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Pelléas et Mélisande: Fate and the Unconscious: Transformational Function of the Dominant Ninth Chord; Symbolism of Sonority

Elliott Antokoletz

in Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartok

This chapter first looks at End of Act, the anticipation of meeting of Pelléas and Médlisande. Act II, Scene 1 is then examined based on the “Pelléas” and “Well” Motifs. The chapter explores the ... More

This chapter first looks at End of Act, the anticipation of meeting of Pelléas and Médlisande. Act II, Scene 1 is then examined based on the “Pelléas” and “Well” Motifs. The chapter explores the transformational function of the dominant-ninth chord, instrumental timbre as signifier, the power of the unconscious, and music as message encoder of the unconscious. Next Act II, Scenes I and 2 are considered in terms of the consequences of the lost ring. The chapter explores the varied repetition and development of motifs in transformation from pentatonic to whole-tone spheres. After that Act II, Scene 2, a room in the castle, is examined. The chapter discusses Golaud, Mélisande, the ring, and transformation of the “Pelléas” motif, and points to the “circle of light” as a symbol of fate. Next Act II, Scene 2, which deals with events leading to Golaud's anger and his demand that Mélisande search for the ring is considered. The chapter then goes on to Act II, Scene 3 — before a dark grotto — and discusses a feigned search for the ring. The principle of “expressive doubling” is studied as a means of signifying dualistic human modes of world perception.Less

Music for Pieces of Wood (1973)

Steve Reich

in Writings on Music 1965–2000: 1965-2000

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Music for Pieces of Wood. The piece grows out of the same roots as Clapping Music: a desire to make music with the simplest possible instruments. The ... More

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Music for Pieces of Wood. The piece grows out of the same roots as Clapping Music: a desire to make music with the simplest possible instruments. The claves, or cylindrical pieces of hard wood, used here were selected for their particular pitches (A, B, C♯, D♯, and D♯ an octave above), and for their resonant timbre. This piece is one of the loudest Reich has ever composed, but uses no amplification whatsoever.Less

Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards (1979)

Steve Reich

in Writings on Music 1965–2000: 1965-2000

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Variations, which was completed in December 1979 and is approximately 25 minutes long. The work was performed in a chamber orchestral format at its world ... More

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Variations, which was completed in December 1979 and is approximately 25 minutes long. The work was performed in a chamber orchestral format at its world premiere on February 19, 1980. This piece introduces markedly new harmonic, formal, and timbrel material into Reich's music. The constant yet slow harmonic change, the slow recurrence of materials from variation to variation, and the scoring for oboes, flutes, full brass, strings, and acoustic and electric keyboards all give this piece a sound quite different from his earlier music.Less

Sounds and Sweet Airs

Murray Campbell, Clive Greated, and Arnold Myers

in Musical Instruments: History, Technology, and Performance of Instruments of Western Music

This introductory chapter discusses how sound waves are generated by musical instruments, travel to the ear of a listener, and there evoke the sensation of music. Using the example of an orchestral ... More

This introductory chapter discusses how sound waves are generated by musical instruments, travel to the ear of a listener, and there evoke the sensation of music. Using the example of an orchestral score, the musical descriptors pitch, loudness, and timbre are related to scientifically measurable features of the sound waves, including frequency, amplitude, waveform, and spectrum. The distinction between travelling and standing waves is explained. The roles of the outer, middle, and inner ears in hearing musical sounds are briefly described. The importance of harmonic frequency spectra in pitch perception is emphasized, and a discussion of pitch intervals includes an introduction to musical temperaments. The relationship between decibel measurements of sound intensity and musical dynamic markings is discussed, and attempts to provide quantitative descriptions of timbre are reviewed.Less

Free Speech, Free Verse, and “Music before All Things”

Katherine Bergeron

in Voice Lessons: French Mélodie in the Belle Epoque

This chapter takes up French poets in the years around 1900, to reconsider their relationship to music and musicians. Through close readings of works by Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and testimonies ... More

