Channeling Bamberger : An Unorthodox Appreciation of Jeanne Bamberger ’ s Work on Musical Development and Musical Understanding

This article serves as a tribute to Bamberger as a notable researcher and teacher. The author articulates “working principles” that characterize Bamberger’s work and draws comparisons between two programs, Impromptu and Music Exploration Machine (MxM). From the perspective of music cognition, the most significant elements of this paper concern explicitly representing grouping structure and reductional structure of melodies within a computational formalism. From a developmental perspective, the most salient element is the identification and discussion of working principles associated with Bamberger’s compelling and challenging approach to research on musical development.