  The relationship between musical material and physical phenomena has become a
topic in the musicological literature over the last several decades,
particularly concerning elements of the musical system itself, and
constructions found in the work of contemporary classical composers such as
Gyorgy Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis. Most scholars, who adopt this approach,
explore the physical phenomena of fractals in the analysis of musical works,
but fluid mechanical frameworks, such as laminar and turbulent flows, offer a
new avenue to be explored. In this paper I will propose a novel method of
musical analysis for examining musical structures in terms of fluid-like
behaviour such that Ligeti etude no. 9 serves as a model, whereby the metaphors
of laminar and turbulent flows take precedence. The methodological design
includes the utility of converting terms (by proposing correlations between
physical concepts and the acoustic properties of music), theoretical frameworks
for musicological application, and scatter plots, which provide central
analytic support to demonstrating the fluid-like tendencies in musical
materials, for they capture a formal development over time.
