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PREFACE
A piece of music, no matter what style or from what era or culture, will consist of many different
musical elements. These elements work together and interact in various ways to create the
composition as we know it. Among the most important elements that nearly all works share are
melody, rhythm, harmony, sonority, texture and form. Different musical compositions stress
different elements: dance music, for example, focuses primarily on the element of rhythm, while
countless modern classical concert pieces and especially electronic works are mostly “about”
sound quality and tone color. A large number of compositions, however, strive for a balance of all
the elements.
This text will describe the major elements of music and define a number of concepts that relate to
each of them. It will explore many different techniques and methods used by composers from all
eras and styles to create meaningful and unified musical compositions. By reading the text while
listening to the musical examples, then discussing the concepts while analyzing additional
examples in class, the student will gain a greater understanding of the roles each musical element
can serve in a work. This will also allow students to express their ideas and observations about a
piece of music using terminology that is universally accepted. This effort will not be successful,
however, without careful attention and repeated listening to the musical examples that accompany
each chapter. All examples in the book can be heard via the embedded links.
Above all, this text intends to expose students to the various elements of music with the goal of
understanding how they interact in a composition. By engaging these elements in an active
listening experience, it is hoped that a greater appreciation of the composition as a whole will be
gained.
How to use this text:
Highlighted text implies a link to a music example. Students should become familiar with these
examples in order to best integrate and interpret the written material and also for possible
identification on a quiz. Most of the musical examples played in class will also be found on
Blackboard. The text will only be effective when the student listens to the examples online while
reading. The importance of listening to the examples online cannot be overstated. Note that the
majority of the musical examples are of electronic music, but because a lot of electronic music is
not notated, some of the examples use traditional acoustic music, as they best illustrate the
concept being covered.
The symbol § indicates that an assignment is required for the section of text just completed. Short
answer and listening assignments are on Blackboard in a folder called Assignments.
Finally, be aware that the text will only be a framework for the course, and topics of interest to
the class may be covered spontaneously. Most importantly, the book is intended to supplement in-
class discussions and will be most useful as a means to reinforce concepts covered during the
class sessions. It is not intended to standalone as a self-directed reader.
(Thanks to Paul Beaudoin for his contributions to Unit VI and to Brian Robison for his critiques and
advice.) -DHM
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MELODY
In order to provide a definition broad enough to cover the many different ways melodies
can exist in a musical work, we will define melody simply as a succession of musical
tones that can be perceived as a whole. In some 20th
- and 21st-century concert music, the
melody might, on first hearing, sound like no more than a random series of notes.
Moreover, in many electronic works, it may be hard to detect any recognizable melody
due to the emphasis on other elements, such as sonority or rhythm. After repeated
hearings, however, the various aspects of nearly any melody can be identified and
analyzed.
There are a number of characteristics of melody that are important to consider when
evaluating the melodic element of a composition. These include the melody’s physical
characteristics, meaning its shape or contour; structure, which identifies how the notes
are strung together into smaller and larger groupings; and tonal makeup, meaning how
the notes are organized into a recognizable collection of notes. These topics, along with
other important issues related to melody, will be covered below, but first, a distinction
must be made between the terms frequency and pitch.
The frequency of a sound is an objective, scientifically measurable characteristic of a
sonic event that refers to the number of times per second a sound wave vibrates in the air
(this topic will be covered further in the section on sonority). The unit of measurement
for frequency is cycles per second (cps), or Hertz (abbreviated Hz), a cycle being one
complete back and forth vibration of a waveform. A sound’s frequency accounts for our
perception of its pitch. The term “pitch” has two different but related meanings. In a
general sense, pitch is the phenomenon of “high and low” that we experience when we
hear a sound. People will differ in their perception of pitch; to one person, a sound might
seem to have a very high pitch, while to another, it might be only moderately so.
Pitch can also be used as a synonym for “note”: the note “A4” could also be called the
pitch “A4.” Musicians often refer to the entire set of As or Cs or Bs as pitch-classes. In
other words, to make a reference to all the As found on the piano you could say “there are
8 instances of the pitch-class A found on the piano.” Many musical events have a clearly
defined pitch, while others tend more towards noise or some other broad-spectrum sound.
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Listen to Example 1, an excerpt from "MAA" by Pan Sonic and Example 2, "Midnight
Trail" by Tangerine Dream, and consider the relative importance of melody in each
composition. Example 1 has no recognizable succession of notes that could be considered
a traditional melody, while Example 2 uses a repeating four-note melody that begins on a
new starting note with each repetition.
TONAL CONTENT
The notes used in a melody are typically drawn from various types of pitch collections.
Among the most common collections are major and minor scales, though other types,
for example, modes and tone rows, are often found in Western music, and additional
types of collections also appear in many non-western musical traditions. Electronic music
composers also have the ability to use microtonal scales, which consist of distances
between notes that are even smaller than those found on traditional acoustic instruments
(see below). By listening carefully to the music and examining the notes of a melody
from a printed score (if available), the listener can determine what type of collection the
notes are drawn from and thereby characterize the tonal content of the music.
Like the other collections, major and minor scales are standardized arrangements of notes
that form the basis for the melodies found in a composition. Each of these scales is
organized in a different way, but they are all similar in that they contain only seven of the
twelve total notes that are available in the Western music system. The name for this
larger set of 12 is the chromatic scale, but unlike major and minor scales, the chromatic
scale is not typically used directly as the source for melodies. Rather, it represents the
“superset” of all possible pitch classes, in effect, the “theoretical universe” of all the notes
available to a composer or songwriter. In the example below, the chromatic scale is
written out starting on the note C, but in fact, it could be written starting on any note in
any octave, as any written version would contain the same pitches. Listen to Example 3,
a chromatic scale and note the identical distance between each pair of notes.
Ex. 3 The chromatic scale contains all pitch classes available in Western music
Notice that there are two versions of all of the notes except E and B: the chromatic scale
contains C and C# (called C sharp), G and G#, etc. A major or minor scale will only use
one each of every pitch class –there will never be a repeated note name in any traditional
scale.
The seven individual notes of a major and minor scale are identified by their scale
degree, which is a number that identifies their position within the scale. Each note of the
scale also has a corresponding name that identifies the role or function it serves. The first
note of any scale, for example, is the tonic, which serves as the “home base” or resting
point, and the fifth, which acts as a guiding force back towards the tonic home base, is
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always called the dominant, regardless of what the actual note name might be or what
specific scale it appears in. Melodies that employ the concept of home base – of having a
central focus on a specific note – are called tonal melodies, and with few exceptions,
using a major or minor scale will produce this result.
The scale degrees for a C major scale along with their names are shown below notated on
a traditional five-line musical staff. Listen to Example 4 and note that unlike the
chromatic scale, the distances between notes are not all identical.
Ex. 4 A C major scale
Scales do not exist in isolation; rather, they are part of a larger hierarchy of musical
materials called a key. Choosing a key is like setting a context for a musical work; it
determines the scale, hence the primary notes that will be used and the relationship of the
notes to one another and to the tonic. The key also determines what key signature will
be placed at the beginning of the notated music as well as how different combinations of
notes from the scale should be combined into chords (chords will be discussed further in
the unit on harmony). The key signature is a notational shorthand used to indicate which
version of any given note is to be played throughout the composition. This saves the
composer from having to use a special mark called an accidental on every instance of
that note each time it occurs. For example, in certain keys, the note F natural is used,
while in others, the note F# (F sharp) is required. Both F and F-sharp are written on the
same space within the staff lines, even though F-sharp sounds a little higher than the
normal F. By putting a sharp sign (#) in the key signature at the beginning of each stave
of the music, the performer understands that every time an F occurs, it is to be interpreted
as F-sharp.
Keys are often chosen because the notes they contain can be easily performed by certain
instruments or singers. The keys of C, A, G, for example, are good keys for guitarists
because the chords they provide are particularly easy to play. They might also be chosen
because of a certain affect or mood they are perceived to have: the key of D minor is
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often considered to be a “sad” key, for example, while D and A major are considered to
be “bright” or “happy” keys. (These characterizations are mostly subjective.) Any of the
12 notes of the chromatic scale can function as the starting point for a key, though not all
have traditional moods associated with them.
Many of the notes in a composition will come from the scale determined by the key,
which helps provide a sense of unity to a piece. It also helps to create a sense of stability
on and around the tonic note. However, nearly all melodies employ chromatic notes
(from the Greek word “chroma,” which means color), which are notes that fall outside
the scale determined by the key being used. Chromatic notes add variety to a melody and
can create momentary points of tension and instability. Because they are not indicated by
the key signature, the music would need to contain accidentals before any chromatic note,
as shown in the Beethoven example below.
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Ex. 5 Accidentals are used to indicate chromatic notes (Beethoven: Fur Elise)
(QQQ get chromatic electronic melody)
Being able to judge if a melody’s tonal content is drawn from a major or minor scale
takes practice; many listeners can’t easily distinguish between these two, especially on
first hearing. Melodies based on both these types of scales often have a feeling of moving
in a clear direction, of heading to a goal. They typically exhibit a quality of resolving or
having reached a conclusion when they end. Major and minor scales account for the vast
majority of the music that modern listeners are exposed to, though other options will be
considered below.
Atonal Melodies
In much classical concert music of the past century, both acoustic and electronic, and in
various forms of modern jazz, composers often composed melodies that had no tonic note
or home base and that were not based on traditional pitch collections. The pitch
collections used were often unique and distinct for every new composition. Moreover,
rather than using only seven of the notes of the chromatic scale, composers used all
twelve notes in individualized arrangements that fit their expressive needs. The melodies
thereby created moved freely among the notes of the chromatic scale and avoided the
familiar landmarks and references found in tonal music, i.e., music using traditional
scales. Melodies of this type are called atonal and have no clear key or home base,
though they might focus on a single note or groups of notes at different points in the
composition.
Because they tend to use all twelve notes throughout a composition, atonal compositions
do not use a key signature. Rather, every note that requires an accidental will be written
with one preceding it, as shown below.
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Example 6 Stefan Wolpe: Piece in Two Parts for Solo Violin, an atonal melody
Listen to Example 6 and follow the score. You may find it to be unfamiliar and perhaps
even unpleasant. It will, perhaps, sound aimless or lacking direction, and you may be
completely unable to predict when or where it will end. Atonal music demands new
listening strategies from the listener and is often less accessible, especially on first
hearing. Yet with repeated exposure and some idea of the composer’s intentions and
methods, it can be as aesthetically pleasing as any other style.
A more systematic approach to atonal melody uses a system developed by Viennese
composer Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg’s system, which is called serial atonality (or
serialism), will be discussed in detail in the unit on harmony. In brief, composers using
this system employ predetermined pitch collections called pitch-class sets or tone rows.
Tone rows typically use all twelve tones of the chromatic scale that they arrange in a set
order prior to beginning the composition of the piece. However, rows containing fewer
than 12 notes are also common. As with scales, tone rows are used to create both
melodies and chords. Because many of the early electronic music composers came out of
the 20th classical tradition, a large number of electronic work intended for concert hall
performance, use atonal melodies.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The physical characteristics of a melody involve the way in which it moves through its
“surroundings,” that is, how the notes travel through the "musical space" that has been
defined for a particular piece of music. Perhaps it moves ever higher, ascending towards
some climatic point, or maybe it descends rapidly to the lowest note of the instrument,
then sweeps slowly upward until it hits a peak. A melody might also simply remain in
one place, repeating the same note multiple times, or jump randomly from high to low
and back.
Imagine a melody that would sound like the images below. The first melody would be
smooth and move gently between its successive notes while the second is more sharp-
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edged or “angular,” reaching its highest point then dropping to its lowest notes fairly
quickly:
Now look at the contours in the figure below and try to imagine what a melody using
each would sound like. These graphs were created by a scholar named Inge Skog in his
effort to standardize the way melodies from all over the world are classified:
Figure 7 Skog classification of melodic pitch contour
In general, good melodies have a clear sense of direction and lead the listener to a climax
point or goal—they seem to be “heading someplace.” Ascending melodies in particular
can create a sense of moving forward, of building momentum towards a goal, and
descending melodies can imply a sense of release or resolution. However, a good melody
will typically have variety and balance in the way it moves. Too much activity in the
same direction, for example a melody that moves consistently upward, or only
downward, or that focuses primarily on just a single, repeated note, could lead to
monotony and predictability and might cause the listener to lose interest in the
composition. Some alternation of ascending and descending motion with a climactic
point perhaps midway through on the other hand, could make the melodic line more
interesting.
Look at the lines drawn over the notes in the Mozart example below and listen to
Example 7. These “contour lines” illustrate the movement of the melody and show how it
moves downward at times, occasionally upward, and also sometimes stays in place with a
repeated note. Trace the movement of the notes across the page by drawing over the
contour lines with a pencil while listening to the music. How often does the melody
change direction?
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Example 7 Mozart: Symphony in G minor, opening theme, mvt. I ♫
The terms contour and range are used to describe this movement. Contour, or shape,
refers to the way in which a melody moves up and down. The examples above are useful
terms for describing the shape of a melody but you might also find other words to be
useful. The "curve," "angle" or “profile” of a melody could be depicted by terms such as
"ascending" or "descending," "flat" or "static," "angular" or "sharp-edged" and "wave-
like" or "disjunct." (Imagine a melody with a contour like a mountain range...)
Listen to Example 7 again - it is well-balanced in the type of motion it employs, and the
upward skip in measure 3 contrasts nicely with the descending scale-wise motion that
follows it, ending with the focus on the repeated note C5 in ms. 5. Now listen to Example
8, “Prep Gwarlek 3b” by Aphex Twin. Notice how the melody consists of a sequence of
only a few notes, uses entirely low notes, and doesn't span a very great distance overall.
With the exception of a few unexpected events that recur starting around :50, the melody
is fairly static in contour. Clearly, traditional melody is less of a priority in this piece than
in the Mozart.
Range refers to the overall distance between the highest and lowest notes of a melody
and like contour, is a characteristic of a melody’s basic design. Different instruments
have wider or narrower potential ranges than others. The piano, for example, has eighty-
eight notes that span just over seven octaves, which allows a composer to write melodies
with a much greater range than the human voice, which has a range of just about two
octaves. A typical electronic keyboard has a 61-note range, though larger professional
digital pianos often employ the entire range of 88 notes used by an acoustic piano.
Therefore, a melody played on one instrument might cover a larger part of that
instrument’s available range than the same melody played on another instrument, and
when assessing or describing the range of a melody, it is important to keep in mind the
specific instrument that is playing.
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From www.cartage.org
Melodies that use a large portion of an instrument’s possible notes are called “wide,” and
those that have only a few notes separating their highest from their lowest pitches would
be called “narrow.” (There are many additional possibilities in between those extremes.)
Range can be more accurately characterized by counting the exact number of half steps
between the lowest and highest notes and assigning the proper interval, though this
information is generally only useful to someone studying a melody for analysis purposes.
Listen again to Prep Gwarlek 3b and evaluate the overall range covered by the melody.
Now listen to Example 9 Steven Jaffe’s Silicon Valley Breakdown and evaluate the space
from high to low within which the melody, generated by a program that models acoustic
string instruments on a computer, uses in the first minute or so. Notice how the range
extends even further when the second, “counter” melody comes in halfway through.
Use of Range
Rather than use all of the available “musical space” all of the time, melodies tend to
emphasize and exist in different segments of the total range that is available. These
segments are called registers, and an instrument’s overall range can typically be broken
down into several distinct registers. For example, it is common to split the available range
into at least three registers, described simply as “upper,” “middle” and “lower.” (The
term “register” will be discussed again when the element of Sonority is covered.) In
practice, it’s possible that a melody in one part of a song or composition uses only the
highest notes of the instrument and never descends into the lower register. Other
melodies in the same composition might move continuously throughout the entire
musical canvas, dipping into the extreme lower register before ascending to a climax that
employs the highest notes of the instrument. Obviously, the possibilities are endless. The
Italian term tessitura refers to the predominant register that is used by an individual
instrumental or vocal part for some major portion of a composition.
Listen to Example 10, a popular song from the 1960s, originally sung by a male tenor
voice. The highest note is F4 and the lowest is C4, so the entire range is just a fourth, or
5 semitones, but the tenor can cover a range of 20 or more semitones. How would you
describe the range of this tune? Listen to the example to confirm your assessment.
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Example 10 The Beatles: “Come Together” main melody.
Like most musical elements, the characteristics of a melody can change dramatically
from one part of a composition to another, so it’s best not to try and characterize too
much of a composition’s melodic material at once. (It is, of course, possible that no
change will occur over a long span of time). Moreover, no analysis can take into account
every subtle change in the music, so descriptions of melodies tend to be general in nature
(“primarily ascending” or “mostly wavelike,” etc.). Most importantly, be sure that any
analysis you make of a melody is based on the characteristics and capabilities of the
specific performing instruments and that you make your judgments only after listening to
the melody repeatedly.
STRUCTURE
Like sentences in prose, melodies are constructed from smaller segments called phrases.
Phrases act like clauses in English grammar and when combined, form larger units of
structure. If the music is pitched and/or key-based, phrases will often delineated by the
harmonic underpinnings of the music, and phrase endings often coincide with resting
points or harmonic goals called cadences. (Harmony will be discussed in detail in the
next unit.) Cadences are typically brought about through clearly directed harmonic
motion that can be either temporary, like a comma in prose, or terminal (final), like a
period. They can also be created through directed melodic motion, for example, a melody
that ends on some note that the composer has established as a point of arrival or goal, or
through a rhythmic device such as a slowing down of the tempo (called a ritardando). In
many cases, all of these methods work together to form the sense of repose or ending that
a cadence implies.
