Dualisms of the Model
The I-R model holds that almost all musical parameters are scaled. From the psychophysics of sound (frequency, timing, amplitude, localization) music posits twelve dimensions (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.), which are further differentiated into twenty-six parameters. All syntactic parameters are implicative and thus capable of realization. Each occurs independently rather than in terms of a summarizing, reductive agencies (such as harmony or tonality). Incoming signals are differentials—rates of implicative and realizational change asserted with respect to reversal, process, and return, the fundamental structures. Changes in signal intensity derive from perceptual and cognitive reactions to strongly bundled, inputs. Although parametric relationships occur discretely in each voice, they can be functionally congruent and thus automatically generate groupings ready for TD assessment and rapid absorption into LTM. (see Narmour, 2015, for individual parametric scales.)
Musical Parameters
Revised Processive Structures
Revised Reversal Structures
Taken from “Toward a Unified Theory of the I-R Model (Part 1): Parametric Scales and Their Analogically Isomorphic Structures”, Music Perception 33 1, 32-69 (2015)