal of Music Theory) wrote his piece, A Formal Triad (1958). The piece was structured directly in accordance to his and Edgar Coons’ theoretic/analytic paper, ‘Information Theory as a Measure of Structure in Music,’ an article that appeared in the Journal of Music Theory in the same year.

My paper explores the relationship between A Formal Triad and the theoretical analysis in the Coons and Kraehenbuehl article. I also take into account Kraehenbuehl’s ideals about what music theory should be – ideals set out in three editorials for the Journal of Music Theory in its first two years of publication.

As well as the relationship between what Kraehenbuehl and Coons wrote and Kraehenbuehl’s method of composition, I look at A Formal Triad in the light of other methods of analysis using information theory – with their emphases on melody or style rather than structure – to ascertain how close ideas that went by the same name (‘analysis suing information theory’) actually were.

David Kraehenbuehl’s compositions, analyses and theories are, in my opinion, an important resource when looking at music in the twentieth century. Using information theory might seem to be a dry, soulless way of going about the work of composition. In this case, however, the resulting music is accessible, enjoyable and emotional.