[Smt-talk] Smt-talk Digest, Vol 48, Issue 10

[Richard Cohn]

This is an example of what Jose Antonio Martins calls a Dasian system.
Indeed, it sounds like a textbook case of a phenomenon that he treats
extensively in his dissertation (U. Chicago, 2005 or 06), with many
examples from Bartok etc.

Rick Cohn


On Saturday, January 19, 2013, wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Geno- and phenotype musical structures (Nicolas Mee?s)
>    2. Re: Geno- and phenotype musical structures (Victor grauer)
>    3. fw: Lindberg mode (Daphne Leong)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:35:44 +0100
> From: Nicolas Mee?s <nicolas.meeus at paris-sorbonne.fr <javascript:;>>
> To: Victor grauer <victorag at verizon.net <javascript:;>>
> Cc: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org <javascript:;>
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Geno- and phenotype musical structures
> Message-ID: <50F87CC0.9000508 at paris-sorbonne.fr <javascript:;>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
>
> Le 17/01/2013 16:51, Victor grauer a ?crit :
> > You are of course right, Nicolas. Linear continuity and goal
> > directedness are characteristic of many musical traditions, not only
> > the Western liturical-classical tradition.
> Linear continuity and goal directedness ain't at all the same thing! I
> would consider goal directedness (teleology) as a defining
> characteristic of "modality". Linear continuity may well be a much wider
> phenomenon.
>      Medieval hocket (and your own examples in your figures 12.5-12.8)
> appear to me a game of apparently destroying an inherent continuity, by
> a disruptive distribution among the voices; the overall effect remains
> highly continuous ("fluent"), only the singers themselve can easily
> become aware of the disruption. This is very much the case with /Amor
> potest/: you are careful enough to quote only mes 16 sqq., when the
> hocket begins, but the mes. before clearly consisted in "lines between
> the voices", making it clear that there were two pitch strands (say, one
> around F and the other aroung C a 4th below) to be distributed among the
> singers. You claim that Pygmies and Bushmen sing "highly disjunct
> motives"; but how can you be sure that they do not realize how highly
> conjunct the overall result is?  Are you so certain that counterpoint in
> the West, especially in "free writing", "involves continuous melodic
> lines", rather than continuous overall situations?
>
> It seems rather difficult to ascertain whether melodic fluency, in these
> case, is not merely trivial. A succession of disjunct intervals,
> fanfare-like, appears almost bound to produce apparent linear melodies.
> This is inherent to the restricted number of degrees in any
> diatonic-like (or inherently consonant) system. How can you be sure that
> these highly disjunct counterpoints that you describe are not a game to
> hide or disguise an overall, resulting linear continuity?
>
> Nicolas Mee?s
> Universit? Paris-Sorbonne
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:02:43 -0500
> From: Victor grauer <victorag at verizon.net <javascript:;>>
> To: smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org <javascript:;>
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Geno- and phenotype musical structures
> Message-ID: <641100.26803.bm at smtp103.vzn.mail.bf1.yahoo.com <javascript:;>
> >
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>
> At 05:35 PM 1/17/2013, Nicolas Mee?s wrote:
> >Linear continuity and goal directedness ain't at
> >all the same thing! I would consider goal
> >directedness (teleology) as a defining
> >characteristic of "modality". Linear continuity
> >may well be a much wider phenomenon.
>
> But goal directedness is surely an important
> element in Schenkerian analysis, no?
>
> >Medieval hocket (and your own examples in your
> >figures 12.5-12.8) appear to me a game of
> >apparently destroying an inherent continuity, by
> >a disruptive distribution among the voices; the
> >overall effect remains highly continuous
> >("fluent"), only the singers themselve can
> >easily become aware of the disruption. This is
> >very much the case with Amor potest: you are
> >careful enough to quote only mes 16 sqq., when
> >the hocket begins, but the mes. before clearly
> >consisted in "lines between the voices", making
> >it clear that there were two pitch strands (say,
> >one around F and the other aroung C a 4th below)
> >to be distributed among the singers.
>
> I reproduced the opening of Amor Potest in my
> older blog Music 000001 (from which much in my
> book has been drawn):
>
> http://music000001.blogspot.com/2008/03/141-music-of-great-tradition-41hocket.html
> While the two upper lines are each in themselves
> conjunct (i.e., continuous) and to some extent
> goal directed, the continual stimmtauch
> obliterates, for the listener at least, these
> lines as linear continuities, producing a
> resultant not unlike the African examples I
> discuss elsewhere. This in turn produces a static
> effect dominated by the continual repetition of
> the simultaneity F-C, which makes it very
> difficult for the listener to hear the work
> linearly and produces, due also to the
> "maddening" repetition, a confusing and somewhat
> trancelike effect not unlike that of certain
> minimalist works today. I don't know what
> Schenker would make of this, but I don't think he'd approve.
>
> >  You claim that Pygmies and Bushmen sing
> > "highly disjunct motives"; but how can you be
> > sure that they do not realize how highly