This chapter takes up French poets in the years around 1900, to reconsider their relationship to music and musicians. Through close readings of works by Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and testimonies by younger poets such as Camille Mauclair, Robert de Souza, and others, it proposes an alternative reading of the literary movement conventionally known as “symbolism” in light of the linguistic history presented in the previous chapter. The connection between poetic and scientific experimentation is especially evident in the rhetoric surrounding vers libre, which revealed how poets of the period were aware of the material properties of language, especially timbre and rhythm. The chapter goes on to observe how French composers echoed this awareness in their new approaches to French prosody, an awareness that becomes clear through a close analysis of two sets of songs by Fauré and Debussy.Less

The Perception of Quality: Auditory Timbre

Stephen Handel

in Perceptual Coherence: Hearing and seeing

The sound reaching the observer is the result of the discrete frequency source excitation being filtered by the sound body resonances, analogous to that for color stimuli. However, the interactive ... More

The sound reaching the observer is the result of the discrete frequency source excitation being filtered by the sound body resonances, analogous to that for color stimuli. However, the interactive coupling between the source frequencies and sound body resonances creates a complex acoustic stimulus that changes across time. The spectral centroids and the onset transients of sounds determine the judged similarities among timbres. The ability to identify properties of objects (e.g., hardness and shape), and the ability to detect the identity of singers and instruments at different frequencies (i.e., constancy) depends on the overall context.Less

Audible Qualities

Casey O'Callaghan

in Sounds: A Philosophical Theory

Audible qualities depend upon physical properties ordinarily attributed to waves. The event view, however, holds that sounds are not waves. This chapter argues that the best candidates for the ... More

Audible qualities depend upon physical properties ordinarily attributed to waves. The event view, however, holds that sounds are not waves. This chapter argues that the best candidates for the physical bases of pitch, timbre, and loudness are properties of medium-disturbing events. Periodicity, spectral composition, and intensity all may be attributed to sounds understood as events. A periodicity theory of pitch is outlined, loudness constancy explained, and a source-based account of timbre proposed.Less

The structure of musical talent

Dina Kirnarskaya

in The Natural Musician: On abilities, giftedness, and talent

The structure of musical giftedness is a reflection of the path of development which music has followed over the entire course of human history. Musical talent was arranged and formed together with ... More

The structure of musical giftedness is a reflection of the path of development which music has followed over the entire course of human history. Musical talent was arranged and formed together with musical activity, and deep within its very core. The first part to emerge was the expressive ear for music, followed by the sense of rhythm that brought forth musical movement and created musical time. The expressive ear and the sense of rhythm served as the basis for the further development of the music of earliest man: relying on the sense of timbre and quality of sound articulation as well as the ideation of musical movement (its accentual nature and structural orientation), the analytical ear, the next stage in the development of musical talent, could then be born. The complex of musical abilities relied on a motivational nucleus (the expressive ear) which makes up the center of human musicality, the basis of our ability to decode the content of a musical message and react to it.Less

Letter on Sound

Susan Stewart

in Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word

This chapter focuses on lyric poetry and its features such as counterpoint, harmony, syncopation, stress, duration, and timbre. It also presents the number of complex conditions under which that ... More

This chapter focuses on lyric poetry and its features such as counterpoint, harmony, syncopation, stress, duration, and timbre. It also presents the number of complex conditions under which that “sound” is and is not an aspect of lyric. The complexity of the relation between lyric and musicality is that the dynamic tension between sound and semantic can at once both extend and diminish meaning. This chapter also describes features of sound manipulation in poetry such as counterpoising, tagging, echo effects, diagramming, and the “ornamental” devices of rubrication and embellishment that can make the relation between sound and meaning particularly textured and complex. As a figure of spoken sound, the poem produces effects of transformation in sound and it does not fix or reify the terms of utterance.Less

Timbre-and-Form: The BSC and the Boston Improvising Community

Lou Bunk

in Analytical and Cross-Cultural Studies in World Music

In small galleries and warehouse lofts, the Boston improvisational scene presents concerts of timbre-and-form-based electro-acoustic music. This vibrant community of musicians is informed by the ... More