Another common technique in some styles of electronic music is for the entire
composition to be made up of phrases of equal length that simply recur throughout.
Example 11 , "4001" by Squarepusher, uses this approach, repeating an 8-beat (two
measures of four beats each) phrase structure repeatedly, both during the opening
rhythmic section and when the background melody enters.
Occasionally, phrases are made up of smaller building blocks called motives, or motifs.
Motives are the smallest recognizable elements in a melody and might be no more than
three or four notes. One of the most famous of all motives is the opening of Beethoven’s
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Fifth Symphony, familiar from both many thousands of concert performances and more
recently, aspirin commercials. Listen to Example 12 now.
Example 12 Opening motive form Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
Motives can become very important elements in a work if the composer repeats them or
uses them as the basis for variation and development. In some cases, a motive will sound
almost insignificant on first hearing but will take on enhanced meaning as it recurs.
Motives will typically have a distinctive melodic and rhythmic character, and in some
cases, composers will isolate one or more of those characteristics for manipulation over
the course of an entire section or movement of a piece. Beethoven, for example, uses only
the three repeating-note figure (both with and without the ending note) at many points in
his symphony.
In the next example, the melody is made up of two short phrases that can’t standalone –
the first phrase seems to ask a question while the second “answers” it. This type of
phrasing is called antecedent-consequent phrasing, which gets its name from a similar
technique of English grammar. Listen to Example 12a and note the slight pause between
the two phrases.
By listening to and examining a melody's component parts and noting the way it is put
together, the melody’s phrase structure can be characterized. For example, a melody
that is comprised of two or three phrases of fairly equal length, such as Examples 12a, is
said to have a symmetric (meaning, “even” or “balanced”) phrase structure. Melodies
made from phrases of considerably different lengths are said to be asymmetric (or
“uneven”). Classically derived styles of electronic music would favor the latter approach,
with the possibility that phrases cannot even be distinguished one from the next, while
dance or other pop-oriented styles would tend to be far more symmetric in their structure.
Typically, a change in some characteristic of the melody will help the listener identify a
change in the phrasing. A change in the melody’s direction, such as a large leap followed
by a sequence of steps, could signal a new phrase. Phrases might be delineated when a
melody restarts after reaching a goal or coming to a temporary pause.
A change in the dynamics (loudness level) or articulation marking (playing style) is
another way phrases could be differentiated. For example, one phrase might be soft and
legato (smoothly connected), then the next phrase might be loud and staccato (short,
detached). A change in instrumentation, meaning the instrument (or instruments) that is
playing the melody, would also be a fairly clear indication that a new phrase has begun,
as would a change in register. Like other elements in music, phrase structure is best
looked at for only short, distinct portions of a composition, rather than for the work as a
whole.
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Listen to and characterize the phrasing in Example 13, the song “Twin Soul Trie” by
Tangerine Dream. Is it mostly symmetric or asymmetric? Can you tell where one phrase
ends and the next begins? What qualities allow you to do so? Now compare that with the
phrasing in Example 14, Stockhausen's Study #2. How clear is the phrasing in this
example? Are the phrases of equal length? Can you predict when one phrase ends and the
next begins? How is the music put together?
Two or more phrases, such as those in an antecedent-consequent relationship, often
combine to form a larger structural unit called a period. There are many types of musical
periods, some that stand alone and some that imply further movement or continuation,
but a complete discussion is beyond the scope of this book. A later unit on form will
explore musical structure in more detail.
Tuning Systems
Most Western music incorporates a system of tuning in which there are 12 equal
divisions of the octave, i.e., each of the 12 notes is equal distance from the next. This
system of tuning is called 12-division equal temperament. Other types of equal-
tempered tunings divide the octave into different numbers of notes, for example, 6 or
even 24 equal divisions. In the Stockhausen Study II example above, the composer
creates an unorthodox scale that results in a distance roughly 10% larger than the
traditional semitone between each scale step. In another of his works, Gesang der
Jünglinge (Song of the Youths; 1955–56) the scales included distances as small as 60
divisions to the octave up to divisions of only seven per octave (as opposed to the 12
divisions found in traditional Western music). The electronic devices Stockhausen used
to generate sound in these and his other works gave him tremendous control over the
tuning characteristics of his music.
Equal temperament is a “man-made” construct that was created, in part, so that
instruments could play in more than one key. It is not based strictly on the laws of
physics, which calculate musical intervals according to strict mathematical ratios between
the fundamental frequencies of notes. (Recall that frequency refers to the number of
times per second that a sound wave repeats its pattern of motion as it travels through the
air and is the scientific basis behind our perception of pitch. The distance of an octave in
music is equivalent to a frequency ratio of 2:1, for example A4 is 440 and A5 is 880, and
other common intervals are also simple whole-number ratios. This topic will be covered
in greater detail in the section on Sonority). Equal temperament adjusts the frequency of
various notes so that they will be in tune, regardless of what note a melody starts on or
what key the music is in.
There are dozens of other tuning systems besides equal temperament and each uses
different ratios between notes. And as noted above, many tuning systems, including those
that use equal division, split the octave into more or fewer than 12 parts. One system,
called Just Intonation, uses the strict ratios that occur naturally between intervals with
no adjustments or modifications. (Pythagoras supposedly uncovered these relationships
through experiments with vibrating strings.) Some people claim that just intonation is
more pleasing to the ear, but one problem it presents is that an instrument tuned using just
intonation can only play in one key; it must be retuned to play in another. Listen to
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Example 15 to hear a guitar retuned to conform to a just intonation tuning. It may sound
out of tune until your ears adjust to the sound.
Like Stockhausen, other modern composers, such as American composer Harry Partch
(1901 – 1974), created their own unique tuning systems and even built custom
instruments to use them. Partch constructed an instrument that divides the octave into 43
unequal parts, which you can hear in Example 16. Here again, the music may sound out
of tune, as the tuning systems are not what we are accustomed to hearing.
The term microtone is used to describe any musical distance that is smaller than a semi-
tone, for example, a quartertone, which is one half of a semitone. Microtonal music is
a general term that applies to music that uses such intervals. The term “microtonal” can
be used to characterize music that incorporates alternative tuning systems or it can simply
refer to a melody where the octave is split into more than 12 parts with no systematic
organization. Microtonal music is especially easy to produce on a computer, where
composers can create sounds that are extremely small distances apart. To calculate such
small distances, composers use a unit of measurement called a cent. A cent is the name
for an interval that is 1/100th
of a semitone, and most modern synthesizers and synthesis
software allows for sounds to be generated using such increments.
Microtones are common features of many non-Western music systems, and such systems
have served an influential role on various styles of electronic music. The Middle Eastern
maqam, for example, is a system that governs how melodies are constructed and used
(raga is the name for a similar system that governs melody in Indian music). Example
16a uses a maqam called bayati, which incorporates whole tones, semitones and three-
quarter tones. The electronic instrument performing the music is a Moog “Little Phatty,”
a keyboard synthesizer that can be easily retuned to produce a wide range of tuning
approaches. Such devices are highly programmable, which means that the any
frequency desired could result when a key is pressed. This topic will be discussed further
when electronic hardware is covered later in the course.
The example below shows one means of notating microtonal intervals in an acoustic
orchestral work, for which standard notation has no common symbols. The symbols
shown here were used by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 - ) in his piece,
Anaklasis (1959/60). From left, they indicate 1/3-tone sharp, 2/3-tone sharp, etc. In
addition to requiring the performers to play unusual tunings, the piece also requires them
to drop pencils on the strings of the piano and sweep the strings of the piano with jazz-
drumming brushes. Listen to Example 16b and notice the unusual sounds made by the
orchestra. Though all of the sounds you hear are produced by acoustic instruments, it’s
easy to imagine that a composer interested in this type of sound quality would be
attracted to electronic music, where similar sounds can be easily created.
Symbols denoting microtones used by Penderecki.
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Easley Blackwood is another composer who has worked extensively with microtones in
an electronic context. In Example 17 you can hear his piece Twelve Microtonal Etudes.
Each of the 12 short etudes (“studies”) uses a different equal division of the octave. The
movements are called simply “16 Notes,” “23 Notes,” “20 Notes,” etc., and the work is
performed using a keyboard synthesizer that was retuned to produce microtones specified
by the composer.
Compositional Techniques
Composing a work for full symphonic orchestra or purely electronic playback may seem
like magic to some listeners, but in fact, composers for centuries have relied on a number
of common and familiar techniques to assist them in generating the musical material
needed to suit their expressive purposes. Developing their craft through many years of
study and careful examination of works by influential composers and songwriters,
musicians acquire a vast repertory of techniques and processes that they use in their
music.
In much recent electronic music, modern composers often spend considerable amounts of
time planning a composition by developing custom processes or concepts that will
determine the melody or other elements of the work. Oftentimes, implementing these
processes is more important than the actual notes that are created using such processes.
Composer Iannis Xenakis, for example, used mathematical models to determine the
distribution of notes in many of his works and allowed the models to determine nearly
every aspect of the piece; the composer had no regard for the actual notes that were heard
at any given moment as long as they fit the model he chose.
More traditionally, melody has played a central role in most styles of music and many
techniques have evolved that are intended to help the composer come up with the
extensive amount of melodic material that is often needed for a lengthy composition or
extended improvisation. These techniques involve reusing the same melody or, perhaps,
only a portion of it, in different shapes and guises throughout a composition. The term
melodic development is used to describe a large number of different techniques for
developing or transforming a melody through varied reuse or alteration. These techniques
were developed by classical composers over the years but have now found their way into
jazz, electronic music and other styles. Some of those techniques are discussed below.
Sequencing is a process where a melody is repeated several times in succession with
each repetition beginning on a different note. Each successive starting note of the
repeating pattern might be a step above or below the previous one, or each new starting
note could be a large interval away from the original. Regardless of which approach is
used, the same distance is usually used for each successive repeat, so if the first repetition
is a two semitones below the original, the next will be the same distance from that, and so
on. Sequencing is a very effective technique over a short period of time but can become
monotonous if carried on for too long. Normally after only three or four repetitions, the
technique becomes obvious and predictable to the listener. Listen to the melody below
and notice the fourfold repetition of the sequence, each starting a step below the previous.
(QQQ do new example)
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Example 18 A melodic sequence
(QQQ replace this) The song “Autumn Leaves” below is built on a two-measure
sequence, initially starting on the note G4, that is repeated four times. The indications
“1.” And “2.” mean that the melody is to be played through once, then repeated using the
section marked “2.,” which means second ending, on the second occurrence.
Example 19 “Autumn Leaves” A melodic sequence.
(QQQchange this) As you can see in both examples, successive sequences tend to move
the same intervallic distance from one another. In both of the examples above, each
repetition is one scale step below the previous one. Moving down a step is by no means
the only option; each sequence could leap upward or downward by some amount, but as
noted, it is common for the pattern of intervallic distance to be repeated with each
successive occurrence.
Note that the term “sequencing” has another meaning when used to describe a type of
music software that places melodic (or rhythmic) patterns in sequence, one after the
other, using a timeline. This type of software will be discussed later in the reading.
Motivic development is another rather broad term that refers to the use of a small
motive, often simply 2 or 3 notes, as the "cell" or "germinal idea" of a larger section of
music. A motive that is well suited to development should have a clear and distinct
character including both identifiable melodic or rhythmic traits, which provides the
composer with opportunities for variation and transformation while still allowing the
motive to remain recognizable.
As mentioned above, one of the most famous examples of motivic development is in the
first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, shown above. This short, 4-note motive
is transformed into a large portion of the movement’s melodic material. By repeating,
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shortening, lengthening, inverting (playing “upside down”), sequencing and otherwise
developing this motive, much of the music for the first movement is created.
A number of the most common techniques of motivic development have specific names.
For example, to take a melody and shorten all the note durations is called diminution
(compare Example 34a with Example 34). To lengthen all the durations is called
augmentation (34b).
Example 20 Original form of melody
Example 20a Diminution
Example 20b Augmentation (first two measures only)
To play a melody backwards is called retrograde, and playing each note in the opposite
direction is called inversion. To isolate just a part of a melody—perhaps the first three
notes of a longer melody—is called fragmentation. Listen to the different processes used
in Example 35, which will first present a four-measure melody, then use retrograde and
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two types of inversion.
Example 21 Some techniques for developing a melody. Note the difference between
Tonal inversion and Real inversion.
Of course, any number of melodic techniques can be combined and used at the same
time. Inventive composers will find endless ways to create new material from a limited
number of basic elements. This helps give a piece of music an "organic" or integrated
quality and helps the listener better comprehend the logic of the music. The reuse of
melodic material for modern composers is so significant that composers today often use
music software to generate a large number of variations and permutations on a melody
that they give to the computer as input. This type of software is called algorithmic
composition software and it could be used, for example, to quickly create a dozen
rhythmic variations on a melody or produce endless variants of an original microtonal
scale created by the composer.
Bear in mind that when melodies receive the type of treatments described above, they can
become thematic, that is, they take on special meaning and significance within a piece.
Like the theme or subject of a novel or play, musical themes are often melodies that
reappear throughout a work at key moments and that are heard by the listener as the
major focus of the composition. This happens when a composer gives emphasis to a
melody by reusing it in whole or part over long sections of a composition.
In many electronic compositions, however, especially those that focus on sound quality
and color above other elements, the music may be “non-pitched,” meaning it does not
contain any specific pitches at all. This approach to composition will be discussed in the
unit on Sonority.
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The Maschine Mikro MK2 Groove Production Studio from Native Instruments is a
hardware device that can produce a wide range of automated variations on a melodic or
rhythmic pattern.
Complete Melody Assignment and Listening Assignment 1 now
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Rhythm refers to the flow or movement of music through time and the way in which that
movement is organized. It is one of the most significant and distinct elements of music
and has served as the basis for much experimentation in the music of this and the past
century. Unlike melody, rhythm can stand alone: a single drummer playing a solo, or an
Indian percussionist performing by him or herself on the tabla both represent rhythm
existing independent of melody.
Rhythm occurs on many different levels, from surface activity to a more fundamental,
organizing element deep within the background of a composition. The most basic unit of
rhythm is the beat or pulse. In most styles of music, the beat serves as the underlying,
driving force, and almost all other rhythmic activity in a composition occurs in some
multiple or fractional relationship to this basic beat (i.e., twice as fast or half as fast). The
speed at which the beat moves is called the tempo, which might remain constant for an
entire piece, but might speed up (accelerando) or slow down (ritardando) at important
points. Listen to Example 22, Autechre’s “Fold4, Wrap5,” from the album LP5 and
notice that at the end of every phrase, the music gradually slows down. Though this type
of recurring ritardando is very unusual, the technique helps establish clear breaks
between one phrase and the next.
A solo performer or conductor might wish to interpret a passage of music by playing
rubato, meaning “to rob” the tempo. When playing a passage rubato, the tempo will
freely slow down or speed up based on the performer’s desire to emphasize one phrase or
another. The composer might indicate this instruction directly in the score, or a performer
might simply use her/his intuition to play the music at appropriate points in this manner.
In an electronic piece, the composer can use a variety of means to achieve the same effect
for the music. For example, altering the speed of a recording, either faster or slower, as it
plays back. Dedicated software called time-stretching software also gives the electronic
composer vast resources for altering the speed of the music, from changing the speed of a
single repeating loop to expanding the duration of a short sample to many times it
original length.
Beginning around the first decades of the nineteenth century, composers used mechanical
timing devices called metronomes to specify the tempo of a piece. A metronome
marking (abbreviated on the written musical score as “MM”) tells the performer
precisely how fast a quarter note should last by indicating the number of quarter notes per
minute, as in , which means “120 quarter notes per minute.” If there are 120
quarter notes per minute, then each quarter will last one-half second. Because the system
of note values is relative, the performer can then determine the duration of all the other
note values relative to the duration of the quarter note. Musicians are not expected to
perform using a stopwatch or clock, however, as a conductor will typically set the tempo
before and while the music is playing. In a performance of music that is not notated, one
member of the ensemble (the drummer or bandleader, for example), will simply give a
count-off or lead-in to establish the proper speed.
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In music that employs a computer, tempo can be indicated with extreme precision, often
down to a tenth or smaller fraction of a specific metronome value. For example using a
program called a MIDI sequencer, a songwriter can specify that a musical event such as
a note occur 1/1000th
of a second before or after another event. Such programs provide
extremely high timing accuracy and are especially useful for synchronizing musical
events with visuals, for example in a film, animation or even a video game.
Before the metronome was invented, less specific terms, such as adagio (slow) or allegro
(fast), were employed to designate tempo. Tempo indications such as these do not
correlate with any one specific metronome marking but simply provide a general sense of
speed. As a result, a performer will use his or her musical judgment and familiarity with
the style of the music being performed to determine the exact tempo to be used when one
of these terms appears on the musical score. By studying the performance practices of
various historical periods and musical traditions, performers can get a general idea of
how the music might have been performed at the time it was written.
Shown below are a number of common tempo markings. Assuming Allegro is about
quarter = 120, what would be the approximate MM marking for each of these terms?
(Hint: markings below the word allegro” below would be faster and those above allegro
would be slower.)
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Tempo markings are often elaborated by another set of qualifying terms such as molto,
meaning "very" (molto allegro, very fast); piu, meaning “more” (piu mosso, or literally,
more motion); and poco, meaning "a little" (poco vivace, a little faster). This provides
the performer with even more specific information about the speed of a composition or
musical passage.
