Robin, Sudhu, Beth, Emily, and I will present this coming Wednesday on the ways that our creative work (especially Robin’s and mine) might form some interesting relationships with Bipsham’s article, and other readings.
We’re expecting our audience to have read the Bipsham, and we’d also like everyone to listen to a few musical examples in advance. Those are:
Robin Sacolick’s
and Ben Leeds Carson’s
Star Trek Opera Notebook (focus particularly on the 1st and the 4th examples here; in the 4th, think about the relationship between musical time on the one hand, and the implied time of Commander Tor’s narrative.
We hope you enjoy both.
Meanwhile, below you’ll find the materials that we as a group are going to present to you. The general seminar is not required to do these readings, but please use this list as a model for the kind of preparation you’ll provide for a presentation group in the future. Two of you volunteered to come this week with a similar list prepared, as a starting point for the following week’s presentations.
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Prompt from Robin Sacolick (pace Robin, I have paraphrased and simplified her detailed instructions -BLC):
—Please read Bispham, giving special attention at: Page 127, second column, first paragraph… especially regarding the reference to Fitch (2006), the various claims made on page 128 (especially 1st and 2nd paragraphs of column 1 and the 1st paragraph of column 2), and the reference to Cross (2001) on p 130.
— Please read the introduction of Carson’s “Perceiving and Distinguishing Simple Timespan Ratios w/o Metric Reinforcement,” [links to resource page; the paper is the 1st of two links there] … paying special attention to the question in paragraph 3 of the first full page: “can there also be ‘individuated’ or ‘metrically independent’ objects of temporal experience?” p. 314, second paragraph “Expectancy, in other words, is weakened by complex timespan ratios, just as our experience of difference ‘in itself’ — individuation of features out of time — is hypothetically strengthened.” and p. 316, column 2, in italics: “Perceived meter can both guard rhythmic identity against transformations in clock-time, and obfuscate rhythmic identity in spite of clock-time invariance.”
Questions for group, addressing above quotes in order: Do you agree that music depends upon there being a pulse? Do you agree that inability to hear pulse in animal noisemaking rules out the possibility that it is music? Do you agree that music shares attributes with religion that enable it to enhance it? If expectation of difference in itself is stengthened by complex rhythms, do they then enhance consciousness expansion and evolution? Can you think of examples of perceived meter that guard rhythmic identity against transformations in clock-time OR obfuscate rhythmic identity in spite of clock-time invariance?”
With these ideas in mind, listen to the following passages in the mp3s linked above.
—Trance Fugue Mp3 (0 to 45 sec and ending (2:15 to 2:45). Do the passages seem to have a pulse throughout? The same pulse? Or, how would you characterize?
—Eminence Front Shastra Mp3 begin at 3:10 and listen at least through 4:20 (if you listen until the end there is a surprise ending around 6). At 3:51 the rhythm track drops out and there are chords in a higher register. (IF POSSIBLE DO NOT READ ON UNTIL YOU LISTEN TO THE PASSAGE). What do you make of it? OK, now read on: The beats made by the chord overtones are at a different pulse than the former triplets so please listen to whether the original rhythm periods stay firm in your mind without the rhythm track, or whether the harmonic beats kick in a new sense of periodicity and pulse.
Prompt from BLC:
So, for my part in this, I would ask these three things below:
(1) pay special attention to the Bipsham in this week’s readings (which is assigned to everyone), and
(2) Read the introductory pages to my scientific article published in the Journal of New Music Research (36/4, December 2007). (Find it through the first of two links on this resource page for research in time perception. There’s bit of context there that might be helpful prior to diving in.) Read only pp 313-319, paying special attention to my references to Deleuze about repetition, and difference. Then proceed to this page: </about-unpulser/>, where you’ll find out about a piece of software that helps me imagine qualities of musical pulse. Read that page, and “Task 1” linked to the bottom of the page. You don’t need to download the software or follow the instructions for playing with it, but it should be relatively easy, if that interests you.
(3) Regarding my creative work, please listen to i. Contention, and iv. Tor Explains Pike’s Injury, on my Star Trek Opera Notebook page. (These are the first and fourth mp3s linked there.) Consider your experiences of timing in the two pieces, and, in the latter case, their relationship to the story being told. What are your experiences of pulse, repetition, regularity (or lack of same) …come prepared to grill me…be tough on me if you are so inspired …challenge me on the relationship between the writing/theory in (2) above, and the musical experiences/practices on the Star Trek page.