In small galleries and warehouse lofts, the Boston improvisational scene presents concerts of timbre-and-form-based electro-acoustic music. This vibrant community of musicians is informed by the music of Cage, Feldman, Lachenmann, Eddie Prévost, and others, while coming from backgrounds in classical, jazz, electronica, world, and rock. This chapter focuses on Bhob Rainey and his ensemble, the BSC. A series of interviews with the group provides the basis for exploring their history, how they view their own music, how they listen to it, how they create it, and who inspires them. At the heart of the essay is an analysis of one of the group’s improvisations. In this music, which often lacks pitch and harmonic progression, narrative hinges on the real-time discovery and shaping of unique sounds by performers sensitive to cause and effect. Through a technique called “analytical fantasy,” the intentions behind the player’s musical decisions are surmised, connecting the process of free improvisation to the resulting architectonics (phrases, cadences, and sections). A graphic transcription reveals a counterpoint of sounds supporting an elongated phrase structure and an arching form that does not completely return.Less

On the Physical Correlates of Timbre: (1965)

James Tenney

Larry Polansky, Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, and Michael Winter (eds)

in From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory

James Tenney discusses the physical correlates of timbre using the digital computer technique developed at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. His intention is to synthesize a large class of timbres, ... More

James Tenney discusses the physical correlates of timbre using the digital computer technique developed at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. His intention is to synthesize a large class of timbres, first by considering the physical properties of natural sounds as well as sounds produced by conventional musical instruments. He goes on to explore how many different ways that the quality or timbre of a sound may be made to vary perceptibly, and in how many ways the quality of one sound may be distinguished from that of another, given that the perceived pitch, intensity, and duration are held constant. Tenney also talks about certain transient phenomena and various kinds of quasi-steady-state modulation processes which, along with the spectrum, constitute what he calls the three basic parameters of timbre. He examines each of these three parameters into several subparameters.Less

The Duppy in the Machine: Voice and Technology in Jamaican Popular Music

Andrew F. Jones

in The Voice as Something More: Essays toward Materiality

This chapter examines the electronic mediation of the human voice in Jamaican popular music. The manipulation of vocal timbre and pitch in studio production since the 1970s, and through the software ... More

This chapter examines the electronic mediation of the human voice in Jamaican popular music. The manipulation of vocal timbre and pitch in studio production since the 1970s, and through the software plug-in Auto-tune in more recent years, has enabled Jamaican musicians to channel the voices of the dead, the vulnerable, and the voiceless, and in doing so, represent the sufferings of the historical past, as well as the depredations of the contemporary forms of exclusion and poverty. This chapter surveys the history of the sound-system and dub music, and shows how these innovations form the basis for the technological development and social valence of vocal production in Jamaican popular music. The chapter closely analyzes the innovative recording practices of the celebrated roots reggae performer, Burning Spear, as well as the more recent controversial work of dancehall performer Vybz Kartel, and proposes that they are linked by a shared interest in vocal timbre, and how it can be sculpted electronically so as to invoke historically resonant personae, and reflect on questions of dispossession, deprivation, and political representation in the present.Less

Piano

Richard Parncutt and Malcolm Troup

in The Science & Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning

This chapter presents some observations based on research on the physics and physiology of the keystroke, the acoustics and perception of piano timbre, and the psychology of piano fingering. Among ... More

This chapter presents some observations based on research on the physics and physiology of the keystroke, the acoustics and perception of piano timbre, and the psychology of piano fingering. Among these are that the timbre of an isolated tone cannot be varied independently of its loudness but depends on finger-key, key-keybed, hammer-key noise, and on the use of both pedals. The timbre of a chord further depends on the balance and onset timing of its tones, whereby louder tones tend to sound earlier (melody lead, velocity artifact). Both the sustaining pedal and una corda can enhance sostenuto. Leap trajectories are curved and asymmetrical. Optimal fingering is determined by physical, anatomic, motor, and cognitive constraints interacting with interpretive considerations, and depends on expertise.Less

String Instruments

Knut Guettler and Susan Hallam

in The Science & Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning

Research on the physics of bowed stringed instruments can help the string teacher to explain the underlying acoustical phenomena and to develop corresponding pedagogical strategies. The first part of ... More

