Ohio State University
School of Music

Music 824: Assignment #5 - Answers

Refer to the guitar arrangements of music by Bach, Carulli and Dowland, and answer the following questions:

Which finger is most commonly used to pluck strings?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'P'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'I'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'M'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'A'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'Q'
ANSWER: Index finger - 348 instances (Thumb 339; Middle 273; Ring 126; Little 0)
Which fret-board finger most commonly participates in forming guitar sonorities?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'a'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'b'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'c'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'd'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'e'
ANSWER: Index finger - 242 instances (Thumb 0; Middle 176; Ring 192; Little 145)
What is the most common combination of two or more plucking fingers?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | humsed 's/[^PIMAQ]//g' | rid -GLId | grep -v '^.$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
(ALTERNATE): extract -i '**fret' * | humsed 's/[^PIMAQ]//g' | rid -GLId | grep '..' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
ANSWER: "PI" thumb & index finger - 85 instances
Which fret-board finger is most likely to stop two or more strings simultaneously?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'a.*a'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'b.*b'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'c.*c'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'd.*d'
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | rid -GLId | grep -c 'e.*e'
ANSWER: index finger (27 instances)
In the Bach work, which finger most frequently plucks a string by itself (i.e. not in combination with other plucking fingers)?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' bwv996 | humsed 's/[^PIMAQ]//g' | rid -GLId | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
ANSWER: middle finger (37 times)
Is this single plucking finger also the most frequently used by Dowland and by Carulli?
ANSWER: yes (Dowland 28 times; Carulli 68 times)
Which of the Bach, Carulli, or Dowland works tends to place the player's `left hand' further up the neck of the finger-board? (I.e., Which work has the highest average fret-position?)
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' bwv996 | humsed '/=/d; s/[^0-9]/ /g; s/ */ /g; s/^ *//' | rid -GLId | stats
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' carulli | humsed '/=/d; s/[^0-9]/ /g; s/ */ /g; s/^ *//' | rid -GLId | stats
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' dowland | humsed '/=/d; s/[^0-9]/ /g; s/ */ /g; s/^ *//' | rid -GLId | stats
ANSWER: Bach is slight higher up the neck (1.89 frets versus 1.85 for Carulli and 1.59 for Dowland)

Another approach to this question.
Which of the three works has a greater proportion of sonorities using open strings?
First calculate the total number of sonorities in each work:

COMMAND: rid -GLId bwv996 | grep -v = | grep -c '|'
COMMAND: rid -GLId carulli | grep -v = | grep -c '|'
COMMAND: rid -GLId dowland | grep -v = | grep -c '|'

Then calculate the number of sonorities containing open strings:

COMMAND: rid -GLId bwv996 | grep -v = | grep -c 0
COMMAND: rid -GLId carulli | grep -v = | grep -c 0
COMMAND: rid -GLId dowland | grep -v = | grep -c 0
ANSWER: Dowland has the most open-string sonorities (68/132 = 51.5%), followed by Carulli (159/368 = 43.2%) then Bach (62/148 = 41.9%)
What is the most common succession of plucking finger-combinations?
COMMAND: extract -i '**fret' * | humsed 's/[^PIMAQ]//g; s/^$/./' | context -n 2 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
ANSWER: middle followed by index (121 instances)
What do the four most common successions of plucking finger-combinations tell us about guitar arrangements?
ANSWER: The four most common successions are: M -> I; I -> M; M -> PI; and PI -> M. These suggest that there is a tendency to avoid having the same finger pluck twice in a row.