An analysis of pitch-class segmentation in John Cage's Ryoanji for oboe using morphological image analysis and formal concept analysis

Abstract

In 1983, John Cage used the traditional stone garden, or karesansui at the Zen temple, Ryōan-ji in Kyoto as a model to generate a series of visual and musical works that utilized tracings of a collection of his own rocks. In this article, I analyze the first of the musical works, Ryoanji for oboe, using mixed methods drawn from morphological image analysis and formal concept analysis (FCA). I introduce the aesthetics of the karesansui and then examine the previous work of van Tonder and Lyons regarding the medial axis transform (MAT) of the garden at Ryōan-ji. This leads to the use of the distance transform, local maxima, and Voronoi diagram in order to decompose the two-dimensional image plane of Cage's Ryoanji for oboe. Finally, using the technique of FCA for constructing a number of formal concept lattices, the pitch-class segmentation of Ryoanji for oboe is investigated in regard to the sound gardens and the classes of Voronoi regions found across sound gardens.