Research on the physics of bowed stringed instruments can help the string teacher to explain the underlying acoustical phenomena and to develop corresponding pedagogical strategies. The first part of this chapter surveys current and historical acoustical research, focusing on information that can be related to technique. It discusses not only the bowed attack with specific exercises to improve performance, but also other topics such as harmonics, rosin, timbre, and aspects of room acoustics during performance. This is followed by an overview of psychological research relating to the distinctive aspects of playing a bowed stringed instrument and the characteristics of string players. It considers the importance of well developed aural skills, practice, and conscientiousness on the part of the player to develop high levels of expertise. The need for the teacher to demonstrate and provide opportunities to develop aural schemata, and give detailed constructive feedback is also discussed.Less

Name that Synth Patch (Advanced)

Misty Jones Simpson

in The Music Technology Cookbook: Ready-Made Recipes for the Classroom

When looking through sound presets on keyboards, guitars, synths, or any sound generating device, it is common for the title of the preset to verbally foreshadow the sound. In this game-based ... More

When looking through sound presets on keyboards, guitars, synths, or any sound generating device, it is common for the title of the preset to verbally foreshadow the sound. In this game-based activity designed for undergraduate students, learners reverse-engineer sounds determined by patch names created by their peers. Students must play their sounds and have their peers guess which name matches their sound. This activity is a useful exercise because it gets learners to more closely analyze why certain words are used to describe certain sounds. The collaborative naming process also gets students thinking about how others perceive things and how to reconcile differences in interpretation.Less

Listening to Music

Wilfried Gruhn and Frances Rauscher

in MENC Handbook of Musical Cognition and Development

This chapter discusses some pointers to current research methodology and brings to attention the processes in music perception often taken for granted such as melody perception, timbre, and rhythm. ... More

This chapter discusses some pointers to current research methodology and brings to attention the processes in music perception often taken for granted such as melody perception, timbre, and rhythm. It identifies the nature-nurture controversy as one of the most contentious issues in the psychology of music, as it is in the field of psychology as a whole. It argues that experiences of music are shaped by a combination of enculturation and cognitive constraints, and cites numerous sources of evidence for psychological constraints on music experience. Such constraints include working-memory limitations, sensitivity to sensory consonance and dissonance, the perceptual salience of pitch contours, perceptual grouping as a function of proximity, predispositions that favor simple meters and rhythms, processing biases for intervals with small-integer ratios, and reliable memories for the absolute pitch and timbre of frequently encountered auditory stimuli. Even rules of counterpoint and voice leading are strongly linked to cognitive constraints.Less

Sound Elements: Pitch and Timbre

Aniruddh D. Patel

in Music, Language, and the Brain

All humans are innately bestowed with two different sound systems that serve two different purposes. The first system is linguistic, and this accounts for various aspects of language such as ... More

All humans are innately bestowed with two different sound systems that serve two different purposes. The first system is linguistic, and this accounts for various aspects of language such as differences in pitch, consonants, and vowels. The second system, on the other hand, is musical and encompasses all the pitches and timbres involved within a particular culture's music. Because of this, and even if infants are not exposed to explicit or formal modes of teaching, human beings as adults are able to appreciate their culture's music and are evidently proficient in their native languages. However, because we are more familiar with our native sound system than any other sound system, it may become difficult to learn other languages and enjoy music of other cultures. While this establishes a mental framework for distinguishing sound categories, this chapter looks into and compares how timbre and pitch are organized by both speech and music.Less

Pop Music, Non-Western European Vocal Styles, and Efficient Vocal Function

Richard Miller

in On the Art of Singing

This chapter considers popular music in relation to non-Western European vocal style and vocal function. Much of Western art owes its characteristics to a commitment to beauty, strength, and health ... More

This chapter considers popular music in relation to non-Western European vocal style and vocal function. Much of Western art owes its characteristics to a commitment to beauty, strength, and health stemming from classic Greece. In recent decades, the pop music culture has largely forsaken the historic precepts of vocal timbre and musical structure in favor of other values. That aesthetic commitment becomes apparent when one looks at the history of the solo voice as it has developed in the Western world over the past four centuries. The technical skills mandated by serious vocal literature (and even of much traditional popular music) require excellent physical coordination of the vocal instrument. Demands of range, tessitura, sostenuto, agility, dynamic control, and vocal coloration can be met in this literature only by healthy vocalism in response to an ideal of beautiful timbre undergirded by physical strength. This chapter suggests that the most efficient vocalism is the healthiest vocalism, and that what we call “beautiful timbre” is its logical result.Less