Musico-acoustic Depictions of Laminar and Turbulent Flows in Ligeti Piano Etude No. 9 and a Novel Method of Analysis

Abstract: The relationship between musical material and physical phenomena has become a topic in the musicological literature over the last several decades, particularly concerning elements of the musical system itself, and constructions found in the work of contemporary classical composers such as Gyorgy Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis. Most scholars, who adopt this approach, explore the physical phenomena of fractals in the analysis of musical works, but fluid mechanical frameworks, such as laminar and turbulent flows, offer a new avenue to be explored. In this paper I will propose a novel method of musical analysis for examining musical structures in terms of fluid-like behaviour such that Ligeti etude no. 9 serves as a model, whereby the metaphors of laminar and turbulent flows take precedence. The methodological design includes the utility of converting terms (by proposing correlations between physical concepts and the acoustic properties of music), theoretical frameworks for musicological application, and scatter plots, which provide central analytic support to demonstrating the fluid-like tendencies in musical materials, for they capture a formal development over time.