This applet analyzes MIDI files for repeated forms, and then outputs an image like the one above, linking repeated parts. The image above is a mazurka by Chopin, with a “complex, nested structure.”

There is an image gallery worth checking out just for the extremes of repetition and non-repetition: Glass and Schoenberg are in there.

(via the music of sound)

An interesting post on a New York Times blog about John Roberts’ opinion of Michael Jackson when he worked in the Reagan White House:

I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson’s records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter [inviting MJ to the White House]. Sometimes people need to be reminded of the obvious: whatever its status as a cultural phenomenon, the Jackson concert tour is a massive commercial undertaking. The tour will do quite well financially by coming to Washington, and there is no need for the President to applaud such enlightened self-interest. Frankly, I find the obsequious attitude of some members of the White House staff toward Mr. Jackson’s attendants, and the fawning posture they would have the President of the United States adopt, more than a little embarrassing.

Roberts’ position on the repetition of pop music seems to inadvertently channel the European serialist avant-garde’s obsession with non-repetition, summed up by Stockhausen here:

I think that one should try to make music which is a bit more… flexible, so to speak, a bit more irregular. Irregularity is a challenge, you see. How far can we go in making music irregular?

(via NYT)