Explicit vs. Implicit
When listening to a piece of music, the listener might find that the basic pulse is very
prominent and clear, perhaps because one or more instruments is playing with an accent
on every beat or because some sound is marking the beat clearly. This type of pulse is
said to explicit, that is, it is clearly felt at the forefront of the music. In other cases, it
might be harder to identify the main pulse because no instrument is emphasizing every
pulse; the pulse is “implied” but not entirely clear. In this approach, the pulse is said to be
implicit, meaning somewhere "just beneath the surface." Dance music is expected to
have a clear, explicit pulse, which might be represented by alternate attacks on the bass
and snare drums, or by a "walking bass" pattern played by a bass player, where there's
one note in the bass part on every beat.
On the other hand, some types of music often have a beat that is present but more
difficult to find. This is common especially in styles that are not intended for dancing.
Music without an explicit pulse can present a challenge to musicians performing in an
ensemble that doesn’t have a conductor. In acoustic compositions, the performers rely on
their ears and musical acuity to follow each other and stay in synch. (Familiarity with
each other’s playing style is also helpful.) Whether explicit or implicit, it's important to
attempt to locate the beat (if there is one) before discussing other aspects of the rhythm.
Techno, like some other styles of electronic music, is characterized by a very explicit
pulse usually created by a bass drum accenting every beat. (A number of classic analog
electronic drum machines, such as the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, were
developed and used for this purpose.) Listen to this effect in Example 23, the song
"Homeless" by the band Fatali. Now compare that with Example 24, "Wood End
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BriteLite" by the band Sol Tek. Can you find a pulse in this song? If so, how clear is it? If
not, how would you describe the overall pace of the music?
All the instruments in an acoustic piece or layers in an electronic composition rarely
perform in rhythmic unison, that is, they don't use the same rhythmic pattern
simultaneously. As a result, an extremely dense rhythmic texture could be created if
each instrument or layer had its own unique rhythmic pattern. The number of possible
combinations is obviously infinite and clearly indicates how much more there is to
consider when examining rhythm than just locating the basic pulse.
Special mention should be made of the role that repetition plays in the rhythmic
practices of many musical styles. Rhythmic patterns are often repeated either intact or
with slight variations, which helps brings structure and order to a composition. For
example, in many styles of popular electronic music, a process called looping serves as
the basic ordering force in the work. Looping takes its name from the tape loop, a short
piece of tape that has its beginning and end spliced (connected) together so that it repeats
indefinitely when played back on a tape recorder. Today, computer software such as
Fruity Loops (currently called “FL Studio”) is used for looping, and some modern
musicians even have dedicated hardware devices for this purpose.
Looping can refer simply to a repeating rhythmic part (or “groove”) or to a
rhythmic/melodic combination. Listen to Example 25, which is based on several
overlapping looping patterns. Note especially where new patterns begin.
Literal repetition of a rhythmic pattern also serves as the unifying force in the music of
some recent Minimalist composers (Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Phillip Glass, among
others). In one approach, different musicians start out playing the same pattern but
gradually move out of phase with one another by playing their parts at a slightly
different speed or just ahead of or behind other performers. Listen to Example 26, the
piece Electric Counterpoint, composed by Steve Reich for guitarist Pat Metheny for an
example of this technique. In this recording, the guitarist plays live accompanied by an
ever-changing recorded version of himself.
METER
Rhythm in music does not usually occur as simply an endless string of isolated beats or
pulses. Rather, the beats in a piece of music are typically grouped into small units called
measures or bars. (In music notation, a barline is used to separate successive
measures.) Music that has this characteristic is said to have meter or to be metered. A
composer will indicate a fixed value or length for each measure by using a time
signature, such as 4/4 (four quarter notes per measure) or 5/8 (five eighth notes per
measure). The actual musical activity, however it may occur, will have to cover the span
of four quarter notes (or five eighths) in every measure of the piece or until some new
time signature is assigned. Any combination of sounds or silences (which are designated
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by rests in the music) may appear within the measure as long as the total elapsed time is
exactly equal to the total duration given by the time signature. (Meter is also found in
prose, especially in poetry, where the "basic unit" would be the syllable, grouped into
words and sentences. Meters are also given names in prose, for example, iambic
pentameter.)
Normally, the use of a time signature implies that the first beat (downbeat) of a measure
will be emphasized, or accented. Musical styles such as techno and most forms of
electronic dance music often emphasize the first beat of a measure, which helps provide a
strong aural cue to the listener/dancer. Though we may not be able to distinguish exactly
what note value is being used to represent the beat (it could be a quarter, half or eighth
note, for example), the grouping of the music into collections of four (or three or six or
any recurring number) beats allows us to recognize the presence of meter in the music.
Analyzing Metered Music
By listening carefully to a piece of music, the various layers of rhythmic activity in a
composition, i.e., the rhythmic texture, can usually be identified. The first step is to
identify the rate at which the various recurring pulses in the music are appearing, then
choose which of the pulses seems most likely to be the beat. Typically, the beat will be a
recurring pulse that is neither the fastest nor the slowest of the pulses you can detect.
The next step is to identify the relationship between the beat and the other active layers of
the texture. Often there will be consistent subdivisions that create rhythmic activity twice
or even four times as fast as the basic pulse. It’s also likely that there will multiples of
the beat that produce a layer of rhythmic activity at one-half (or less) the speed of the
beat. Typically, the slower moving layers are in the lower registers of the music, while
the more active ones are in the upper registers. Listen to Example 26a and notice the
high-pitched drum that is moving at a rate twice as fast as the lower-sounding drum.
Once these layers are identified, the final step is to show which instruments or tracks are
most closely tied to which layer. You might find that the bass track is playing one note
every two beats or that a percussion part is performing a rhythm of steady eighth notes,
which is double the speed of the basic pulse. Perhaps another part is using a division of
four notes per beats during a section, or, rather, playing long note values that change only
every two or four beats. Though every part may not fit perfectly into one of the layers,
and it is nearly certain that the rhythmic texture will change frequently throughout a
composition, it can be useful to classify how each part's rhythmic pattern fits into the
overall fabric of the music.
Mixed Meter A composer might choose to switch meter in a composition, for example starting with a
pattern of four beats (quadruple meter) and switching to a pattern of three (triple meter).
This is called mixed meter. Changes in meter might appear repeatedly throughout a
piece or could occur only once at some point where the music moves into an entirely new
section. Example 27, the Beatles song, “Good Morning,” (Sgt. Pepper, 1967) opens with
four measures of quadruple meter (4/4), switches to quintuple (5/4) for three measures,
triple (3/4) for one measure, quadruple (4/4) for one measure, then back to quintuple (5/4)
25
for one measure, and so on. A more regular alternation between duple meter, as
represented by the time signature 2/4, and triple (3/8) appears in Example 28a. Try to
follow the beat pattern in each meter: 1 2, 1 2, followed by a quicker 1 2 3.
A more complex example is found in Example 28b, a techno composition by German
artist Gadzatronic. The meter in this song is fairly constant in the opening 30 seconds,
then begins to change throughout the rest of the piece.
Finally, one of the most famous of all mixed meter examples appears in Igor Stravinsky's
ballet score to The Rite of Spring, Example 29. Here, the pounding, driving music and
ever-changing placement of the accents keeps the meter in constant flux and must have
been a real challenge for the dancers when the work first appeared in 1913. See if you can
detect the pattern of accents while listening to this example.
Polymeter
Another technique, called polymeter, involves the use of two different meters
simultaneously. In music that is not notated, for example much popular music, it’s quite
easy for several musicians to perform rhythmic patterns that accent different beats,
thereby creating the effect of two simultaneous meters. Listen carefully to Example 30,
the Phish song “First Tube” and focus on the meter established by the bass and drum in
the introduction, then the guitar as it enters. Tap each beat of the guitar part as it is
playing to determine the grouping of accents. Where do the two parts line up? Can you
tell how many beats are implied by the two parts? Does the grouping of beats of the
guitar part change at any point or does it stay constant?
A rather extreme example can be found in the middle of Example 31, the Frank Zappa
song “Toads of the Short Forest” (Weasels Ripped My Flesh, 1995). According to
Zappa, “(at this moment) we have drummer A playing in 7/8, drummer B playing in 3/4,
the bass playing in 3/4, the organ playing in 5/8, the tambourine playing in 3/4, and the
alto sax blowing his nose."
In notated music, a composer will typically assign one time signature to the parts of all
the performers, then create a feeling of polymeter by instructing one or more performers
to use a different pattern of accents than is implied by the time signature. In some cases,
composers will even use two different time signatures to impose different patterns of
accents on different parts. Some modern piano music, for example, uses different time
signatures for each hand. Though this may create problems of notation, it can often be the
best way for the composer to impart his or her intentions to the performer.
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Example 32 Gyorgy Ligeti: Piano Etudes, #5. An example of polymeter
Notice in the example above that the composer uses both 3 over 4 (¾) and 2 over a dotted
quarter to indicate what pattern of accents the performer should play. The notation clearly
supports this goal: the beaming in the right hand has three groups of four 16th
notes to
indicate a simple triple meter (3/4) and the beaming in the left hand uses two groups of
six 16th
notes each to indicate the compound duple meter. The accents in the left hand on
the beginning note of each group of six further clarify the composer’s intentions. Similar
combinations of different metric patterns can be found in much electronic music, where
no notation is needed.
Ametric Though meter plays an important role in most popular music styles of this century, it has
been abandoned in much classical music from the 20th
century onward and in some styles
of jazz, especially since the late 1950s. Moreover, the vast majority of "classic"
(meaning those that stem from a modernist 20th century classical music tradition)
electronic works have no meter at all. Works without meter are called ametric, meaning
that the music has no regular pattern of accents or has no detectable pulses whatsoever.
This characteristic is also found in the music of “progressive” rock groups such as Yes
and King Crimson. When music appears to have no pulse of any type and cannot be tied
to a beat, it is most likely ametric.
Listen to this excerpt from the piece Sonal Atoms, (Example 33) by composer and author
Curtis Roads. There is no recurring pulse in the music and, hence, no meter. The
movement of the music through time is based on the composer's intuitive sense of how
long events should last and at what rate those events should move. Would you
characterize the music as having a fast or a slow pace? Do new events occur quickly or
relatively slowly? Do these qualities change during the excerpt?
Because ametric music does not rely on a recurring pulse to organize the temporal aspects
of a composition, the composer will often use other methods to organize the element of
time. These methods might not be immediately obvious to the listener, however. A
composer might choose to use some pre-determined collection of rhythmic values
repeatedly throughout all or part of a piece, or he or she might pick note values according
to a scheme based on actual time durations.
For example, a composer could organize a series of timings based on some numeric
pattern – a credit card number or a list of birth dates or even phone numbers – and
translate that sequence into the length of notes in seconds. Or a composer might ascribe
some number of eighth notes to every pitch in the chromatic scale (C = 1 eighth, C# = 2
eighths (quarter), D = 3 (dotted quarter), etc.) and assign each note actually used in the
piece to that duration (so every time a C was heard, it would be one-eighth long, etc.). In
other cases, ametric music will rely solely on the composer’s judgment regarding how
long each musical event should last, with no special pre-arranged pattern. There are a
limitless number of possibilities once music moves outside the realm of meter, and in
most cases, it takes repeated listening and careful analysis to determine what approach to
organizing time a composition uses.
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Here are some additional guidelines for dealing with ametric music: Try and determine
the composer’s intention with respect to time and characterize this aspect of the music in
any way you can. Does it feel “rushed?” Is the overall pace fast or slow? Is there a
“dreamy,” “timeless,” effect? Does the music feel “static,” with no clear sense of forward
motion? Perhaps there are occasional “bursts of energy” that move the music along, while
at other moments, the momentum seems to stall. Finding descriptive terms to characterize
the music will require some imagination on the part of the listener, but it is a good way to
begin to get a grasp on the rhythmic elements in use.
Listen to Example 33b and note the slow pace of the music. The sounds in the lower
register sustain like a drone and the vocal-like sound that appears above it enters and
exits very gradually. Now evaluate Example 34, the opening of the composition Scambi
by French composer, Henri Pousseur, using the same criteria. Note how the music
reaches moments of intensity then settles into more relaxed passages. Can you predict
when the explosive outbursts are going to occur?
Complete Assignment ES_A2_Rhythm now
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Harmony refers to the relationships among the notes employed in a composition and
can be thought of as the “environment” in which the notes of a work interact. In many
styles of music, harmony creates a backdrop or “tonal landscape” that helps establish
momentum and direction for a piece. Harmonic elements can produce a sense of
movement towards a goal, or, if desired, they can create a sense of wandering and
aimlessness, or even complete stasis and lack of motion. The means by which harmony
can achieve these goals is the subject of this chapter.
In most styles of popular music and in classical music before the 20th century, harmony
typically operates as a series of chords that support the melodic layer of a composition.
However, several strands of melody occurring simultaneously or even a single melodic
line performed on a solo instrument could also create a harmonic framework for a
composition by implying specific harmonic activity. In other words, the single instrument
could be playing the same notes that might be used by an accompanying harmonic
instrument, if there were one. Rather than playing multiple notes simultaneously as in a
chord, however, the instrument would play the notes individually in succession.
The relationship between harmony and melody in such music is usually very clear: both
are derived primarily from the same source, most often the scale defined by the key of the
piece. In some cases, the chords are performed by a keyboard part, though in other cases,
the notes of the chords are spread out or distributed among several instruments. (The term
chord voicing is used to describe the way the notes of a chord are arranged throughout
the musical texture, especially in the choice of which registers are chosen for each note.)
Even without a chordal accompaniment, a melody might have clear harmonic
implications. Such music will often adhere to certain harmonic guidelines and will
demonstrate harmonic tendencies through the choice of notes being played. The listener
must use his or her ear to distinguish what harmonic information is coming from the
music and which chords and tonal functions, i.e., the role these chords play in
establishing a sense of key, are being implied by the various notes of the melody.
CHORD TYPES
One useful way to begin the study of harmony is to summarize the structure of chords.
Chords are typically formed by combining three or more notes from a scale, and any of
the seven scale steps has the ability to serve as the root or starting point for a chord.
Western music most often uses a system called tertian harmony to govern the building
of its chords. In tertian harmony, each successive note in a chord is a distance (or
interval) of one third away from the previous one. The most frequently used chord type
in music is called a triad, which is a three-note structure built by stacking thirds above
the root note. In C major, C is the first note of the scale. C to E and E to G are thirds, and
the chord built on C would, therefore, consist of C, E and G. The starting note, C, is
called the root of the chord, the middle note E is the third of the chord (not to be
confused with the fact that it is also the distance of a third from the root) and the top
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note G is the fifth of the chord, because it is the musical interval known as a "fifth" away
from the root note C. These assignations hold true no matter how the notes of the chord
are distributed among the performers in a piece or which particular note an
instrumentalist might happen to be using as the bottom note he or she is playing at any
given moment.
To provide a composer with the "raw materials" of harmony in tonal music, a triad is
built on each step of the major or minor scale that is being used for the composition.
(Certain alterations to the notes provided by the scale are used when needed, for example
raising the seventh step of a minor scale to make the chord built on the fifth step a major
chord.) The resulting seven chords are arranged by the composer into various sequences
to provide the music with the type of motion and direction he or she desires. The seven
chords built from a major scale are shown here, with the name of the chord quality
(major, minor, etc.) shown below. The Roman numerals are a form of musical
“shorthand” that is used to indicate the quality of each chord and its position within the
scale.
Example 35 Chords derived from a major scale
Example 36 Chords derived from a minor scale with seventh scale step (B) raised in
the G and B chords
Other types of tertian chords, such as seventh and ninth chords, are also derived from
major and minor scales by adding additional notes above the top note at the required
interval. A seventh chord adds another note a third above the fifth of the chord, which
forms the distance of a seventh from the root, hence its name, while a ninth chord adds
another note a third above the seventh. The process can be thought of as simply stacking
alternate notes from a scale, starting on any note:
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Chord type: triad (Ex. 37a) seventh (Ex. 37b) ninth (Ex. 37c)
Seventh and ninth chords are called “extended chords” and serve the same role or
function as the triads they are built on. (Functions will be defined below.) Because they
too are built entirely from thirds, they are also considered to be tertian chords.
CHORD FUNCTIONS
The use of chords in many types of music is governed by a system called functional
harmony, which involves assigning a set role or function to each chord in the key. In
this system, chords typically fall into one of three categories:
1) Tonic-functioning chords: chords that help establish the tonic, which is the
"home base" or harmonic reference point in the music; typically the I (or i in
minor) and at times, the vi and iii (III in minor);
2) Subdominant-functioning chords: chords whose role is to move the music
away from the tonic; typically the IV (or iv) and at times, the ii and vi (VI in
minor);
3) Dominant-functioning chords: chords that prepare the return of or point
towards the home base; typically the V (in both major and minor) and at
times, the vii and iii. The V must be a major chord to act as dominant, so in a
minor key, the seventh scale step, which is the third of the V chord, is raised.
(Recall that the raised seventh also converts vii from a diminished to a major
chord.) Raising the naturally occurring seventh scale step allows that note to
serve as a leading tone, which is what gives dominant-functioning chords
their tendency to resolve to the tonic.
Chords acquire their roles by the notes they contain: certain scale steps and intervals have
tendencies to resolve in certain ways, and these tendencies are carried over into the
chords that use these steps and intervals. Such tendencies help define the chord’s
function. For example, the seventh step of the scale, the leading tone, has a very strong
tendency to move upward to the tonic. When it is used in the V (as the third of the chord)
and viio (as the chord’s root), it supplies both these chords with the tendency to move to
the tonic. Hence they can both serve the dominant function.
