The Implementation of Chronotonic Similarity within an Applet

The term chronotonic similarity/distance was first introduced by Hofmann-Engl in the late 1990s in order to describe the phenomenon of what might be called rhythmic similarity, and although it has been used within a number of studies and in particular in order to classify flamenco meters, it appears that no attempt has been undertaken so far to produce an application which would allow potential users to compute the chronotonic similarity via a user friendly interface. This paper introduces the reader to the concept of chronotonic similarity and discusses the method which was used to implement this similarity measure within an applet. The paper also touches on issues of ongoing development and the integration of the software into other applications such as automated composers, automated analysis and search engines.