> > conjunct the overall result is?  Are you so
> > certain that counterpoint in the West,
> > especially in "free writing", "involves
> > continuous melodic lines", rather than continuous overall situations?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "continuous overall situations."
>
> >It seems rather difficult to ascertain whether
> >melodic fluency, in these case, is not merely
> >trivial. A succession of disjunct intervals,
> >fanfare-like, appears almost bound to produce
> >apparent linear melodies. This is inherent to
> >the restricted number of degrees in any
> >diatonic-like (or inherently consonant) system.
> >How can you be sure that these highly disjunct
> >counterpoints that you describe are not a game
> >to hide or disguise an overall, resulting linear continuity?
>
> You raise a very interesting point. And in fact a
> great many of these Pygmy and Bushmen
> performances are in fact based on what I've
> described as "A basic 'theme,' sometimes heard,
> more often implied, that serves, along with the
> rhythmic cycle, as an underlying organizational
> element." One might speculate that this sort of
> thing could be the historical prototype of the
> Schenkerian "urlinie." (I'm tempted to place a
> "smiley" emoticon after that statement, but
> perhaps it's not so funny after all.)
>
> For example, in the Aka Pygmy song Makala, as
> presented in summary form in Michelle Kisliuk's
> book, Seize the Dance
> (
> http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EXZWTnp2DO4/ThyU_f_iIjI/AAAAAAAAAbc/5bddmhRKsu8/s1600/Kisliuk+Figure+6-1.gif
> ),
> the "theme" is presented in the uppermost vocal
> part, with some possible elaborations beneath it
> (the vertical lines and brackets were added by
> me). This theme is in fact essentially linear
> (though not all such themes necessarily are). (It
> would be interesting to learn whether a
> Schenkerian analysis of an extended portion of a
> performance of this song could recreate this
> underlying theme.) But most of the elaborations are clearly disjunct.
>
> While such performances can be based on themes
> exhibiting linear continuity, it's very difficult
> to hear the overall effect as an interplay of
> independent lines, each with its own continuous
> flow. What we tend to hear is a resultant, which
> is very different from Western counterpoint,
> where what is heard, ideally, is an interplay of
> independently continuous lines. Whether as you
> suggest the resultant effect could be "boiled
> down" into something continuous, is certainly
> worth exploring, but I must say I doubt it.
> Certainly the texture is continuous, but I find
> it difficult to hear anything linear in such
> performances, when taken as a whole. But since I
> don't understand what you mean by a "continuous
> overall situation" I could be misunderstanding you.
>
> Nevertheless, my principal point was that this
> type of musical organization seems fundamentally
> anti-Schenkerian, both in its tendency to
> substitute a resultant for an interplay of
> independent lines and its lack of goal-oriented
> motion, which gives the impression of tonal
> staticism rather than movement, as assumed by Schenker.
>
> Victor Grauer
> Pittsburgh, PA
> USA
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:12:08 -0700
> From: Daphne Leong <daphne.leong at Colorado.EDU>
> To: smt-talk <smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org <javascript:;>>
> Cc: Jonathan Leathwood <Jonathan.Leathwood at du.edu <javascript:;>>
> Subject: [Smt-talk] fw: Lindberg mode
> Message-ID: <CD1EEC98.E39A%daphne.leong at colorado.edu <javascript:;>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
>
>
> I'm forwarding the following query at the request of my colleague Jonathan
> Leathwood:
>
> I'm currently working on a long guitar piece by Magnus Lindberg from 2004
> called Mano a Mano. I have a little familiarity with some of his earlier
> music and the influence of the spectralists is very obvious to the ear, and
> there is some literature about that. So far, however, I don't see much in
> the guitar piece in common with those works: in fact, I would never have
> guessed they were by the same composer. Instead, I see that the guitar
> piece it is mostly based on a curious mode that runs (in semitones)
> <11212?>, repeating the pattern every perfect fifth. For example: <C, C#,
> D, E, F, G, G#, A, B, c, d, eb, e, f#, g, a?>.
>
> Lindberg often uses common segments with other more common modes to switch
> back and forth. It turns out that the repeating pattern yields all pcs of
> the aggregate within a span of 22 semitones, and so he sometimes suggests
> other modes by selecting only the relevant pcs while allowing the governing
> mode to constrain the spacing. Finally, the mode is rich enough that you
> can write interesting music by choosing only the common tones between two
> of its transpositions, something I've noted in one passage so far.
>
> My question is simply whether you have encountered this mode -- perhaps
> it's quite well known and I just haven't seen it before. One thing I wished
> I had was a good labeling convention for it.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
>
> Daphne Leong Daphne.Leong at colorado.edu <javascript:;>
> Associate Professor, Music Theory tel: (303) 492-4337
> Chair, Theory and Composition fax: (303) 492-5619
> University of Colorado at Boulder
> College of Music,  301 UCB
> Boulder, CO  80309-0301
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> End of Smt-talk Digest, Vol 48, Issue 10
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