Some chords contain dissonant intervals (intervals that have a need to resolve), which
account for their function. For example, when the third and seventh step of a seventh
chord built on the V of a major or minor chord are played together, the sound is very
unstable and tense. This quality is past along to the chord that contains these notes,
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thereby producing a tendency to resolve to a more stable interval, such as the major third
(C and E) in a major triad:
Example 38 A tritone in a V7 chord resolving to a I (tonic) chord resolution
Stable intervals, such as the octave (C to C), perfect fifth (C to G), and major third, are
typically considered consonant and do not have the quality of needing to resolve. All
intervals can be classified as consonant or dissonant, but these classifications are not
absolute, that is, they will depend on context. An interval that sounds extremely dissonant
in one context might sound fairly consonant in another.
The rate at which the chords of a piece change is called the harmonic rhythm. Many
popular songs use a harmonic rhythm of one chord per four-beat measure, others change
chords every two beats, but there is no single approach that applies to any type or genre
of music.
USE OF HARMONY
Through the correct use of the seven triads in a key, a composer creates a sense of focus
on and around one principle chord or note, which is the tonic mentioned above. If the
rules of functional harmony are followed so that the tonic is made clear throughout the
work, then the music is said to be tonal and the effect created is called tonality. In other
words, by properly applying functional harmony, we create tonality in music. This gives
the listener a sense of knowing where home base is and where the music is at any point
(whether “close to home” or far away) relative to that home base. By using tonality,
which is extremely common in nearly all styles of popular music, a composer could also
create a sense of instability and wandering. For example, the tonic could be avoided or
undermined by the use of unusual chords or sequences of chords. This can add tension
and excitement to music because it forces the listener to delay the gratification he/she
would get upon returning to the expected goal. Such an effect could be suitable, for
example, when the lyrics of a song reflect a similar uncertainty or tension or where this
quality is desired at some point in an instrumental piece.
Note how a clear tonic base is established in Example 39, the song "Ghazal (Love Song)"
by Tangerine Dream, right from the opening. The short chord progression includes
chords only from the main key and starts and ends on the tonic. That same progression
repeats a second time, reinforcing the feeling of home base. After the second repetition,
the key changes, a technique called modulation. This effect works best because the tonic
was established so clearly at the opening of the song. In Example 39a by Radiohead, the
three- (and later, four-) chord progression begins on the tonic chord, but the progression
itself, though it repeats numerous times, doesn’t have a strong sense of direction; it
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simply ends, then starts again from the beginning, creating a near drone-like effect. Count
the number of repetitions of the basic progression that you hear in this example.
In large-scale compositions, composers often emphasize one tonal area or tonal region
for an extended period of time. It is also common for compositions to modulate to keys
that are not closely related to the tonic, again for long portions of the music. These and
other harmonic techniques can make it difficult to get one's bearings in the music, making
it hard to know what relationship the current harmonic material has to the tonic at any
given point. This is especially likely when many chords containing notes outside of the
key (called chromatic chords) are used. Therefore, it is often necessary to listen to a
composition multiple times before gaining a clear understanding of its harmonic
roadmap.
Regardless of the musical style, tonal harmony can establish a feeling of continuity and
cohesion in a musical composition. Using functional harmony, the composer or
songwriter can create consistency and continuity that give the listener familiar landmarks
to follow as they move through the music. A good understanding of how harmony
operates can help a composer or songwriter establish goals and reach them at the
moments he or she chooses. It can also aid the listener in following the “logic” or
momentum of a piece.
Atonality
One of the hallmarks of 19th century Romantic music was the demand for heightened
musical expressivity. To meet their artistic demands, composers began to use to use an
increased number of notes and chords outside of the chosen key. Chord sequences
became ever more complex as did the construction of the chords themselves. As more
and more chromatic notes entered the tonal landscape, the music sounded more intensely
emotional – an attribute favored by late 19th
-century audiences. The drawback to this,
however, was that chromatic saturation weakened (and eventually eliminated) the
harmonic functionality of diatonic scales, keys and tonality in general. As a result, near
the end of the 19th century, the guiding force that tonality provided for music began to
disappear.
One landmark composition in the demise of tonality is the opera Tristan and Isolde by
Richard Wagner, completed in 1859. This work contained many chromatic notes and it
was difficult to determine what the tonic was at many points in the piece. This unsettling
quality perfectly suited the theme of the opera, which was, like Romeo and Juliet,
unrequited love. The opening measures of Tristan (Ex. 40) are among the most famous in
music history:
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Example 40 Opening measures of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde
The very first chord (measure 2) is ambiguous harmonically and functionally and no
simple harmonic analysis can neatly describe it. The chord produces a high degree of
tension when it is heard, and the tension is only somewhat resolved in the third measure,
which, though less tense, also implies a need for resolution. The vagueness of the chord’s
function reflects the overall harmonic instability that permeates the entire work. Its
uniqueness in the history of harmony has earned this chord a special name: the “Tristan
chord.”
By the beginning of the 20th
century, a number of composers began to find tonal music
ever more incapable of expressing the world they experienced around them, and a search
for a replacement was undertaken. For a period lasting several decades, and which
includes the era during which music created electronically first became established,
individual composers developed highly personal approaches to organizing the pitched
(and increasingly non-pitched) materials of their work. Much of this music falls into the
very general heading of free atonality.
Free Atonality
The chromatically saturated music of the late 19th
century came about as composers
relied less and less on the relationships among the notes in the major and minor systems.
A systematic substitute for these scales and the functional harmony that governed their
use was proposed in 1921 by the Viennese composer, Arnold Schoenberg. The first two
decades of the 20th
century however, reflect the use of free atonality, a loosely structured
approach to organizing the pitched elements in music. (Atonality means, literally,
without tonality). Free Atonality was (and is) used in classical works of various types,
including solo, chamber and orchestral compositions and is also regularly used today by
jazz musicians, especially those who fall under the “free jazz" heading. It can also be
found in the music of some progressive rock artists and is among the most common
approaches used in the electronic masterworks of the past century.
Free Atonality stems from the “free” use of chromatic materials such that the listener
hears no strong tonal center in the music. It occurs when a composer uses common
chords without concern for their traditional function, or, more likely, when he or she
creates chromatic chordal structures that do not fit into any one key. Free atonality can
also occur in music that is not chordal at all - a melody that uses a large number of notes
that are not confined to a single key could also be considered freely atonal, as would
music that is based mostly on noise or on manipulated prerecorded sounds. The constant
use of chromatic materials can completely cloud any sense of orientation around a tonal
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center, even though there may be nothing “systematic” or organized about the way in
which the notes and chords are being used (hence the idea of “free”). Listen to the
improvised passage for electric piano and drums from the King Crimson song
“Moonchild” (Ex. 41) and note the lack of any tonal center or focus.
In other freely atonal works, a composer might choose some unique or unusual chord
formation to unify the piece and serve as its central focus. This is the case with the
“mystic color chord” that Alexander Scriabin used in his orchestral composition
Prometheus, The Poem of Fire (1910). (This work also included a part for the live
projection of colored light, reflecting Scriabin’s interest in combining image and sound.)
Example 42 Scriabin: Prometheus chord (mystic color chord)
Scriabin moves among various versions of this chord while subtly changing the
instruments that play each note, and also uses the intervals that make up the chord in his
melodies. This six-note chromatic chord is built using a non-tertian structure and includes
notes that would not appear in any single key. Though the composition is 100 years old,
the sound would be perfectly acceptable in many forms of modern jazz.
Example 42a, entitled electronic soundscape 72113a (composer unknown), is a mostly atonal
composition that opens with a focus on a single, sustained note, creating a drone effect.
Drones are common in much “ambient” (slow moving music usually emphasizing long,
sustained notes with little rhythmic activity) electronic music and are also often found in
non-western musical traditions. The drone in Example 42a is accompanied by a variety of
chromatic notes that enter and exit over the first 55 seconds or so, then the harmony
begins to move freely to other overlapping notes and soon loses any sense of tonality,
becoming atonal. Listen to Example 42a and see if you can detect when the focus on the
opening note begins to weaken, then gradually disappears entirely.
Serial Atonality
Along with other composers of this era, Schoenberg and Scriabin’s reliance on their own
artistic instinct proved a difficult course to maintain as compositions grew longer and
longer. Free atonality offered little in the way of organizational standards, forcing each
work to be a unique world unto itself. With no pre-conceived framework to rely on,
freely atonal music became a challenge for composers and listeners alike. Each new
work had to be approached afresh, and repeated listenings were needed before a piece
revealed itself fully. One solution to this dilemma, called serial atonality, was proposed
by Schoenberg himself.
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In 1921, Schoenberg revealed his “method of composing with 12 notes which are related
only to one another.” That discovery paved a new path for musical organization, one that
has a profound impact on music of the last 100 years. Schoenberg's system consists of
several key elements. First, the twelve notes of the chromatic scale are ordered into a set
arrangement, different for every piece, called a tone row as the basis for every work.
Next, because Schoenberg’s goal is to avoid giving any one pitch more importance than
any other, all of the notes of the row are sounded before any one note is repeated. Once
all twelve pitches have been played, whether as part of a melody or in chords, the process
begins again. (Other composers have used Schoenberg’s basic method since its inception,
and there are many variations on the specific way it is interpreted for a piece. Schoenberg
himself, for example, did not adhere strictly to the practice of sounding all notes before
any was repeated.)
The music that results when Schoenberg’s 12-tone system is employed is called serial
atonal or 12-tone music. Because the row and its variations (described below) are reused
throughout the work, the recurring pattern of intervals found between notes of the row
provides a strong sense of cohesion for the pitched materials of the piece and, with time,
can become recognizable to a listener. If the music adheres to Schoenberg’s suggested
guidelines, serial atonality can be as powerful as functional harmony (though not as
obvious on first hearing) in creating a sense of unity and integration for a musical work.
This is one of its biggest appeals to composers who employ it. The careful listener will
get oriented to the reuse of the specific intervals in the row as they appear in different
musical motives and gestures, though this recognition may not occur until the
composition has been heard multiple times, if at all.
For example, listen to Example 42b, Total Serial Composition by Biggie Phanrath, and
note the recurring 12-tone melody that appears in both the flute and the electronic
accompaniment. Because the same row is used repeatedly, you can easily hear the serial
quality of the music. Now listen again to Example 14, Stockhausen's Study #2. This work
is extremely tightly controlled by serial principles that determine the notes, rhythms and
other parameters. Yet the listener cannot recognize this in the music on first hearing, nor
would the composer wish them to.
Interestingly, visual artists at about this same time were also looking for ways to move
beyond realism and the representation of actual physical objects in their work. Artists
such as Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944), considered by many to be the “father” of
abstract modern art, were directly influenced by Schoenberg in the composer’s attempt to
move beyond tonality. Kandinsky heard a concert of Schoenberg’s music in 1911, and
the two immediately began a long correspondence about their mutual goals.
Tone Rows
At an early stage of the compositional process, a composer will construct a unique tone
row that best meets his or her musical and expressive needs. A near-infinite number of
tone rows can be created using different arrangements of the twelve notes; the number is
well into the millions. Any combination of notes (except, perhaps, a literal ascending or
descending chromatic scale) is possible: The composer might choose to embed the
interval of a perfect fifth at several points in the row so that interval becomes
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characteristic of the music or even use the notes of a major triad somewhere among the
succession of 12 pitches. For example, the tone row used by composer Alban Berg in his
famous Violin Concerto (1935) has multiple triads embedded among the successive
notes:
Tone row used in Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto showing embedded triads
Listen to Example 43 to hear the full orchestra play the embedded triads one by one
followed by the solo violin playing the notes of the row in turn. The composer subtitles
the piece “To the Memory of an Angel” as a memorial to the daughter of a close friend.
A composer might use a secondary layer of organization within the larger 12-note
framework, for example, arranging the twelve notes into four groups of three, each with a
similar set of intervals among the notes in the group. This could give the music a highly
motivic quality, as the same small number of intervals will repeat often, helping to unify
the piece:
Tone row from Anton Webern’s Concerto using four groups of three notes each
Note in the example above that every group of three notes includes a minor second (for
example, B to Bb and G to F#) and a major third (Bb to D and Eb to G).
In practice, the composer does not simply lay out the notes of the 12-tone row from the
first to the last then start over at the beginning using the same notes. That would lead to a
very repetitive and boring composition. Rather, the original row is used to generate four
additional row forms, each of which is then used on any of 12 different starting notes.
Combined, this larger collection of related row forms provides unity and cohesion to the
pitched materials.
This large collection of notes would be very difficult to manage if there were not some
way for the composer to visualize the entire universe of available pitches. In order to do
so, a grid called a matrix, shown below, is created for each piece. A matrix shows all
four row forms in each of its twelve possible transpositions and is an essential tool for use
by the composer. The original prime row form (P0) starts at the top left of the matrix on
the note F and moves from left to right along the top line, ending on F#. The
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untransposed inversion (I0), where each successive note is as far below as its counterpart
was above in the original, also starts on the note F but moves downward along the y axis
ending on E. (Note that if you draw a diagonal from the upper left to the bottom right, the
note F will appear at every point.) Because the untransposed prime form goes from F
down to E (a half step down) between the first two notes, the inversion goes from F up to
F# (a half step up). After filling in the untransposed prime and inversion forms, the
composer completes the matrix by filling out each of the subsequent prime forms,
transposed as needed. For example, the second row contains the prime form transposed to
start on F#, because that is the second note in the inverted version.
A matrix showing all 48 forms of a 12-note tone row (from Webern, op. 25)
The matrix helps the composer organize the pitch material of the piece and provides an
overview of all the different arrangements of notes that can be derived from the basic
tone row. The composer selects various row forms to create the melodies and harmonies
of the piece using his or her musical sensibility as a guide. Composing serial music in
this fashion is not simply a mathematical exercise in cycling through the various row
forms in a random or in some predetermined order, however. Every compositional
decision must be made by the composer, including what the original series of notes will
be, how the various forms of the row will appear in sequence in the work, whether the
melodies will be supported by chords from the same or from a different row, etc. In
addition, all matters of timing, pacing, rhythm, articulation, instrumentation, and form
must be determined by the composer. The vast amount and range of music that has been
written using this method over the past 90+ years is a testament to the great flexibility
Schoenberg’s technique provides.
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Integral Serialism
A variation on Schoenberg’s basic approach to organizing the pitched material of a
composition soon developed that was known as total (or integral) serialism. This
concept, which was employed by a number of composers of electronic music, most
notably, Karlheinz Stockhausen (mentioned previously), involves applying the principle
of serial organization to other elements of the music besides pitch, such as note duration
and rhythm, dynamics, articulation, register and perhaps even instrumentation. For
example, a composer might assign a different numeric value to each of 12 different note
durations, then use a specific note duration in conjunction with the corresponding note
number in the row.
A composer could also create a set of twelve different note articulations and associate
each with a different pitch as well, or perhaps a different version of the row could be used
to organize the dynamics (inversion), registers (retrograde), or instrumentation
(retrograde of the inversion, for example). Among the composers interested in this
approach were Stockhausen, who employed it in many of his electronic works, as did
American Milton Babbitt. Schoenberg’s student Anton Webern, French composer Olivier
Messiaen, and innumerable other composers of the 20th
and 21st century have also
explored integral serialism in both acoustic and electronic compositions.
Stockhausen used serial principles in several ways. One was to set up a set or series of
proportions: 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, for example, and apply those proportions to different
musical characteristics. For example, he might use note durations that incorporate those
proportions (in whatever order he chooses) and use all of them before any one of the
ratios is repeated. The dynamics (loudness levels) of notes might be controlled by the
same set of proportions as could the pitches or even the amount of time that larger
sections of the piece take to occur. Though it is very unlikely that the listener would
detect the use of such a set of ratios, it could become apparent over time. It is also likely
that such a unifying elements as the recurring use of those numbers might also add to the
cohesiveness of the music, if only subliminally.
Milton Babbitt was another composer whose music was organized along similar lines.
His Composition for Synthesizer (1961) uses integral serialism techniques to govern
every musical parameter, including the tone quality of the sounds themselves. Listen to
Example 43a to hear an example of this approach to composition; it is not likely that you
will be able to perceive any of the specific methods that are used by the composer.
Summary
Any discussion of harmony in music must include three fundamental concerns. First, a
thorough examination of the source of the harmonic materials in the work should be
undertaken, whether it is a scale, tone row or other controlling factor. Next, the system
that governs the use of these materials, most often functional harmony but perhaps
serialism, must be examined and understood. (And of course in some cases, there is no
system at all.) Finally, the impact or effect that the harmonic activity has on the listener,
whether it gives him or her a clear sense of direction and inevitability or a feeling of
uncertainty and confusion, whether the harmonic techniques are clearly perceivable or
difficult to identify, should be determined.
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Texture refers to the interweaving of the various layers of a musical composition and the
ways in which these layers relate to one another. In characterizing the texture of a work,
the listener must identify the number of layers that exist, determine the degree of
independence that these layers have from one another, and interpret the role and relative
importance of each. Texture has become an increasingly important element in music
since the beginning of the twentieth century, as more traditional elements such as melody
and harmony have often been de-emphasized.
The term voice or part is most often used to refer to an individual strand or line of music
that can be identified or isolated within the fabric of a piece. In recent electronic music,
an equally common term is track, as in the "bass" or "percussion track." The number of
voices or parts does not refer simply to the number of performers in a work; because a
piece of music is performed by a group of eight or nine singers or instrumentalists does
not mean that there are eight or nine distinct voices or parts in the texture. They might,
for example, all be singing the exact same music. Typically, it is the number of distinct
and unique musical ideas or lines created by the performers and the way these interact
that is significant in helping to characterize texture. The term “track,” however, will
often refer to a single instrument or distinct layer in the music.
A number of different terms, both musical and general, can be used to describe the
texture of a work. Music that contains many different strands of melody or rhythm
sounding at the same time might be described as "thick" or "dense," while a work with
only a single instrument performing a single line of melody could be characterized as
"thin," "sparse" or "transparent." These terms are obviously not specific but simply give
a general description of the fabric of the music. More specific musical terms, to be
discussed below, have been adopted to describe the qualities of texture in a composition.
