Degree of Freedom

• CURIE: gmeow:DegreeOfFreedom
• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/DegreeOfFreedom
• Category: class
• Defined by: gmeow:slices/music
• Box roles: TBox role (What is this?)

A reified relator that positively declares how a musical work or expression determines one musical parameter. Indeterminacy is not an absence; it is a declaration of status (fixed, constrained, free, or delegated). Each cell is {work/expression × parameter × determination status × optional constraint}; Cage's 4′33″ is fully specified by a set of such cells (Principles 9, 11, 12).

Structure

Subclass of: gufo:Relator

Practical Pattern

Use gmeow:DegreeOfFreedom as a specialized kind of gufo:Relator. Add statement metadata or a standpoint when the assertion needs provenance, confidence, or vantage.

Example Snippets

These snippets are generated from canonical slice examples and trimmed to the Turtle blocks where this term appears.

Score As Lossy Projection

• Source: slices/extensions/music/examples/score-as-lossy-projection.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-extensions-music-examples-score-as-lossy-projection

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: the score is NOT the work — it is one lossy projection of it
# (, , P12). The slice's thesis is "frame-relative musical content; every
# notation is a lossy projection." Here a MusicalWork sits at the head of the WEMI
# spine. A printed gmeow:ScoreEdition (a Manifestation) embodies a notated
# Expression — but the notation FIXES only some musical parameters and DELEGATES
# others to the performer (gmeow:DegreeOfFreedom with determinationDelegatedPerformer).
# Two performed Expressions realize the very same work and agree on everything the
# score fixes (pitch, duration over the 12-EDO gmeow:tuningSystem12EDO frame) yet
# legitimately diverge on timbre and dynamics — the parameters the page never
# carried. That divergence is the proof of loss: the score under-determines the
# work, and the missing information lives in the performance, not the paper.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/music/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

# --- WHAT THE SCORE DROPS: parameters the notation delegates to the performer.
ex:dofTimbre a gmeow:DegreeOfFreedom ;
    rdfs:label        "timbre left to the performer"@en ;
    gmeow:dofWork     ex:nocturne ;
    gmeow:dofParameter gmeow:musicalParameterTimbre ;
    gmeow:dofStatus   gmeow:determinationDelegatedPerformer .

External Equivalences

Equivalent or closely aligned targets: wd

Linkages

Generated from the canonical mapping DSL. SSSOM files are the generated public interchange form for term equivalences.

Term Equivalences