Texture in electronic music cannot always be broken down into clearly distinguishable
layers - it is often difficult to isolate the various elements in a piece - so broader terms
such as "foreground" and "background" are sometimes used to describe how the larger
parts of the music interact simultaneously. In the foreground, there might be a prominent
sound, which might be louder and more emphasized than other, indistinct sounds in the
background, which could, perhaps, be shrouded in dense reverb.
As with all musical elements, the texture in a work can and typically will change as the
music progresses. The music may sound thin and transparent at the outset, then become
dense or opaque thereafter. Changes of texture of this type often signify important formal
landmarks or divisions in the music. Listen to Example 44, the short song, "Sarmays," by
the band Pan Sonic. How would you describe the texture? How many events are
occurring at one time at the beginning? Does that change? Are some sounds clearly in the
foreground and others in the background? Make a clear distinction between the number
of events that occur at the same time and the nature of those events themselves.
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Now listening to Example 45, an excerpt from the song "Turning of the Wheel" by
Tangerine Dream. How many layers are there at the opening? When and how does this
change? How many layers are there when the excerpt ends? Is it easy to distinguish one
part from the next or not? Why?
Monophony
A texture consisting of only a single line, for example, a solo melody without any
accompaniment is called monophonic (meaning "one sound"). This texture is common
in many non-Western traditions and in some Western classical music, where many great
works have been written for single instruments, but is not particularly common in popular
music except, perhaps, during an instrumental solo or drum break. It’s also not
particularly common in most electronic music, with the exception of music that was
written for and played on early electronic synthesizers, which were monophonic
instruments. A monophonic instrument is one that is capable of playing only one note at
a time. Though often performed without accompaniment, the piano, harp and guitar are
not monophonic because they can play more than one note at once and have the ability to
create the effect of multiple independent voices sounding simultaneously. Listen to
Example 45a, a demo performance on a Korg monophonic synth from 1978. Even though
the performer can change a variety of settings, such as the brightness or “bassiness” of
the sound, the synth can play only one note at a time. Now listen to a very different
monophonic example in Example 46a. Monophonic electronic instruments were often
used in live performance, for example, with the keyboard player using an entire rack of
multiple instruments, or in the studio during a production that might include the sound of
other instruments added into the mix one at a time. Example 46 illustrates a technique in
which the notes were not played by a live performer but were generated purely
electronically by a device called a sequencer.
A melody that is doubled (duplicated or repeated) one or more octaves above or below
the original, whether played by two separate instruments or only a single instrument, is
also considered to be monophonic. For example, all members of a chorus singing the
national anthem in melodic unison would be considered monophonic, even if the
different parts started on the same note in different octaves. In any style of music,
monophony can appear at a point where the composer or performer wishes to introduce
variety in the texture. As an example, a saxophone or trumpet player might take an
extended solo in the middle of a jazz performance while the other members of the
ensemble remain silent.
Listen to the solo section of the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Free Bird” (Example 46) and
note the shifting texture of the three guitars that are soloing. At what points do the guitars
play monophonically and where and how does the texture they create change (focus only
on the lead guitars)? Can you tell there are three guitars playing; if not, what does it
sound like? Though there are actually multiple guitars playing in this example, a single
guitarist can create the effect of unison playing by overdubbing a second duplicate part
in the recording studio. The performer will listen to (or monitor) the first part while
recording one or more additional tracks “over” the original.
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Polyphony
In musical terms, a texture that consists of numerous musical lines or voices, each of
which is equal in importance to the other (i.e., one part is not merely a support or
background for another) is called polyphonic, meaning "many sounds." Each layer in this
type of texture is independent and has a clear identity of its own. Polyphony is common
in both Western and non-Western cultures and is found, for example, in New Orleans-
style (“Dixieland”) jazz, which features a group of melodic instruments (typically
trumpet, clarinet and trombone) improvising simultaneously while being supported by a
rhythm section. The specific approach used in Dixieland is called collective
improvisation, as each instrument is free to create its own melody, with or without
reference to the original melody of the song. The resultant dense and highly active texture
is clearly polyphonic in nature, which you can hear in Example 47. You can also hear a
polyphonic texture in Example 47a played on the Minimoog, a polyphonic keyboard
synthesizer developed by electronic music pioneer, Robert Moog. How many individual
layers of melody can you detect in this example? This music, used in a popular video
game (Tetris), was actually composed by classical composer J. S. Bach (1685-1750), the
most renowned practitioner of polyphonic music in the classical Western music tradition.
A very different example of polyphony is in the SquarePusher song "Scopem Hard" (Ex.
48 after about 54 seconds). How many layers of sound are there at the opening of this
example? How many when it ends? What are the roles of the different layers - are they
equal in importance or does one or more sound like it is secondary or a background for a
more important principal layer?
Polyphony is not common in many types of popular music, where a single melody is
usually performed by only one singer or where one instrument is typically the main focus
of the music. However, a polyphonic texture would be created, for example, when two
guitars solo simultaneously. Listen to the opening of the song “On Reflection” (Example
49) by Gentle Giant. What is the texture in this excerpt and how many individual parts do
you hear? How long does the first texture last and what texture enters roughly half-way
through the excerpt?
Homophony
The final texture, homophony, is the most common texture in Western popular music
and has been used in nearly every musical style since the Middle Ages. This texture has
two main variants, the first is called melody and accompaniment and the second is
known as chordal or block chord texture. Melody and accompaniment involves the
presence of one main melody and a clearly subordinate, usually chordal accompaniment.
A solo guitarist improvising against the background of a rhythm section would be a
simple example of this approach, as would the highly standard arrangement of a lead
singer performing with a backup band. Though this texture involves two layers, the
accompaniment in both cases is completely subordinate to the principal melody and does
not typically have sufficient musical interest to stand alone (although the backup band
might disagree!).
Listen to Example 50, the song "Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow" by Aphex Twin, and
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notice that there is a melody in the upper portion of the piano's notes and an active
accompaniment (chords being played one note at a time) in the lower portion. This
simple example of melody and accompaniment homophony demonstrates that the number
of instruments being used is not always a factor in determining the texture.
Now listen to Example 51, an excerpt from the song "Atlas Eyes" by Tangerine Dream.
The melody played by the oboe is rather slow moving but stands out clearly because the
oboe tone is so different from the slow sustained chords that accompany it.
Spatialization
The spatial distribution of sound is often the basis today for live presentations of
multichannel electronic music, where composers disseminate or diffuse their music
throughout an auditorium in which multiple speakers have been arranged during a live
performance. Sitting at a mixing console with his or her hands on the volume and
positional (pan) controls, the composer will “perform” the playback of a prerecorded
composition by controlling how much sound appears at each speaker. In some cases,
composers diffuse their work into as many as four, eight or even more loudspeakers.
Edgard Varèse's Poème Électronique (1958), presented at the Philips Pavilion at the
Brussels World's Fair, incorporated 20 discrete streams (called channels) of music sent to
over 400 loudspeakers. Surround sound, which uses 6 or more discrete channels of
sound, gives composers new options for diffusing their work spatially and creating a
variety of antiphonal effects.
Because most home audio systems and digital music players have only two-channel
stereo playback, multichannel works are not usually found on audio CDs or in
downloadable audio files (nor can they be demonstrated via the Internet). But a
presentation of a live diffused multichannel piece in a concert or theatrical setting, with
sound whipping around in front, back and to the sides of the listener, can be a very
exciting experience. Numerous multichannel audio programs are available to the modern
studio composer for the creation of such works.
Clusters Modern composers use numerous different approaches to the distribution of notes within
their music. Rather than arrange the musical parts into clear and distinct layers,
composers might use clusters to best express their artistic intentions. Clusters are tightly
spaced groups of two, three or more notes, typically no more than a few half-steps apart.
Clusters can add an evocative color to a composition and are used by both classical
composers and by jazz arrangers.
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Example 52 Tone Clusters
Composers such as the Hungarian Gyorgy Ligeti (1923 – 2006) have written music in
which every instrument (or instrumental section) of the orchestra is given its own unique
note, with each note being only one-half step away from the next. In Ligeti’s
Atmospheres (1961; Ex. 53), for example, fifty-six musicians play different notes,
creating a sound mass that is, perhaps, unique in music. The resulting texture consists of a
massive cluster spanning a five-octave range in which every note of the chromatic scale
is played simultaneously. Ligeti likened the composition to a “far-away mass for the
dead” and called its texture “micropolphony” due to the shifting entrance and exit of
players and the extremely subtle changes in the instruments’ loudness levels.
Example 53a illustrates the use of microtonal clusters created through digital processing
of a clarinet and a cymbal. The piece, entitled The Hand of Gravity, is by Michel Plourde
and incorporates sounds with no distinct pitch.
Another approach to texture is found in Example 53b, Sonal Atoms. Listen to this
example and note that there is no distinct melodic layer – the music is also entirely non-
pitched – so the traditional terms used to describe texture do not really fir for this music.
A better approach would be to describe the overall density of the music that is whether
the texture is “thick” or “thin,” or perhaps label it “rough” or “grainy,” and as elsewhere,
note especially how and when changes in texture occur.
Complete Listening Assignment 4 - Texture now
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Sonority, also known as timbre or tone color, refers to the unique qualities of sound
produced by any instrument that distinguishes it from all others. These qualities range
from the "pure, hollow" sound of the flute, to the “honking screech” of a saxophone in its
highest register, to the "deep, mellow" tone of the cello or bass, to the “squeal” of a
distorted electric guitar, with unlimited gradations in between. Although each of these
instruments can play the exact same pitches, the different properties of each is instantly
recognizable by any listener, assuming they have had some prior exposure to that
instrument.
One way to describe timbre is using the language and measurements of science, and in
fact, the differences in the tone color of different instruments can be explained rather
simply from a scientific basis. Any musical instrument when performed generates a series
of multiple simultaneous vibrations that combine to form a unique pattern of wave
motion in the air. This motion is called a sound wave or sound-pressure wave. Each of
the individual vibrations is a sine wave, which is the basic back and forth wave pattern
that all other sounds are made from. The specific combination of sine waves that make up
any given sound is called its spectrum, and it is the spectrum of a sound that accounts for
the tone color we hear.
It’s possible to examine and analyze the spectrum of any sound using tools of science to
identify and measure the sound’s specific components. These observations might be
interesting and even helpful to a musician working with modern electronic instruments,
as such instruments can either generate any type of sound by adding together individual
sine waves or manipulate the spectrum of an existing sound. But there are other
approaches and terms that are more generally used to describe timbre in the world of
music. A brief explanation of the physics of sound, a field known as acoustics, will
greatly aid in the understanding of the musical aspects of sonority.
Acoustics: The Physics of Sound
Sound begins when molecules in the air are disturbed by some type of motion produced
by a vibrating object. The object, which might be a guitar string, human vocal cord or
rolling garbage can, is set into motion because energy is applied to it. The guitar string is
struck by a finger or pick, while the garbage can is hit perhaps by a hammer or shoe. In
both cases, the result is the same: each object begins to vibrate. In fact, they begin to
vibrate at multiple rates simultaneously, though what we actually hear is a combination or
composite of all these vibrations.
Both the rate (speed) of the vibrations and their amount (or strength) is critical to our
perception of the sound. If they are not fast enough, we won’t hear the sound, and if they
are fast enough but not strong enough, we won’t hear it either. If, however, the
composite vibration repeatedly occurs at least twenty times a second, the minimum for
human perception, and the molecules in the air are moved far enough (a more difficult
phenomena to measure), then we will detect a sound. To understand the process better,
the behavior of a guitar string will be used as an example of a vibrating object producing
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sound. Note that many of the basic characteristics of the string also apply to other objects,
such as brass and wind instruments.
Frequency. When a pick plucks a string, the entire string vibrates back and forth at a
certain rate of speed (see Figure 12 below). This speed is called the frequency of the
vibration, and the term “frequency” is used to describe the rate of vibration of any object
set into motion. One single back and forth motion of a vibrating object is called a cycle,
and the number of cycles per second, or cps, is the increment of measurement used for
frequency. (Cps is also referred to as Hertz, abbreviated Hz, named for a 19th
-century
German researcher.)
The phrase “A-440,” which is a frequency we associate with the note A above middle C
(A4), refers to a vibrating frequency that recurs 440 times per second. This is written as
“440 Hz,” or “440 cps” (see the table below showing the correspondence of pitch to
frequency). Like other vibrating objects we might wish to measure, for example the
vibration of air inside a clarinet or trumpet, or the vibration of the head of a drum, the
frequency of the string is very fast, so we use the abbreviation kHz (kilohertz) to measure
frequency in thousands of vibrations per second. A frequency of 2 kHz (read as “2
kilohertz”) signifies a vibrating frequency of 2,000 cycles per second. This means the
string or other object goes through its back and forth vibrating motion 2,000 times per
second, a frequency well within the range of human hearing. Two thousand cps is not a
frequency that coincides with a specific musical pitch – our system of notation isolates
only a few dozen of the nearly infinite possible frequencies our ears can detect and
assigns them to pitches. Several of these are shown in the table below.
Correspondence between musical pitch and frequency of vibration
Displacement. The actual distance a string or other object moves from its point of rest is
called its displacement, and displacement is the main factor in determining the loudness
of the sound we hear. The distance the string moves is a function of the strength of the
energy applied to it and for that reason, the term amplitude, meaning strength, is
commonly used as a substitute for displacement. The material the string is made of and
its thickness and length also greatly influence the distance it will move when struck.
The scientific measurement used for displacement is not particularly important for this
discussion. Rather, it is important to know that the different vibrations that occur when an
object is struck are not equal in strength; some are stronger than others by a significant
amount. As a result, displacement is usually measured on a relative scale, where the
specific amplitudes of the different simultaneous vibrations are compared to one another.
However, if there is not adequate displacement to move the air molecules surrounding the
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vibrating object, the waveform cannot travel through the air and we will not hear the
sound.
FIGURE 12 A plucked string in motion. This figure shows one complete cycle.
As the string in the example above moves, it displaces the molecules around it in a
recurring, wavelike pattern; as the string moves back and forth, the molecules also move
back and forth. The movement of these molecules is propagated in the air, meaning that
individual molecules bump against molecules next to them, which in turn bump their
neighbors (much like a chain reaction). If this movement of molecules is strong enough
and we are close enough to the source (the guitar string, in this case), the molecules next
to our ears will very soon be set in motion (sound travels at over 1130 feet per second in
the air and even faster in water), and they, in turn, will move our eardrum in a pattern
similar or analogous to the original string movement. Next, our brain will detect this
movement, look up the specific pattern in its “data bank” to see if there is a match, then
identify the pattern as the sound of a guitar (assuming it has been exposed to the sound of
a guitar before). We will then “hear” and recognize the sound. Note that sound cannot
travel without a medium of transmission; there must be air (or water) molecules for a
sound to exist. For this reason, sound cannot occur in a vacuum, for example on the
surface of the moon, where there is no medium to sustain the sound.
The air- or sound-pressure wave created by the pattern of moving air molecules can be
depicted in several ways. One way to represent the wave is to use a mathematical
formula. Musicians, however, typically prefer to use software to view an actual image of
the wave on a computer screen. The graphic representation shown below is called a
waveform plot, and it shows how much air is being moved at any point in time. The
amplitude or amount of air pressure is represented on the y (vertical) axis and time is
shown on the horizontal x axis. There are two similar graphs because this sound was
recorded in stereo, meaning there is separate information for the left loudspeaker and the
right:
A graphical waveform representation of a single piano note of 1” duration
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Note in the figure above that there is a very brief point of silence at the beginning of the
diagram, then the sound starts at a very high amplitude. Gradually, the sound fades out
until it dies at the end of this graphic. The movement of air molecules depicted here lasts
less than one second (the indication 00:00:00.500 indicates the half-second point).
Figure 13 above illustrates the movement of air molecules that have been set in motion
by a vibrating string. It is an oversimplified plot as it only represents a portion of the
actual vibrating pattern, but nonetheless shows clearly how the molecules move during
the first portion of the sound’s life. The dashed line represents the string at rest before
any motion occurs. The segment marked "A" represents the impact of the string vibrating
after it is first struck by the pick; "B" shows the air molecule movement as the string
moves back towards its resting point; "C" represents the string moving through the
resting point and onward to its outer limit; then "D" shows it moving back towards the
point of rest. The segment from the start of the graph on the left through to the point
marked D represents a single cycle of the waveform. How many cycles are shown in
total?
This cyclic pattern of vibration repeats continuously until the friction of the molecules in
the air (or water) gradually slows the string down to a stop—you can see above that the
amount of movement away from the initial point of rest (i.e., the displacement) decreases
over time. In order for us to hear the string sound, this back and forth pattern must repeat
at least twenty times per second. This frequency threshold, 20 cps, is the lower limit of
human hearing perception. The fastest sound we can hear is theoretically 20,000 cps (20
kHz), but in reality, it's probably closer to a frequency of 15 kHz or 17 kHz. Moreover,
many playback systems (inexpensive headphones, for example) cannot reproduce
frequencies anywhere near 20 kHz.
The rate at which the entire string vibrates is called the fundamental frequency, and this
frequency is the frequency that gives a sound its strongest sense of pitch. The lowest
string of a guitar vibrates at a rate of about 82 Hz, which produces the pitch E2, and the
highest string has a frequency of about 329 Hz, which is E4. But if this one, simple back
and forth motion were the only phenomenon involved in creating a sound, then all
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stringed instruments would probably sound much the same. We know this is not true and
alas, the laws of physics are not quite so simple. In fact, the string vibrates not only
across its entire length, producing the pattern of fundamental movement shown above,
but also at one-half its length, one-third, one-fourth, one-fifth, etc., simultaneously.
These additional vibrations are called overtones because they occur at rates faster than
(“over”) the rate of the fundamental vibration. In addition, their amplitudes decrease
proportionally, the faster they vibrate.
For example, the first overtone, which is a vibration of the string over one-half its length,
occurs at twice the frequency of the fundamental and has an amplitude one-half as strong,
the second overtone, a vibration of one-third the entire string, occurs at three times the
rate of the fundamental and one-third its strength, etc. Our ear doesn't hear each overtone
as a discrete pitched event, however. If it did, we would hear a multi-note chord every
time a single note on a string was played. Rather, all these vibrations are added together
or “fused” to form a complex or composite waveform pattern that our ear perceives as a
single tone (see Figure 14 below).
Simply measuring the combination of simultaneous vibrations that occur when any
instrument is played still does not account completely for the uniqueness of the timbre of
different instruments, as there is another major factor that comes into play before the
sound propagates through the air to reach our ears. This is factor is the resonator, and it
has a significant role in determining the sound quality of the tone we ultimately hear.
The resonator in the case of the guitar is the large block of hollow wood that the strings
are attached to, that is, the guitar body. It is also the body of the violin or harp, the large
sounding board and case of a piano, and the body of a clarinet or trumpet. The resonator
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strengthens (or amplifies) some of the vibrations produced by the instrument and
weakens (or attenuates) others.
Different types of guitar bodies and even different types of wood will impact the sound
differently, though perhaps only in very subtle ways. Similarly, a clarinet will sound
different if it is made of wood, metal or plastic, even though the basic physics of sound
production on any clarinet are much the same. Ultimately, it is the combined effect of all
the simultaneously occurring vibrations produced by an instrument being altered by the
resonator, then “fusing” into a complex wave pattern as they travel together through the
air that accounts for the phenomenon we identify as a musical sound.
Stringed instruments provide only one model of the acoustic properties of instruments.
Wind and percussion instruments as well as the human voice share certain acoustics
properties with strings, but each instrument has its own unique physical attributes that
demand different types of representation. A thorough discussion of the properties of
instruments is beyond the scope of this text.
In summary, sound consists of three primary stages, each with multiple components:
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INSTRUMENTATION AND ORCHESTRATION
The number of different timbres that exist among the entire realm of acoustic instruments
and human voices is obviously infinite. In addition, new musical resources made
available through the use of electronic instrumentation and the computer have vastly
enhanced the composer's palette and choice of timbral combinations (more on electric
sound below). As a result, sonority in and of itself has become a fundamental organizing
force in music, and no composer can completely separate this element from his or her use
of elements such as pitch, rhythm or texture.
Sound quality is often among the most important traits in distinguishing one style of
music from another. It can be characterized in many different ways and involves not only
the type of electronic sounds or acoustic instruments that are used and the groupings they
are put into, but the ways in which they are produced or performed. Two issues that must
be addressed when discussing sonority are instrumentation, which is the term used to
describe which instruments are found in any ensemble, and orchestration, which
describes how the instruments are used in combinations within that group. Choosing the
instruments, or in the case of electronic music, “designing” or creating them, and
orchestrating them are two of the most important tasks any composer will undertake.
In electronic music, the term "instrument" is often used to describe a sound created
electronically by the composer using one of the synthesis methods described elsewhere
in this text. This instrument will likely be an original "design" of the composer or perhaps
just a modification of some pre-existing or “preset” sound supplied by the manufacturer
of a device and will incorporate whatever sound-generating or sound-manipulating
techniques the composer desires. In the world of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface), a protocol or “language” for communication between musical instruments and
digital devices, such unique sounds are called "patches," which is a term that harkens
back to the days of analog synthesis when composers created their sounds by linking
together actual wires called patch cords (see Figure 15 below) . In the MIDI universe,
patches are also known variously as "programs," "tones," or even "sounds" or
"instruments" depending on the terminology used by the device's manufacturer. A
commercial synthesizer may contain as many as 1,000 or more preset patches (known
simply as "presets") supplied by the manufacturer and will also allow the user to modify
and save those presets or create his or her own from scratch.
Fig. 15 An analog synthesizer that used patch cords to interconnect synth modules
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The focus on sound quality or timbre in modern electronic music has created a new
approach to experiencing music called "timbral listening" or "timbral music." In this
approach, the sonority of the sounds is far more important than the pitched or even the
rhythmic elements. Along the same lines, a new form of composition called "spectral
composition" emphasizes relationships among the components that make up the music's
spectrum, for example, working with and developing procedures, some of which involve
complex mathematical formulae, for manipulating the ratios between the various partials
that make up a sound, or attempting to serialize the various frequencies of the sounds that
are used.
A corollary of this approach works in reverse, where composers try to mimic as closely
as possible the spectra of electronically generated sound using combinations of traditional
acoustic orchestral instruments. This technique is known as "spectral composition."
French composers Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey, both of whom conducted research
and composed at the French institute IRCAM, are interested in using a traditional
orchestra to create sounds that resemble those more closely associated with electronic
music. Listen to Example 53b, Murail’s Gondwana, and note the similarity to electronic
music heard elsewhere in these readings.
One common combination of sound resources found in electronic music today is called
electroacoustic. Electroacoustic refers to the combination of a live acoustic instrument
with a purely electronic part, which might be prerecorded on a laptop or also performed
live by a second musician. An important consideration when analyzing the sonority of an
electroacoustic work is to determine the relationship between the two parts. The listener
must consider whether the prerecorded part is intended to enhance and extend the timbre
of the live instrument, perhaps resembling it in a variety of ways but performing music
faster or maybe higher or louder than the live instrument could perform. In this approach,
the prerecorded electronic part becomes a “super flute” or “super piano” and might use
electronically manipulated flute or piano sounds as all or part of its source material. A
different type of relationship between the two would be where the prerecorded part is
meant to serve as a contrast to the live one, offering a completely different sonic universe
than that of the acoustic instrument.
Listen to Example 54, the opening minutes of Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronism #6,
originally written for piano and prerecorded magnetic tape, and note the relationship of
the tape and piano parts. When and in what ways are they similar and where do they
appear to be clearly contrasted? In a performance of this piece, an engineer sits on or near
the stage and starts and stops the tape part with some flexibility to choose when that
occurs, thus becoming an integral "performer" in the music. Modern performances of
electroacoustic works might consist of the tape part being played back from a computer
that the performer is to start and stop using an electronic foot pedal or some other device,
though this would not be very practical for a pianist, as his or her feet are engaged with
the piano’s own pedals.
Now listen to Example 55, the opening of Milton Babbitt's Philomel for soprano and tape
and make similar observations about the relationship of the two main parts. What role
does the prerecorded electronic part serve? Is it an equal partner to the vocalist? Do they
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share actual melodies or rhythms? Note in particular any changes in this relationship as
the music evolves.
ARTICULATION
Articulation refers to the actual manner or method by which a sound is produced on an
instrument and can be examined and discussed equally with sounds produced
electronically. Articulation is a key aspect of sonority and composers of all styles of
music use a vast number of approaches to achieve the quality of sound they desire. For
example, a melody might use notes or sounds that are smoothly connected with no
apparent space between them, a technique called legato, or the notes might be short and
detached, an articulation called staccato. Listen to Example 56, the song "Cliffs" by
Aphex Twin, and note the music's quality. What term best describes the articulation in
this example? Does it change at any point?
Now consider the next example, "4001" (Ex. 57) by SquarePusher and notice the space
between successive notes. What happens at around :25 seconds when the second layer
comes in? These types of articulations, along with dozens of others, are found in both
notated and improvised forms of music and help give a piece variety and color. Keep in
mind that different tracks or layers of a composition might employ different types of
articulations simultaneously. In the Tangerine Dream song, "Turning of the Wheel," (Ex.
58) you should be able to identify at least three different types of articulation within the
first minute or so. How would you describe each?
In the example below, the composer has added detailed articulation markings for every
note. In addition to the symbols used to inform the performer about how to play the note,
the passage also contains very exacting dynamic markings that are used to create
changes in loudness. Dynamics (discussed below) play a large role in compositions of all
styles and are among the most powerful types of expression markings composers use to
clarify their intentions.
Articulation and dynamic markings.
Sometimes an entire passage of music contains one predominant type of articulation.
When the music switches to another form of articulation, the listener is given a clear cue
that a new passage or section of the work has begun. This is one means by which
composers use articulation to help delineate the overall structure or form of a
composition. In other instances, articulation is used simply to add an expressive quality to
a composition and does not have any particular implications for the design of the work.
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The example below shows a number of symbols that are used to indicate various types of
expression marks to a performer. When an electronic work is notated, similar markings
are used to signify the composer’s intentions. Tenuto means to hold the note out to its
full value, accent and marcato are two different ways to imply a heavy emphasis on the
note under the symbol, a breath mark tells the performer where a break is allowed to
accurate, tremolo means to move rapidly between the two indicated notes and repeated
note simply means to play the note repeatedly as fast as possible for the duration of the
note’s value. The tremolo example uses two different notes, which is the way non-
stringed instruments would interpret the marking. A stringed instrument can also perform
a tremolo on a single note and all of these markings can be realized by electronic
instruments just as easily:
Some common articulation markings
Dynamics
Controlling the loudness levels of entire musical passages or even single notes is an
important way for a composer to insure that the music is performed as he or she intended.
Below are some common dynamic markings used in notated music, which are typically
written in Italian. Dynamic levels are relative – a piccolo’s ff is much louder than one
played on an English horn, and a single loud note on an electric guitar could easily
overpower a quartet of clarinets playing mf.
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Dynamics are often used to shape or clarify a phrase. A long crescendo can help add
tension to a passage of music and bring it to a point of climax. Repeated, rapid changes
from soft to loud can also help build excitement or momentum. Composers often use
extreme dynamics in their work: Tchaikovsky, for example, specified markings between
pppppp and ffff in one of his symphonies, while modern composers have used more
poetic indications such as al niente (meaning “fade to nothing”) to instruct the performer
in the nuance they desire.
In electronic music, dynamics can be extremely precise. The MIDI language, for
example, provides 128 (28) dynamic levels (numbered 0 - 127) to indicate the value of
every discrete note as well as 16,384 (214
) values that can be used for a gradual,
continuous change in volume. (Dynamics in MIDI are called Velocity because they are a
function of how fast or a slow a key on a keyboard moves when pressed.) Using
specialized software to create sounds synthetically, composers have access to 65,536
(216
) or more distinct dynamic levels, which makes long fade ins and outs extremely
smooth.
Listen to the first few minutes of the Merzbow composition "September" (Ex. 59) and
note how many changes in dynamics occur. Are the changes gradual or instantaneous?
Changes in dynamics can occur either by raising the actual loudness level of a single
event or by adding or decreasing the total number of events sounding at once. How do the
changes occur here? Now listen to Example 59a , a work entitled Volumina by Gyorgy
Ligeti. This composition, for electronic organ, opens with the performer pressing every
key on the organ using the maximum possible volume, then gradually over an extended
period, reducing the volume to almost nothing (you can see the effect in a waveform view
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of the recording below). Clearly, dynamics play a significant role in the composer’s
concept underlying the work.
This image shows the waveform of Ligett’s Volumina for electric organ
REGISTER
Another element of sonority that helps account for the sound quality of music is register.
As mentioned earlier, register refers to the specific segments of the overall range that is
used in a composition. By emphasizing a single register for some section of a piece, a
composer can give the music a dark and solemn quality, or, if preferred, a bright and
glittering sound. The latter occurs, for example, in the opening of Maurice Ravel’s piano
piece, Gaspard de la Nuit (Example 60), in which a bright, shimmering sonority results
through the exclusive use of the piano’s upper-most register. The overall range of most
musical instruments can be divided into different registers, and, in some cases, the sound
of these regions are so distinct that they have names. The lower register of the clarinet,
for example, which includes the notes from E3 to Bb4 (written), is called the chalumeau
register and is characterized by a dark, woody sound.
Chalumeau register of a clarinet
Listen to Example 61, Spasm by Michael Lowenstein and identify the various registers
used by the different elements in the music. Can you detect where changes in register
occur? Does the music reach the upper most registers of the instrument or remain in a
fairly low register? Now listen to Example 61a, Proximity, an electronic work by Tokyo
Dawn Labs & Vladg Sound, and note the use of different registers simultaneously. How
many registers are there and in which registers do the main musical events occur?
Using electronic instruments, the available range of sound extends even farther than
when acoustic instruments are used, and composers have often employed tones that reach
the extremes of human perception. (The range of tones a human can hear, assuming
normal hearing, extends above and below the extreme notes playable by an orchestra.)
Moreover, sounds generated electronically can be so close in frequency or duration that
they can be beyond the limits of human perception. Though a traditional keyboard
synthesizer normally is programmed to play notes that fall roughly within the range of an
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orchestra from highest to lowest, sound synthesis software allows composers to generate
tones of nearly any frequency. Descriptions such as "high," "middle," and "low" still
apply, however, when characterizing the register in which electronic sounds occur, but
far more accurate gradations are often useful.
OTHER SOUND CHARACTERISTICS
Pitch-Noise Continuum
From a scientific standpoint, a "pitched" sound is one whose waveform repeats in a
regular, periodic manner. The graph below shows the first few cycles of a sine tone
generated electronically. Note the "purity" of the wave shape and the absolute regularity
of the up and down wave motion, which results in a very pure sound with a distinct pitch,
in this case, the note A4 (A440). Listen to Example 62a and become familiar with this
tone. Because it is generated electronically, it will never change quality, unlike an actual
acoustic instrument.
Graph of a few cycles of the note A-400
Compare that with the graph and sound of a flute playing a low D-flat (Ex. 62). The flute
is the instrument that produces the most sine-wave like tone of all instruments, but it
clearly has more components in its spectrum than just the single sine tone.
Graph of a flute playing a D-flat 4
In the next example, Example 63, a noise-based sound is shown as a complex, irregular
and non-recurring pattern of motion. This example was created using a noise generator
and will sound like static to most people; in fact, noises such as these are the starting
points for several types of sound synthesis and are used as the basis for more familiar
tones including brasslike and other sounds.
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Graph of a noise waveform
Pitch and noise are polar opposites and there is a vast range of sound between them.
Identifying where on this continuum a composition's sounds fall and when and how it
might change will be an important part of assessing the sonic characteristics of a piece of
music.
Envelope
Some sounds begin instantaneously or nearly so following an initial action by a
performer. An electronic organ for example, begins to sound the moment a key is
depressed. A piano also starts almost immediately after a key is struck, while a stringed
instrument, like an oboe and some other woodwinds, will take a longer time (measured in
milliseconds) to "speak." The figure below shows the first 2/100s of a second of a piano
note.
Unlike a piano, which begins to die away after the note is hit, an electronic organ will
continue to sound as long as a key is held down, and a woodwind or stringed instrument
will make sound as long as the player blows into it or rubs the bow across the string.
These properties, which describe the "evolution" of a sound from its beginning to end and
refer equally to acoustic and electronic sounds, are a result of the instrument's amplitude
envelope.
An amplitude envelope (or simply "envelope") describes how the loudness of a sound
varies over time and can be graphed visually. In the example below, the changes in the
sound’s loudness (marked as v for volume) level are plotted on the y axis and the time for
each to occur is shown on the x axis. Note that there is a slight amount of time (no
specific time reference is given) for the sound to reach its maximum loudness level. This
segment of the envelope is marked “A” for Attack. After the sound reaches its peak,
there is a slight dip in the level that occurs a little faster than the time it took for the
Attack segment. This portion, labeled “D” for Decay, brings the sound to its “S” or
Sustain level. If this graph were showing the amplitude envelope of an electronic sound
played on a synthesizer, for example, the Sustain portion would normally last until the
performer took his or her finger off the key, at which point the final segment, labeled “R”
for Release, would occur.
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The envelope above, known as an ADSR envelope, is a model for many musical
instruments. A clarinet, for example, takes a short amount of time to make a sound,
during which the player actually blows too much air into the instrument (a natural
occurrence), then finds the proper pressure level and maintains it (the Sustain) for as long
as needed. The Sustain portion on a clarinet is not nearly as steady as the example shown
above, as small fluctuations in air pressure would appear more as a wavy line for this
segment than shown here. After the player stops blowing, the reed takes just a few
milliseconds to stop vibrating, which represents the Release segment.
The term "envelope" can be used for other characteristics of a sound; in fact, it can refer
to any aspect of a sound that changes over time. This might include its pitch or its
position in a stereo field (moving between the left and right speakers), or any other
characteristic of its timbre. To be clear, when used alone, the term will be considered in
reference to a sound's changing dynamic level, and when applied to other concepts, the
term will be used in conjunction with that specific characteristic, for example, pitch
envelope or stereo-position envelope, etc.
USE OF SONORITY
Many listeners will respond immediately and intuitively to the sonority of a work - its
sound quality - almost without thinking. On first impression, a piece might sound loud
and aggressive, or maybe it’s heard as soft and soothing. A listener might notice a
“shimmering” quality upon first hearing a new composition or detect a dark, "moody"
tone. These and many other attributes can be created by the composer through the careful
interaction of all the elements of a composition, but especially by close attention to its
instruments’ capabilities and characteristics, whether real or virtual.
In classical music, sonority serves numerous functions. Before the twentieth century,
sonority was used most often to help define and distinguish the main melodic elements of
a composition. For example, it was not unusual for a composer to employ different
instruments to perform the various phrases of a melody. A flute might be used to play the
antecedent part of a phrase, while the strings might answer with the consequent. In this
way, sonority helped guide the listener to an understanding of what the main melodic
themes consisted of while clarifying their structure.
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In the twentieth century and beyond, changes in instrumentation or timbre can still help
distinguish divisions of a piece, but sonority has become even more significant as an
independent musical element. For that matter, like certain styles of modern art, some
compositions, especially electronic ones, are simply "about color"- their focus is on
exploring and developing sonority and timbre above and beyond the other elements of the
piece. Beginning with Claude Debussy and other Impressionist composers (in particular
in France at the beginning of the 20th
century), color for its own sake became a working
premise. Choosing from the unlimited palette of colors that the orchestra provided,
composers often attempted to create new and highly original sound combinations. Some
pieces consisted of nothing more than gradual movements from one tone color to another.
Schoenberg’s orchestral work Five Pieces for Orchestra, Opus 16, for example, contains
a movement called “Farben” (Color; Example 64) that reflects the subtle hues of a
shimmering scene by the lake, with occasional flickers of activity. The sound is a
continuously evolving melting and blending of colors, or in Schoenberg’s words, a
“melody of color” (in German, klangfarbenmelodie). Ravel’s orchestral work Bolero
(Example 65) on the other hand, evolves by repeating a small number of melodies
layered over a recurring rhythmic pattern played by a snare drum a vast number of times.
The shifting and ever-changing instruments used to play the theme give the piece a
kaleidoscopic quality.
A focus on sonority as an element equal to (if not surpassing) others has become
commonplace in classical music since 1950 and in electronic and computer music in
particular. Electronic music composers have a vast range of tools available to them to
employ in their search for unique and personalized sounds, some of which will be
discussed below. Indeed, the process of designing new sounds for each new work is often
equal in importance to the actual composition and sequencing of those sonic events.
Though at first glance this may seem an incomplete or inappropriate working premise for
creating a composition, the main intention in such works is often to sensitize the listener
to the incredibly rich and varied sound quality music can provide. Moreover, popular
music of many styles now uses more advanced elements of sonority, including electronic
instruments and digital effects processing, than at any time in the past.
ELECTRIC SOUND
Since the early decades of the 20th
century, composers have employed electrical and,
later, electronic devices of various kinds in their search for an expanded sonic palette. In
some cases, phonographs and tape recorders were used manipulate prerecorded sound;
slowing down or speeding up a phonograph, for example, or cutting magnetic tape into
small pieces and recombining them into a new arbitrary arrangement. (These and similar
techniques were the precursor of modern sampling.) By the mid 1950s, composers were
able to generate new sounds by entirely electrical means, often using equipment such as
soundwave generators that were initially designed for other uses.
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In the next section, several recent techniques of electronic sound production will be
covered. As before, these tools are used to give the composer an ever-greater world of
sound to manipulate. What follows is simply an introduction to each topic; additional
resources for each can be found online.
Sampling
Sound created on or by a computer is found everywhere in today’s music. In some cases,
a computer is used to manipulate or process acoustic (natural) sounds that have been
previously recorded. This technique, called sampling, is common in both popular music
and in electronic (“computer”) music that is intended for the concert hall, and because it
uses natural sounds, it gives a composer the potential to use any sound imaginable in his
or her work. Sampling is also commonly found in music that accompanies visual media
such as film or games, for which a sound designer creates the effects requested by a
director or producer. (Creating sounds for use with other media is a process known as
sound design.)
A sample is typically a short sound, either electronic or, more likely, acoustic, that has
been recorded onto a computer or onto a standalone electronic hardware device called a
sampler. Once it has been recorded, it can be manipulated in a vast number of ways. For
example, a sample can be pitched-shifted (transposed) under the control of a MIDI
keyboard. Example 66 illustrates this effect, playing first a sample of a soprano singing a
short phrase, then a version of the phrase shifted one octave down that retains the original
duration. If the sample happened to be the sound of a trumpet playing a middle C, then
when the performer played the note middle C on the keyboard, the sound at its original
pitch level would be heard. But if a D, E or other note were played on the keyboard, then
the trumpet sample would automatically be pitch-shifted by the sampler and would play
back at that new pitch.
Pitch-shifting works well if the original sound is pitch-shifted no more than a fourth or
fifth up or down, but is not effective when the original sound is transposed more than that
amount. As a result, musicians often use a technique called multisampling, whereby
multiple notes of the instrument are sampled – perhaps every three half-steps – and no
sample would need to be shifted more than just a few steps. (For a variety of reasons –
memory limitations, most notably – it is not feasible to sample every note of an
instrument. New approaches to sampling are now bypassing such limits, however.)
A sample could also be time-stretched, whereby it would be lengthened or shortened
without having its pitch changed. Unlike simply changing the speed of a tape recorder or
record player, where the sound would slow down or speed up and the pitch would be
altered, time-stretching allows the composer to alter the length of a sample yet keep it at
its original pitch. This has both corrective uses, for example, changing the length of a
music cue that is intended to accompany a specific scene in a video, or artistic ones.
Example 67 illustrates time-stretching, playing first the same soprano sample used in
Example 66 stretched 5 times its length, then stretched 15 times its length with the pitch
staying the same in both cases. Filtering is a very common process in which a sound’s
spectral makeup is altered. A filtered sample could be made to sound “brighter” or
“duller” than the original, or it could be made to sound as if it were emanating from a tin
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can, a large gymnasium, an old AM radio or even underwater. It could also be altered
into an unrecognizable state. Example 68 is a drum loop played in its original version,
then played using two different filtering effects, one after the other.
Another type of filtering, called convolution, can be thought of as “spectral cloning,”
where the spectral characteristics of one sound are applied to another. This can produce
effects like a cat singing or a baby meowing. Example 69 begins with two cat meows,
which are followed by a single note on a Jew’s harp, then a convolution of the cat with
the Jew’s harp. It appears that the cat is actually inside the Jew’s harp, creating the sound.
In the modern studio, a composer is likely to use sampling techniques one of three ways.
First, a traditional hardware sampler, one that can record sounds and play them back via
MIDI control, is a viable option. Companies such as E-MU and Kurzweil have made very
high quality hardware samplers over the years, many of which are still in active use.
Next, composers might employ software samplers such as those from Native
Instruments and Steinberg, which are computer programs that offer features very similar
to their hardware counterparts but exist entirely in the "virtual world" on the computer.
Ironically, most software samplers do not actually sample - they have no sound recording
capabilities. Rather, it is assumed that composers using such software would have other
means to get their audio onto the computer. Yet the ability to integrate a software sampler
into a complex audio production environment, where sound from one program can easily
be sent directly to another with no wires to attach or cords to plug in, or where the limits
of hardware samplers in the amount of data they can store are entirely mitigated, is a
huge advantage over using the hardware option.
Finally, many of the same techniques that would be available from any type of sampler,
hardware or software, are now being performed in multitrack digital audio editors,
(often referred to a DAWs, for Digital Audio Workstation). These programs, of which
Digidesign’s Pro Tools is the best known, let the composer organize a vast number of
overlapping sounds of any length or complexity along a timeline with very exacting
control as to the start time, duration, loudness level, stereo position and other aspects of
their playback. Of course this method of arranging sonic events on a timeline cannot be
done in real time the way the sounds in a hardware or software sampler can be performed
live from a keyboard. This is not a limitation for most studio musicians, though, and it is
not unusual for composers using such tools to work on a single piece for many months.
Note below the appearance of a MIDI software program in which instructions,
represented by dash lines, are being sent to a sampler informing it when a note is to be
played and for how long. Below that is the interface from a digital audio editor in which
the actual sounds, not simply instructions to another device to begin playing, are shown.
Composers will use one or perhaps both of these approaches depending upon their own
personal preference.
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A MIDI sequencer sending instructions to a synthesizer
A digital audio editor sending actual sound files to loudspeakers
Now listen to excerpts from two works, Bill Brunsons's Inside Pandora's Box (Ex. 70)
and Christopher Calon’s Les Corps Ebouis (Ex. 71), which use sampling extensively. The
exact methods used to process and transform each individual sound cannot usually be
determined simply by listening (though it is assumed none were simply played live from
a keyboard and recorded), but it is certain that the composers took great care in ordering
and manipulating each of the huge number of individual events that make up the
composition.
Sound Synthesis
A second approach to creating sound on the computer is called synthesis, and with this
approach, a sound is generated by the computer or a hardware synthesizer (which
contains a microprocessor) literally “from scratch.” In sound synthesis, the computer is
given an algorithm, which is a set of instructions (or “recipe”) that describes what
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processes or operations it should perform to create the desired sound. Unlike sampling,
which manipulates natural sounds, sound synthesis can be used to create new and unique
sounds that could never occur in the natural world.
Sound synthesis is used in a number of commercial software programs, some of which
provide the user with colorful, graphical interfaces for designing sounds of any
complexity. Reaktor, by Native Instruments, is an example of this type of visual
interface. Each of the small boxes in the example below represents some type of sound-
generating or sound-manipulating process, and the result of all these processes interacting
result in the sound a user hears when a trigger note is sent from some MIDI device.
Main interface for Native Instruments Reaktor
There are also several sound programming languages dedicated to synthesizing sound
entirely in software. Csound, developed by Professor Barry Vercoe at MIT, is the most
popular of this type of application. The text below is the exact programming code that
would be used by the Csound language to create a simple sine tone, the most basic sound
in nature. This tone will have a frequency of 440 (A above middle C) and a relative
loudness of 5000 (out of a possible 32,000). The instructions regarding how long the tone
should last would appear in a separate file:
You can hear the sound in Example 72.
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There are many different synthesis methods available to the computer musician, each of
which has its advantages and disadvantages and each of which will generate its own class
and category of timbres. Frequency Modulation (FM), for example, is particularly
useful for synthesizing metallic, brass and percussive sounds. Listen to Example 73,
which starts with a harsh sounding FM phrase followed by a more-musical bell sound
also created with FM. FM works by using one sound wave to change (or modulate)
another sound wave. Additive Synthesis, a process where many dozens of individual
sine tones, all with different frequencies and in varying amounts, are added together. It is
effective for producing vocal timbres as well as flute and other woodwind simulations,
organs, and more.
Listen to Example 73a and you may notice that this additive synthesis excerpt, created on
a synthesizer offering hundreds of sine waves for manipulation, resembles the sound of
an organ. In fact, organs from the earliest times used primitive forms of additive synthesis
to generate sound. Because it operates with the most basic components of all sounds,
additive synthesis has the potential to recreate synthetically nearly any sound imaginable.
But the effort and computations required to synthesize highly complex sounds such as a
grand piano are not worth the effort, especially because other, newer techniques are far
more effective for that task.
Subtractive synthesis is perhaps the most common of all synthesis methods and has
been used in nearly every genre of electronic music. It employs a sound source such as an
oscillator (a digital function used to generate a basic waveform) or noise generator, a
filter to shape the sound, and an amplifier to control the final output level. All of these
processes are modeled in software; like the others, there is no hardware required by this
method. Listen to Example 74, which begins with a fairly complex waveform called a
sawtooth wave, then ends with an elaborate, animated sound created by modulating the
waveform using filters whose own characteristics change over time.
One of the newest synthesis techniques, Physical Modeling (PM), is a novel approach
for creating the sound of both highly realistic acoustic instruments and completely other-
worldly virtual instruments, such as the sound of a 10-foot long glass flute or string or the
sound of an instrument that gets larger while it is playing. Physical Modeling works by
analyzing the most significant physical properties of an instrument that determine its
sound, such as its length, width and the material it is made of, as well as how air travels
through or across the instrument, then generating a mathematical formula that models all
those properties. All of the sounds heard in Example 75, an excerpt of a composition
entitled Monostique by Philippe Dérogis, were created using this method. What types of
natural materials do you hear represented?
A modern electronic music studio (often called a “home” or “project” studio) will no
doubt be based largely around a personal computer on which many different types of
software for creating, editing and notating music have been installed. A studio might also
contain a number of actual hardware devices, for example a sampler or sample player
(which could play back actual sound files but not record them), one or more synthesizers
(either with or without a keyboard attached), and some type of keyboard or other MIDI
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controller. A controller is a device used to transmit performance instructions to a sound-
generating module such as a synthesizer or sampler for real-time performance or to a
computer to be recorded. Controllers can take the shape not only of keyboards, but also
guitars, wind instruments, electronic drums, etc. More recent controllers can even convert
and transmit brain waves to an electronic instrument.
An electronic-wind instrument (EWI), a form of MIDI controller
A well-equipped studio would also contain audio hardware such as an amp, a mixer,
headphones and speakers (called “studio monitors”), as well as processing gear to
manipulate sound, for example reverb and delay units, compressors, EQs, and more. All
of these hardware devices have been modeled (simulated) by software applications,
however, and today’s studios, even those of many professionals, have become almost
entirely computer-based.
Complete Listening Assignment - Sonority now
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Form refers to the overall outline or design of a musical composition. It is the structural
element of a piece of music that helps account for that composition's sense of long-range
coherence and continuity. Because it can involve materials that extend over long spans
of time, the form of a work is often difficult to perceive on the first hearing. However,
composers use a number of means to give their music coherent shapes that can be
recognized and understood by the listener, though perhaps only after repeated listenings.
Musical compositions are organized in many ways and on many different levels. Certain
connections among the elements of a piece are obvious or at the surface. For example,
two sections of a piece might be in the same key, use the same instrumentation or focus
on the same electronic sound. Or an entire composition might consist of a series of
variations on a simple rhythmic idea stated at the outset. Other connections between and
among the elements in a work are more subtle, often hidden beneath the surface. For
example, the beginning and end of a large-scale composition might use elements that are
similar to one another but varied just enough so that no connection between them is
immediately apparent.
The way in which the musical elements of a work are interrelated—the way in which
they are shaped and held together—determines the overall form and design of a
composition. Using and reusing elements, introducing them at important moments along
the roadmap of a piece, allows the composer to create large-scale connections among the
sections of a musical piece and helps insure that the work as a whole is unified and
coherent. The same idea is relevant for improvised music – a performer might build an
improvised musical performance around a central theme or idea that reoccurs in different
versions throughout the piece.
Repetition and Contrast
Regardless of the musical style or era, several general factors are important in the
creation of a cohesive musical composition. Among the most important of these are the
principles of repetition and contrast. Repetition, the reuse of the key elements in a work
either immediately after they first occur or at later moments, helps the listener become
familiar with the principal melodies, themes, sonorities, rhythms, and other materials that
make up the piece. It creates a sense of unity and continuity for a work, whether a
popular song, electronic piece or a symphony, and helps establish reference points and
associations that will assist the listener in following the logic, direction and goals of the
music.
Contrast, on the other hand, is the use of materials that are totally new or radically
different from others used elsewhere. It is essential for giving a work variety, for keeping
it from becoming monotonous or predictable, and for creating a sense of surprise, tension
and anticipation. The bridge section of a popular song, often in a different key and using
a new chord progression, is a simple example of contrast and is the section where a song
moves away from the musical elements it had been using up to that point. Just like a
contrasting new section in a classical piece, the bridge adds variety to the song, and when
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it ends, there is most often a return to the familiar music that preceded it. Similarly, a
composer might use any of the musical elements above to add contrast to a composition
For example, a piece may begin with a very soft, quiet section that contains only a few
isolated, short events, then gradually (or perhaps abruptly) shifts to a section with
numerous long, loud sounds – the possibilities for incorporating contrasting materials of
any type is obviously infinite, and it is important to recognize exactly which elements are
being used to create the contrasting music and which (if any) have remained the same.
A successful balance of repetition and contrast, between the reuse of existing materials
and the introduction of new materials, must be maintained by a composer if his or her
music is to present itself as a coherent, continuous entity. Very few musical forms are
based entirely on exactly repeating material or the presentation of entirely new music in
ever section.
Tension and Repose
Tension and repose offer another dialectic for organizing a composition. Especially with
music that is not based around traditional melodic or harmonic landmarks, the contrast of
moments of heightened activity and sections of little or minimal action in the music can
be a vital force in propelling a composition forward.
Tension is created in a variety of ways. A composer might build up the listener’s
expectations by continuously repeating a rhythmic or melodic idea. This might go on for
an extended portion of time, then stop abruptly. The listener is then unsure whether the
theme will return or if something new will happen – the moment is tense because the
listener does not know what to expect at this point. The more a composer affirms the
expectations of a listener, the higher that listener's "comfort level" will be. On the other
hand, constant surprises and denials of expectations are likely to produce a lower comfort
level and result in increased tension.
Contrasting fast rhythms, dense textures and/or loud passages with slow rhythms, thin
textures and soft passages over either a short time or long time frame can also set up a
conflict between tension and repose. This conflict is often very important as an
organizing principle in music and should be a part of any examination of the element of
form.
ANALYZING FORM
One key challenge in analyzing the form of a work is determining where "to draw the
line," that is, where to make a distinction or division between one part of a work and the
next. Equally important is knowing whether changes that are detected represent short-
term divisions or are major formal landmarks in the music. Another goal is to identify
representative elements within the music, whether melodic, rhythmic, harmonic or
timbral, and determine whether they represent fundamental building blocks that recur and
are reused in various transformations or if they are simply secondary or transitional
elements that appear as contrast to elements more central to the music. There is no single
or simple way to accomplish these tasks, but understanding form will always involve
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repeated listenings: the more familiar you become with the music, the easier the task will
be. Here are some key steps.
First do a little research on the composer or performers. From what musical era does the
work come? Does it fit easily within some recognizable musical style or genre or is it
more of a hybrid of several styles? You can gain some expectations about form if you
know the music was written during the 1950s and not the 1990s or that the composer is
known as a minimalist or a serialist or what have you. Does the composer have a
particular technique that he or she is known for? For example, is he or she associated
with a synthesis technique such as FM or granular synthesis? Who are the composer's
influences? Where did he or she study and is that institution known for perpetuating
certain compositional approaches? How has the composer's styles changed over time?
Also, find out if the composer has written something about the work itself.
Next, listen to the piece repeatedly until you become very familiar with its intricacies.
Listening to the work multiple times will make you familiar with the overall flow of
musical events and help you better understand both the large-scale structure of the work
and the subtle details.
If at all possible acquire a score of the piece you are going to analyze or, if possible,
make your own using software such as Variations Audio Timeliner
(http://variations.sourceforge.net/vat/). Most purely electronic works do not have a
printed score, but works that combine live performers and a prerecorded part (i.e.,
electroacoustic music) are usually represented in some visual form. Composers work
very hard at including important structural information in their scores. After all, it will be
easy to detect sections that repeat or have texture or sonority changes just by looking at
the music itself. Look for and highlight repeat signs, double bar lines, second endings,
Da Capo markings and any sectional information that you see on the printed score.
Next, detect and mark areas where there are significant changes in timbre, dynamics or
meter. Large-scale repetition, motivic connections, moments of tension and release and
structural breaks will all be clearly seen (and probably heard) in the musical score. Listen
again and verify that you have marked the changes that sound most important. Note these
same elements if you have made your own timeline.
You might find it helpful to write down your responses to the piece you are listening to.
For example, noting that a high sustained brass-like tone entering after a quiet pad-like
section was “shocking,” or that the loud percussive gesture just before the final dense
chordal ending seemed “really dramatic.” This kind of observation can guide you
through a piece of music in a more informed way. Don’t be surprised that you will hear
new things each time you listen.
Next, determine whether the work is sectional or continuous. A sectional work will
most likely have clear, distinct areas that should be easy to identify and isolate. You
might hear strong cadences at the end of each section, significant changes in the tempo of
the music, the introduction of entirely new timbral, changes in register or texture or other
cues. Sectional works tend to be balanced in length, meaning it’s likely that the sections
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will be relatively the same in length, but there is, of course, no guarantee that that will be
the case. It’s also possible that a sectional work will have a single section of music that
simply repeats, perhaps with minor changes or the addition of a few new elements each
time. For example, note in Example 76 that a single section of music repeats multiple
times. Within the larger section “A” are four smaller sections, which would be labeled
using small letters “a” and “b”, or if the listener thinks the second melody is different
enough from the first, then the “b” phrase would instead be labeled “a1 ” (a prime). A
graph of the form would look like this (the numbers represent the number of measures of
4 beats each per phrase):
A transition A etc.
a a b b a a b b
4 4 4 4 4 2 4 4 4 4
(inst) (vocals)
Follow the graph above as you listen to the music and note the difference in the 4-
measure melody between its first two repetitions and the second two. Decide if you think
it is different enough to be called a “b” phrase or if a1is better in your opinion.
Continuous forms do not have clear sections. Works of this type, which are often called
through-composed, simply spin out their ideas along lines of continuity and
cohesiveness determined by the composer. As in other, more structured forms, one
would still expect to find a balance between similarity and contrast—unity and variety—
that would guide the composer in his or her choice of material. Moving from loud,
aggressive music after a long, extended soft and slow section, for example, or shifting to
music mainly in the low register after a section mostly in the upper register are both
possible reasons for explaining how a composer organizes the materials in a piece. Note
any recurrence of melodic, rhythmic or timbral elements and determine if their
reappearance signifies a meaningful division in the work.
Listen to Example 77 and notice that there are no recurring elements that define or
distinguish one section of the music form the next. New elements appear and disappear
essentially at will over the recurring drum part. The listener can’t really predict how long
any one melodic idea will last or if it will be repeated or when a new idea might appear.
This form is continuous and through composed (it is also mostly improvised in live
performance). Continuous works can often be unpredictable, which can produce a feeling
of excitement and anticipation in a listener or, on the other hand, may make them feel
uncomfortable. These qualities are mostly under the control of the composer and are
often used to manipulate the response a composer wants from his or her audience.
Some through-composed works are episodic, meaning they contain numerous short
“episodes” consisting of musical ideas that are developed over a short span of time and
then moved away from. Other pieces might use dynamics as a structural element - the
music simply gets louder from the beginning to the mid point, then gets softer again from
the middle to the end. This is one of many ways a composer might create a giant arch
form, which is a formal shape used in various ways throughout music history.
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Because there is no preset arrangement of the materials in a through-composed work and
there is typically no repetition of distinct sections, through-composed music is more
challenging for the listener to follow (and for the analyst to analyze). Yet every new piece
will expose its “logic” and order over time to the patient listener.
Indeterminancy
Another approach to creating a musical form involves the use of indeterminacy, which is
a technique of composing in which the composer leaves many aspects of a composition’s
elements to chance or to decisions made on the spot by performers. American composer
John Cage was a major proponent of this approach and used techniques such as rolling
dice or simply putting numbers on paper, then randomly reshuffling them to determine
how long each section of a piece might be. He and others also used graphical notation,
which involves creating elaborate pictures with a variety of shapes and forms whose
“meaning” performers are supposed to interpret as musical instructions. Clearly,
indeterminancy will produce music that never flows or evolves the same way twice –
each “realization” of a musical performance will be different in some way, which is what
the composer intends.
For example, in his piece, Fontana Mix (1958), a work scored for “any number of tracks
of magnetic tape, any number of performers and any number of instruments,” the
performers use the image below to guide them in their decisions about the musical
material of the work.
Score for John Cage’s Fonatana Mix (1958)
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To begin the analysis of a musical work, ask some questions about the structure of the
music. The questions below are a guide to help you refine your analysis. Not all the
questions will apply to all music. Remember that the purpose of formal analysis is to
deepen your understanding of the organizational principles of the music you are
experiencing.
1) How unified is the musical material? Are there obvious contrasts of thematic and
non-thematic elements? Are the melodic themes strongly contrasted with each
other? Are the themes clearly stated? (Use your understanding of melody to
determine your answers here). If melodic themes are not found, what other
elements seem to be the central focus?
2) Is there a transition between the thematic elements of the music, whether those be
melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, etc? If so, what does the transition bring about: A
change of key? A change of texture? Sonority? Do the transitions serve more to
link or separate the materials? Does a new theme arrive during the transition or
after some section of the piece has been reached?
3) Is the piece sectional? If it is, what is the overall tonal plan of the music? At
what points is the tonic clearly established? Do these coincide with the statement
of familiar material or do they bring new material? If the work is not tonal, then
how are the sections distinguished from one another?
4) Does the music come to a stop at some point before the piece ends? When does
the stop occur and what does it signal? Is the stop a moment of tension or of
release? Does the music repeat after this stop or does it continue to new material?
5) When, where and what is the moment of highest tension? What are some of the
characteristics that give this moment its identity?
6) Does the moment of most significant repose occur soon after the moment of
highest intensity?
7) Does any of the opening material reappear near the end of the work? Is this a
literal repetition? In what way has the opening material been altered (change of
key, change of instrumentation, change of register, etc.)?
8) Is there any musical material that appears only once in the piece? Can you
explain why that material is not repeated? Is it just filling space, killing time,
transitioning between more important sections?
9) Does the piece have a “follow-up” section after it seems to have concluded? If so,
why? What does this add to the composition? Does it impact the balance of
tension and repose in the piece?
10) Identify the phrase lengths – are they symmetric or asymmetric? Do they
fluctuate between the two? How do the phrase lengths affect your experience of
the work? Do these elements become predictable (do you “tune out”)?
11) Count the number of measures for each section you detect. What are the
proportions of each section? Are they equal in length? Unequal?
12) Does your understanding of the form of the piece accurately reflect your
experience of hearing it? Can you follow the roadmap set out by the composer?
13) Does your written analysis reflect your understanding of the piece? Have you
clearing explained your observations?
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Your written analysis of a composition should help a reader understand the way you
experienced the music. Try to be convincing in your writing and be specific when giving
representative examples: “Event X occurs in measure Y and from that point forward, the
music does such and such …” This helps your reader understand what you believe the
important landmarks in the work are.
Though there can be correct and incorrect parts of the same analysis, for example, a
phrase may or may not be symmetric or a modulation may not have occurred where you
thought it did, each analysis is a reflection of one listener’s experience of the music.
Everyone’s experience will be slightly different, but the more compelling, convincing
and accurate your powers of observations are, the more likely you will persuade others to
experience the piece in the way you have.
SUMMARY
The theorist Wallace Berry in his book Form in Music (1986, Prentice-Hall) speaks of
five overriding elements that govern a vast number of musical compositions. These are:
“the process of introduction,” in which the major elements that will be used in a work are
first prepared and in which “expectation” of what is to come is created; “the expository
process,” in which a statement of the principle thematic materials occurs; “the process of
transition,” where the music moves from the expository section to what is to follow; “the
developmental process,” where musical activity is “intensified” and where elements from
the exposition are “reviewed” and “explored;” and “the process of resolution,” in which
“closure and conclusion” occur. Though not every work will use each of these processes
in a clearly defined way, they are the underlying principles that operate in a great number
of musical compositions from all eras.
Not coincidentally, the same processes could be identified in other time-based art works,
such as film, theatre, certain forms of dance (particularly classical ballet) and fine-art
animation. They might equally apply to a novel or epic poem.
Being familiar with representative forms from different musical eras and cultures is a
significant part of understanding and appreciating music and will help the student expand
his or her understanding of how musical processes work. Form may not be the most
obvious musical element to detect but, ultimately, it is what makes a composition most
successful and satisfying to the listener. Listen carefully to each new piece and try to
detect what the composer is “saying,” and try to determine how they are saying it. Then
listen again and see what new information you can acquire. Gradually and over time,
every new work will reveal itself to you.
Complete Listening Assignment - Form now
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Approaches to Music Analysis
Though many electronic compositions will reveal characteristics that conform neatly to the musical elements discussed in the above units, other compositions, especially those intended for playback in the concert hall, consist of materials that cannot easily be identified or defined by the listener. When analyzing music of this type and writing about it in a listening report, other approaches are needed to best describe the composition, and new guidelines for listening and discussion must be used. For example, when a musical composition does not illustrate clear melodic or harmonic characteristics, or the rhythm and texture can’t easily be described using terms such as “meter” or “homophony,” the listener might find it helpful simply to describe the events in the music as they occur from beginning to end, outlining the music’s main activity as if it were a running commentary or “play by play” narrative. With this approach, recognizable musical elements can be alluded to if and when they occur, but the listener has more flexibility in his or her use of terms to describe the music being heard. Every piece of time-based art will have different priorities and will express its meaning in a distinct and perhaps unique way, so it’s important to identify what aspects of the composition are primary - which recur and become significant motivating elements in the music - and which are only secondary and do not seem to play a major role in the unfolding of the music. These and other topics should be considered when evaluating a new work for the first time. Read the list of topics below, which should be included in your own listening reports, then listen to Example 78 several times, the opening minutes of “The Wild Bull” by Morton Subotnick. When you are familiar with the music, read the listening report that was written by a student for this music, then complete the online listening assignment (Listening Assignment - Analysis) on Blackboard and answer the questions using terms and concepts that you feel best fit the music. Note that when you write your required report, you do not need to write it as a long series of answers to these specific questions. Instead, write it as a continuous narration that covers some or all of these points and anything else you feel is important for the music. Be sure to use a music player that displays elapsed time so you can identify exactly where important events occur. Use the time format you see below (01:15, for example, for one minute and 15 seconds of elapsed time into the music). Describe the sonic elements at the opening of the piece. Are the events that appear there sustained throughout the work? If so, how and for how long? Do they recur later? Explain how new elements appear in the work. Are they introduced by foreshadowing or do they enter abruptly? Is there a smooth fade-in or crossfade between one element and another? Give some examples using specific timings as a reference. At what rate or pace do new elements appear? Is the work static for long sections? Are there sections where new events appear at a rapid pace? Are there any sections of the work that occur totally "without warning," i.e., that were not in any way anticipated? Were you surprised at their appearance? If so, why?
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In the music, do the timbral elements bear any resemblance to the timbres of acoustic instruments? Are any of the sounds vocal or percussive in quality, for example, or do they appear to be modeled after any other family of acoustics instruments? Are there one or more predominant synthesis or signal-processing methods, and if so, which one(s)? Is spatial dimension of elements in the work clearly defined? Does the sound seem up close and “in your face” or is it well back in a huge cavernous environment, or somewhere in between. Does this aspect of the music change? Does the music have clearly defined pitch elements? Can you detect what type of pitch system is in place? How important is spatial/stereo movement in the music? Do sonic elements move between the two stereo channels? Do elements move from the front of the soundstage to the back or vice versa? What registers does the music use? How important is the use of register in your opinion? Does the work have clear-cut sections? If so, how many are there? How are they distinguished from one another? If not, what keeps it moving?
Describe the ending of the piece. Was it anticipated or is it a surprise? Do you hear a strong cadence, a sense of closure, or does it seem as if it might have continued beyond the end point? Explain your reasoning. What other elements of the music seem especially significant for this piece? Listening Report: The Wild Bull This report will discuss the piece, The Wild Bull by Morton Subotnick. The Wild Bull was written in 1968 and was intended for playback on prerecorded tape. The composition uses a Moog synthesizer as its only sound source.
The Wild Bull opens with a descending tone sweeping from the middle register to the bottom. The tone has no clear pitch and is moderately loud. This is followed by a lengthy silence, then a second similar tone that descends farther and over a longer amount of time. Another silence follows, then the original tone is heard accompanied by a short, second sound that enters at the same time. This sound sounds almost like a bull roaring. A series of non-pitched bass-drum type sounds enter at around 1:10 and last for a few seconds, then after the bass-drum sounds start to accelerate, a loud clanging metallic timbre enters at 1:20 and continues for the next 10 seconds, with more and more layers of very short, quick sounds adding to it. Some of the new layers sound as if they are underwater. The opening section seems to end at around 1:30 where a new sustained tone in the mid to upper register enters. The music beginning at 1:30 alternates between a fairly high tone that is repeated several times and other pitches, some of which sustain, in different registers. The high tone often sweeps upward like a siren. Even though the high pitch often repeats, it does not sound like a tonic, as there is no clear connection between the high repeating tone and the other notes that are sounding at the same time. The high tone has a timbre somewhat similar to a trumpet or some other brass instrument. At around 2:08 the rhythm of the high note becomes more active and the tone is heard many more times than it was originally. The other pitches continue to sound through this section but still sound as if they are background to the high repeating tone. At 2:28, the high note is no longer heard but the background sounds remain. The pace of this section is fairly slow and there is not a lot of activity. Occasionally, a new sound will appear in the upper
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register, but nothing major happens until around 3:15, when some of the drum-style sounds heard earlier appear again in conjunction with a lot of other sounds that come in in different registers. All of these sounds have a clear electronic quality and last for only a few seconds each. There is no feeling of any tonal home base. Instead the notes seem to be randomly places up and down the various registers. There is also nothing that could be called a unified melody at this point, as the notes do not feel connected to one another. This type of music continues for several minutes but around 4:15 the music begins to get very gradually louder. At 4:50, the music suddenly changes and seems to be getting faster as more and more sounds come in almost on top of one another. The texture here seems to be polyphonic as it’s easy to hear several distinct layers in the music. It is also still atonal and many of the sounds do not have a clear pitched quality. Starting around 5:40 a long series of low notes are heard in succession, but here again none of the notes sound as if they are any type of tonal center. While the low notes are playing, other notes appear at random points in different register. Some of these are sustained tones but most are short notes and some are louder than others. The long sequence of short quick notes continues for several minutes but during this time, the music moves higher and higher until it reaches the upper register. At around 8:00 it becomes even more chaotic with notes sounding in nearly all registers. Also at this point, the notes get longer and more sustained and begin to overlap. The individual pitches are also less clear as many of the notes seem to sweep upward or downward very quickly. The entire pattern changes at 8:21 when non-pitched percussive notes enter. These tones sound like wood or breaking glass. At 8:27 a sharp bell-like sound enters and serves as a signal that something is happening. At this moment, the music becomes very sparse like the music of the very beginning, and bell like sounds occur at random moments, with long silences between them. The tones are moderately loud and sound like someone is hitting a bell with a hammer. They do not have a clear pitch so the music remains atonal. The entire pace of the music slows are good amount in this section. At times, it almost sounds like the piece has ended. At around 9:00, low sustained electronic sounds enter accompanied by some higher sound music that has no clear pitch. Other tones, both electronic and some that sound like bells, also appear at random points. The music is mostly soft at this point and as before, has no clear meter. It is hard to tell when one sound will end and the next begin. At 9:30, a struck bell sound enters and repeats multiple times. After the fifth or sixth repetition, this sound really becomes prominent and seems to be signaling some new section. The bell sound occasionally alternates with some other low electronic sounds, but none of those seems to be very important as they are much softer and are definitely in the background. At 10:07 the struck bell sound disappears without warning and the music consists of several layers of music of the same type that has been heard elsewhere, Low electronic sounds alternate with sounds in other registers with no clear focus or emphasis. Occasionally there’s the sound of a dying trumpet or some other type of strange brass instrument, but there is no meter or any type of focus on a central note. A repeated siren like sound comes in at around 10:30 and takes over some of the focus of attention. Overall, The Wild Bull consists of a large number of electronic sounds that appear in different combinations throughout. At several points in the piece, one sound seems to be more important than others, but for most of the composition, there is no clear timbre or pitch that seems more important than any other. The pace of the music is mostly slow, though there are times where it seems to speed up. Overall, it seems like the composer’s intuition is mostly responsible for the choice of sounds.